Egypt's state-run news agency says the president has dismissed the country's top auditor who earlier had said corruption has cost the country billions of dollars.

The MENA news agency said Monday that President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi had dismissed Hesham Genena, head of the Central Auditing Organization, and appointed Genena's top deputy, Hesham Badawi, to run the agency.

Genena was quoted in December by the newspaper Youm 7 as saying that corruption had siphoned off 600 billion Egyptian pounds ($67.6 billion) in 2015 alone. He later said that the figure covered four years and was arrived at following an exhaustive study..

El-Sissi then appointed a commission which accused the auditor of misleading the public with support from unnamed "foreign" parties.

Transparency International ranks Egypt 94th out of 175 nations in combatting corruption.