CAIRO: It s a sore point for a country struggling to contain violent bread riots: Bakeries that sell subsidized flour on the black market at a huge profit.
But bakery employees say they have to steal the flour and sell it – both to feed their own families and to pay crushing government and police demands for bribes.
The bread crisis has largely been fueled by worldwide rising food prices, which have pushed more people to rely on subsidized bread. The result has been shortages of the cheap staple and riots among customers waiting in long lines at subsidized bakeries.
But the crisis has also highlighted the widespread petty corruption that pervades Egyptian life – from bakeries to hospitals to police stations – but that many who earn meager paychecks say is the only way to make ends meet.
In one poor Cairo district, the government official in charge of a public bakery said that after 20 years in his position, he earns about LE 300 a month, including bonuses.
“I have to steal – how would I survive without stealing? the official, a father of eight children, told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition that he and the district where his bakery is located not be identified, fearing reprisals.
He admitted that he regularly sells a portion of the subsidized wheat his bakery receives on the black market. The government sells a ration of subsidized wheat to each state-run bakery at about LE 8 for each 50-kilogram sack. The bakeries are supposed to use that wheat to produce bread that is sold at a set price of LE 0.05 per loaf. But many bakeries instead sell some of the wheat to private bakeries at up to LE 200 a sack.
Part of the difference, the bakery employees pocket. But part is also needed to pay off the host of government inspectors – from the police, from government officials and local councils – who demand their own bribes.
“I just have to give bribes to most of them or they would file fines or close the bakery, said the official, whose bakery receives 68 sacks of subsidized flour every day.
A senior security official involved in government crackdowns on the black market wheat said public bakeries often sell off up to half the subsidized wheat they receive. He also acknowledged that many inspectors pockets bribes from bakers.
“Now if I m an inspector and you, the baker, give me LE 1,000 a month while my salary is LE 200 a month, wouldn t I sell my conscience? he said.
Unless the government “feeds the people, they will keep on stealing and receiving bribes, said the security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the situation.
Baker Mohamed Abdel-Salam said he used to work for a private bakery that bought subsidized flour from public sector bakeries. “Very late at night or in the early hours of the morning, I used to go to the big public bakery and pick up three or four sacks of flour, for about LE 200 each, Abdel-Salam said. Private bakeries sell bread at market rates, up to 25 times the subsidized price.
But Abdel-Salam said he quit his job when his bakery was forced to shut its doors after the government tightened its control over wheat over the past days.
In response to the bread shortages, the government ordered the military – which has its own bakeries for its members – to start selling subsidized bread to the public and has opened hundreds more distribution points around the country. It has also sought to crack down on the black market for wheat. As a result, lines at public bakeries have eased in much of the capital, though they persist in many provinces.
But the bread crisis has deepened widespread discontent over low wages in Egypt amid rising prices.
Press reports last week said President Hosni Mubarak would order an increase in minimum salaries for public workers at an upcoming meeting of the National Council of Salaries, though details were not given.
But many believe that will do little to reduce the corruption that has become a way of life for many.
Examples are everywhere. At Cairo s airport, police take bribes from airport taxi drivers to prevent outside cabbies from picking up fares. At police stations, people seeking official paperwork must slip an officer a few pounds. Unless ambulance workers get their obligatory “tips, patients might not reach the emergency rooms in public sector hospitals on time – and once there, patients must be sure to tip nurses to get basic care. In schools, nearly all students face pressure from their teachers to pay for “private lessons after school working hours.
Galal Amin, an economist at the American University in Cairo, said corruption in Egypt is a “law that cannot be violated.
“The bribe, big and small, for public employees is not only expected but obligatory, Amin wrote in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm.
“Bribes are given and received openly, without embarrassment. An employee considers it part of his monthly salary.
