A campaign to track businessmen who did not donate to the Long Live Egypt Fund was launched on Friday, aiming to influence public opinion and prompt citizens to boycott their companies and products.
The founders of the campaign, a group of youth from six different political parties, pledged in a Friday statement published on their Facebook page that is titled “The Blacklist of Businessmen”, to announce the names of the businessmen “so that Egyptians could know who refused to support the country”.
CEO of Saad El-Din Group for Petroleum Gases, Mohamed Saad El-Din, said businessmen are not obliged to contribute in the fund “as they already contribute to reviving the economy through establishing projects”.
Saad El-Din, who is also the vice president of the Petroleum Products Division at the Federation of Egyptian Industries, said that businessmen should not be blamed for not donating to the fund because they need money for their projects.
During a July meeting between President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi and a group of businessmen, with the aim of forming a committee comprised of both businessmen and government officials to manage the fund, the president affirmed that he would not pressure businessmen to contribute to the fund and would not attack those who did not donate.
Following the inauguration of Al-Sisi in June, governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Hisham Ramez announced the opening of the Long Live Egypt Fund, whose name is based on the slogan of Al-Sisi’s presidential campaign. The fund’s bank account, “037037”, refers to the day on which Al-Sisi declared the ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi.
Al-Sisi has donated EGP 500,000 to the bank account and also declared that he would donate half of his salary.
On 13 July, the Field Marshall decided to merge the bank account with the 306306 Support Egypt Fund, which was launched in July 2013 following Morsi’s ouster to receive donations to help stimulate the economy.
The CBE press office did not disclose information on the total amount of collected donations. However, in July, the CBE said that the donations exceeded EGP 400m.
