16 Egyptian government agencies incurred losses worth EGP 21 billion (about $ 1.4 billion dollars) during the fiscal year 2018/2019.

Mamdouh Al-Wali, the Egyptian economist and former head of the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate, said that the Railway Authority came as the worst loser with a value of EGP 12.3 billion, followed by the National Media Authority, which replaced the Radio and Television Union (Maspero) with 7 billion pounds.

The losing bodies included the New and Renewable Energy Authority, the Public Transport Authority in Cairo, the Alexandria Public Transport Authority, the Nuclear Power Plants Authority, the Exhibitions, and Conferences Authority, the Hydro-Electricity Generating Authority, the Industrial and Mining Projects Authority, the Egyptian Agricultural Authority, and the Survey Authority, and the Reconstruction Projects and Agricultural Projects Authority. Government agencies made losses of 18.7 billion in the previous fiscal year 2017/2018, which means an increase in their size compared to the following year, without working to stop the bleeding of losses.

Al-Wali explained, in an article published by Arabi 21, that the losing bodies are increasing the value of their losses over the years, which drives them to borrow more, especially from the National Investment Bank (governmental). Al-Wali pointed to the Radio and Television Union (Maspero) as an example of losing organizations, in which about 40 thousand people work, as work requires less than a quarter of them only, and its losses increased from 3.7 billion pounds in the 2012/2013 fiscal year to 4.3 billion pounds in the next fiscal year, then to 4.5 billion pounds in the 2014/2015 fiscal year, to 7.1 billion pounds in the 2018/2019 fiscal year. Al-Wali pointed out that the railway authority’s losses increased in recent years from 1.8 billion pounds in the 2012/2013 fiscal year to 12.3 billion pounds in the 2018/2019 fiscal year, due to the poor replacement, renovation, and maintenance operations, obsolescence of train cars, and the inability to purchase the necessary spare parts. And the number of train accidents increased.

The economic expert held the government responsible for the losses of the Exhibitions Authority, whose losses increased to about 116 million pounds in the fiscal year 2018/2019, due to the tendency of the most official and private bodies to hold exhibitions in the conference center of the army. About 50 economic bodies are affiliated with the Egyptian government and about 160 service agencies, and the difference between them is that economic bodies are targeting the financial profit. In contrast, this is not required to be achieved by service agencies.