Egypt’s Attorney General opened an urgent investigation into the fire that broke out in the Ministry of Endowments in downtown Cairo on Saturday morning.
The Abdeen Prosecution Office listened to testimonies of eyewitnesses, and ordered criminal examination of the place, and checking surveillance cameras in the vicinity of the building.
Minister of Endowments Mohamed Mokhtar Gomaa said that there were no employees in the building at the time, as the ministry moved several weeks ago to its new headquarters in the New Administrative Capital.
The building of the Ministry – registered in the Egyptian Architectural Heritage List – opened in 1899 during the reign of Khedive Tawfiq, then it was expanded by building an extension for it in 1912, then another extension in 192, then two neighboring houses were demolished and a third extension was built for the building in 1936.
In the same context, the governor of Cairo announced the formation of an engineering committee to examine the building in which the fire broke out to determine the extent to which it was affected by the accident, and directed the speedy removal of the traces of the fire after the completion of the public prosecution and criminal investigation of the place to inspect the place to clarify the reasons.
In 2019, the Egyptian Endowments Authority announced for the first time that its total property was estimated at about EGP 1.377trn, after a government inventory it said was carried out for the first time in Egypt’s history.
