Businessman “Tahkout” Faces Prison Over University Transport Corruption File

Algiers Sidi M’hamed court’s investigative judge ordered, on Monday morning, to jail the businessman Mahieddine Tahkout and members of his family in provisional detention after being charged with improper privileges.

The former General Manager of the Urban and Sub-urban Transport Company “ETUSA” (B.A), was also jailed together with the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the same institution, and the former General Manager of the National Office of University Services of Eastern Algiers (A.B) with 6 other officials in the company and university services, while the list of suspects remains open.

Mahieddine Tahkout, who had appeared on Sunday afternoon before the prosecutor of the Republic of Sidi Mhamed Court in Algiers was transferred to the investigating judge on the same day, where he was heard for more than 13 hours before being charged with the use of undue privileges that were granted to him by the frames of the National Office of University Services and the Ministry of Transport in the case concerning university services corruption file, and by the officials of the Ministry of Industry and the National Agency for the Promotion of Investment, in the corruption case of the company Cima Motors, and his involvement in other cases of violation of the legislation on the movement of capital from abroad and inflating the invoices for the import of auto spare parts that destined for installation in the factory that is owned by the province of Tiaret (western Algeria), the same charges were directed against his brother Rachid Tahkout and his sons Bilal and Hamid as well.

University Service Officials To Face Imprisonment

On the other hand, in the context of the investigation on the corruption file of university services, the former General Director of the University Services has been jailed, and currently, the General Director of the National Office for University Services (B.F) is being investigated along with central directors at the Ministry of Higher Education and two officials in the file of the deals to transport students with the businessman Mehieddine Tahkout.

According to information that was provided by Echorouk, on the order of the Undersecretary of the Republic of Sidi Mhamed Court, the research group of the Gendarmerie’s Regional Group has conducted extensive investigations into the activities and transactions of Tahkout several weeks ago.

On the other hand, investigators of the gendarmerie research group of Bab Jdid continue to investigate now with other people who are suspected of involvement in suspicious transactions in the file of students’ transport buses, where the documents that were found by the research group reveal on a set of violations of of university transport transactions, and the dissipation of more than DZD 82 billion annually, because of suspicious deals in Algiers’ university transport and most of the country’s provinces.

The investigation revealed that of the 780 buses that were agreed in the granted contract between the two parties there are 400 buses in service and 380 were not exploited while the company is paid for their use by the National Bureau of University Services, while the “beneficiary” receives a rate of two million centimes daily per bus, bringing the total annual amount to over 300 billion centimes, which cause huge losses to the treasury of university services by billions of dinars for years.

The regional gendarmerie services research group sent correspondences to gendarmerie services in other provinces of the country, such as Tizi Ouzou, Oran, Boumerdes, and Tipaza, to investigate the activity of the university transport sector, after the activity of Tahkout spread from transporting students to the transport sector across the various cities, as these investigations brought the former general director of ETUSA company for Urban and Sub-Urban Transport and the chairman of the company’s board of directors to Algiers Harrache prison, after the investigating judge of Sidi M’hamed’s court ordered on Monday to place them in jail over serious charges ranging from exploiting influence, granting undue privileges and making dubious deals.