Amendments to the natural gas export deal with Israel caught the attention of many newspapers today. Al-Shorouq reported that the Israeli Electricity Company received approval for the amendments, though it remains unclear if the amount of gas imported or its price will change.
News of the amendments could suggest a change in Egyptian policy, which has been criticized for providing gas to Israel at a low price.
But analysis in Al-Shorouq showed that a change in the Egyptian position will take place, despite critical public opinion. Amr Hamouda, an oil expert at Fustat Studies Center, told the paper that any amendments to the price of Egyptian gas exported to Israel would only be applicable to new deals. Otherwise, Hamouda said, the price tag for gas exports as stipulated by the 2005 deal between Egypt and Israel will remain intact for the next 15 years, as per the agreement. Hamouda added that if the announced amendments pertain to additional quantities of gas exports, that will further harm local consumption, particularly with the current butane cylinders crisis.
“We export natural gas at a low price and import butane gas for a high price and it is local consumers who pay the difference. This is bad planning,” Hamouda told Al-Shorouq.
Local butane shortages dominated headlines in independent and opposition papers today. Al-Dostour’s front-page story on the butane shortage read, "The crisis continues in many governorates and despite the fact that there have been casualties, dead and wounded people, officials insist on ignoring the issue and not finding radical solutions."
The crisis erupted due to a shortage of gas cylinders, which led to price hikes on the black market. Al-Dostour wrote that the government has followed its typical official response to such crises: sending security which then clashes with frustrated people. The story also pointed to the protests staged by angry people who have been gathering in front of the main suppliers of butane cylinders. Some protesters called the export of Egyptian natural gas to Israel at a low price a scam and an act of bad planning, according to Al-Dostour.
State-run papers reported the butane cylinder shortage crisis differently. Al-Akhbar ran a half-page report on the “return of stability and order to the butane cylinder market,” highlighting new regulations from the Petroleum Ministry. According to the minister of petrol, Sameh Fahmy, gas will be home delivered to 750,000 households, an increase from the 500,000 households that gas currently reaches. Al-Ahram also reported on the government’s crisis management, saying that an additional 100,000 cylinders will be added to the market on a daily basis to end the shortage.
Bad planning has characterized the government’s neo-liberal economic reforms according to independent and partisan press. Al-Wafd highlighted the perceived problem in a story on the anniversary of the privatization of Omar Effendi, one of Egypt’s largest publicly owned department stores. "Today, the anniversary of the assassination of Omar Effendi: The price after three years is a big zero."
Al-Wafd’s story on the department store accused the government of mismanaging the sale of Omar Effendi to a Saudi buyer. While the government believed that privatizing the chain would improve economic activity, the results have fallen far short of hopes, wrote Al-Wafd. Moreover, the laying off of public employees who worked in the stores for years, following the privatization, was not in accordance with the agreement sealed between the government and the buyer, which was also observed by the Public Prosecutor. “A close reading into the company’s performance after three years of privatization is that the state gains out from it are a big zero, that only adds to our other famous zeros,” the story read.
In a column in Al-Wafd, Abbal al-Tarabili wrote that the centralization of governance is a crucial aspect of the failures in planning in Egypt. Al-Tarabili called for more space for local governance at governorate levels. But in order to increase local governance, there must be a political will from the center, manifested in, among other things, free and fair election of local councils representatives. These elections are traditionally marred by fraud.
