The Ministry of Finance is close to finalising procedures to issue gasoline cards for registered fishing boats and has already issued cards to boats at Red Sea ports, the ministry said in a statement Sunday.
“The company executing the project issued all cards for vehicles registered in the traffic departments, whether they’re running on petrol or diesel,” said First Assistant Minister of Finance for Institutional Development Amr Badawi. He added that the cards are now in the traffic departments in which these vehicles are registered.
The government had opened the door for registering in the gasoline cards system in July 2013. The system aims to create a national database for the distribution of petroleum products, so as to ensure that these products are not leaked and limit their distribution to within the borders of the republic.
Furthermore, former prime minister Ibrahim Mehleb issued a decision last April to compel all oil distribution companies to sell 92% and 80% gasoline and diesel in gas stations using the smart card at the fixed price and in any amount required by the consumer.
E-Finance company handles the issuance of smart cards, and it said it has issued 5.5m cards. Smart cards will continue to be issued even after the introduction of the system.
Badawi added that the supreme committee supervising the cards project acquired the data of all the fishing vessels registered in the country from the Ministries of Supply and Transport. Cards are currently being issued for these vessels for refuelling.
“Cards have already been issued for all vessels registered in Red Sea ports, such as Suez and Al-Ataka, and cards for vessels registered in other ports are currently being issued,” he said.
Meanwhile, the project’s management is working on collecting data on tuk-tuk vehicles for the same purpose. A farmer smart card system is currently being studied to provide support to farmers.
“We are studying providing monetary allowance for every farm acre registered in agricultural associations,” added Badawi. When determining the value of this allowance, the amount of diesel used in agriculture and irrigation machines will be taken into consideration.
