By Heba Fahmy
CAIRO: Former diplomat Ibrahim Youssry announced in a press conference Wednesday that he will file several complaints to the Prosecutor General in a few days, accusing former Minister of Petroleum Sameh Fahmi of squandering public funds and uncovering the corruption in the ministry.
Youssry said that there were around 100 oil companies that suffered from corruption and favoritism, especially PetroJet.
Petroleum expert Ibrahim Zahran said that Fahmi set a budget of LE 6 billion a year as salaries to consultants and the football team of PetroJet Company, according to the Central Auditing Agency.
“This money is more than enough to pay the salaries of the workers who were unjustly laid off,” Zahran told Daily News Egypt.
Around 5,000 workers with temporary contracts were fired from PetroJet, according to Zahran.
Many of those workers participated in the conference and announced that they would establish a syndicate parallel to the existing one, which failed to protect them.
“I have four children and I worked in PetroJet for 14 years before they fired me for no reason,” mechanic Mohamed Habib told DNE. “According to my contract, I should be considered a permanent worker in the company after four years, but that didn’t happen.”
Another worker, Amr Ramzy, cited accusations against Fahmi, including moving PetroJet from Heliopolis to New Cairo which cost LE 1 billion and building a hotel in Ain Sokhna for over LE 10 million to accommodate him and his assistants.
Youssry told DNE that over $13 million a day was squandered by the Ministry of Petroleum in favor of Israel, referring to the deal to export Egyptian gas to Israel for a price well below the international market price.
Youssry, who led a campaign to stop exporting gas to Israel, said, “This deal is a scandal and anyone who signed it must be prosecuted.”
Egyptian Petroleum Minister Abdullah Ghorab said in March that talks were underway to adjust gas contracts — especially the Israel deal. He said media campaigns and public disapproval of gas exports were a sufficient basis for negotiating greater benefits for Egypt.
Political activists and critics have repeatedly accused the ministry of wasting Egypt’s resources for the sake of an “enemy state,” and launched a long legal battle against the ministry.
The battle ended with the Supreme Administrative Court authorizing the sale of gas to Israel in February 2010, while adding that the government should monitor the prices and quantity of its exports.
