Minister of Finance Hany Kadry Dimian approved urgent funds of EGP 3.5bn for the Ministries of Supply, Transport, Education, and Culture, and the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) and Restructuring of the Public Sector Companies Fund.
The urgent funds have been directed to support their efforts to improve public services and provide essential goods to citizens.
Mohamed Abdel Fattah, head of the state budget sector, said the amounts approved by Dimian include EGP 1.5bn for the Ministry of Supply; EGP 1bn for goods covered by ration cards for December; along with EGP 500m to support the new bread subsidy system.
In addition to this, a total of $854m will be dedicated to import 480,000 tonnes of wheat.
Abdel Fattah added the fund also includes EGP 173.3m for the Ministry of Education to repay printing institutions and publishing houses for printing the third batch of schoolbooks for the educational curriculum.
The money will also be used to support student subscriptions on the railway lines for October, according to the tripartite protocol signed by the Ministries of Finance, Education and Transportation.
This comes in addition to the allocation of EGP 3.5m Supreme Council of Culture for the disbursement of the workers’ salaries of workers at the Sound and Light Company for November. This is until the Ministry of Culture completes the measures to create a direct company to take over the Asset Management for the Sound and Light Company.
Abdel Fattah noted that the ministry allocated EGP 274.5m to the Restructuring of the Public Sector Companies Fund, of which EGP 177m are allocated to pay off the dues for spinning companies’ workers for November and December 2015.
Moreover, EGP 97.5m were allocated for the disbursement of the annual remuneration for those workers.
A total of EGP 440m will be dedicated to ERTU to meet its obligations toward its employees for the months of November and December 2015. In addition, EGP 3.6m are allocated to support the sanitation system in North Sinai for November and December 2015.
Abdel Fattah noted that Dimian also agreed to provide EGP 62.5m to the Holding Company for Water and Wastewater, under the amounts allocated for water subsidies for November.
“EGP 100m were dedicated for Industrial Development Authority (IDA) to the Supporting and Facilitating Industrial Zones Fund, as support from the state to facilitate industrial zones in different governorates,” added Abdel Fattah.
