A case of controversy raised by the Executive Director of Egypt's sovereign fund Ayman Suleiman a few days ago, after announcing the government's intention to get rid of some of its debts by selling state-owned assets to investors (Arabs and foreigners) in partnership with the recently launched Egypt Sovereign Fund.

The Egyptian external debt has evolved in recent years. In 2016, Egypt's external debt jumped significantly to register about 55.8 billion dollars, and in 2017 it reached 82.8 billion dollars, and at the end of 2018 it amounted to 96.57 billion dollars, while at the end of 2019 it reached 112.67 billion Dollars.

Suleiman said that opening the door for investors to buy some assets through alliances with the fund, would allow the Egyptian economy to recycle capital, especially as it invested hundreds of billions, and was burdened with financing (loans), in infrastructure projects.

He continued in a video conference last Tuesday, "If the investment transactions are made on those assets, then the national economy will have to pay debts to the state budget."

On the value of the assets expected to be transferred, Suleiman revealed that preparations are under way to transfer assets ranging between 50 and 60 billion pounds, as a preliminary package.

Last week, Parliament approved amendments to the "sovereign sovereign fund" bill sent by the government in principle, which include exempting the inter-agency transactions of the fund and its wholly owned entities from all taxes and fees.

The draft law stipulates that lawsuits for the nullity of contracts concluded by the Fund, the actions it takes to achieve its goals, or the actions taken on the basis of those contracts or actions are invalid, except from the contracting parties, and not others.

Governmental denial

The Egyptian government denies rumors about the immunization of "Egypt's sovereign fund, and confirms that it is subject to control, and its accounts are audited by auditors, one from the Central Auditing Agency, and the other is appointed from among the accountants registered with the Central Bank or the Financial Supervisory Authority."

However, the media center ignored the response to two fundamental issues, which are the immunization of its contracts and decisions against the judiciary, and enabling it to sell any of the state's assets under the allegations of maximizing, exploiting and investing these assets, the media center did not mention them in its response to what was reported about the fund’s immunization of supervision Finance.

Regarding the size of the fund's assets and funds, member of the fund's board of directors, Counselor Mohamed Abdel Aziz, said - in press statements - "The fund is a joint entity, part of which is the capital of the fund and the other part is the untapped assets," noting that the assets that were currently transferred to the fund represent a quantity Very well, "without revealing its size and nature.

Debt service acquires the majority of the state's public revenues, so the preliminary statement numbers for the 2020-2021 budget show that total public revenue is about 1.28 trillion pounds, while public debt installments, as the statement anticipated, are at 555 billion pounds, and public debt benefits 566 billion pounds, meaning that debt service The year represents 1.12 trillion pounds, which is equivalent to 87% of the total public revenues.

The government is heavily betting on selling state assets to pay off the accumulated debt. According to Minister of Business Sector Hisham Tawfiq, his ministry decided to liquidate only two of the 70 companies whose conditions are currently being discussed, namely, National Cement and Egyptian Navigation, attributing the decision to liquidate them due to the lack of feasibility of their reform, according to him.

Tawfiq added that there are companies that follow the sector that have lost more than 6 times their capital, which requires the development of most companies through self-financing, stressing the need to invest the untapped assets of public business sector companies, and sell them in public auctions to get the maximum value for them.

Black hole

Visiting Professor of Change Management and Strategic Planning at Cambridge University, Hossam El-Shazly, described efforts to sell state assets in exchange for payment of some debts and fortify the fund "an economic and political catastrophe", saying that "within the framework of the accumulated and unlimited debts that the Sisi regime employed to spend on a suspected arms race, An administrative capital that is not needed, which transformed the Egyptian debt without investment return or profit. Egypt's assets will be subject to sale at any time.

In his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, he warned that such steps open the doors for foreign and Arab countries to control the capabilities of Egyptians by entering into suspicious partnerships, such as that of the joint Egyptian-Emirati platform worth $ 20 billion, in which Egypt contributes half the share, represented in mortgaging Egyptian assets worth 10 billion Dollars in exchange for the UAE share paid in cash.

And Al-Shazly criticized the parliament’s approval of the recent government amendment of the fund, as it gives Sisi personally the right to transfer ownership of the assets with the creation of strange and strange items that protect the system from any legal prosecutions, making it easier to sell and manipulate the assets.

In turn, the head of the International Academy for Studies and Development, Mamdouh Al-Munir, said, "The sale of state assets in order to pay debts is in line with the natural context of the abyss that Sisi pays the Egyptian state."

In his talk to Al-Jazeera Net, he asked about the meaning of immunizing the fund from any accountability, which will sell the assets of the Egyptian state, will restore the era of foreign concessions and depend on the political decision of the Egyptian state for decades to come due to debts, adding that even if there is a truly national government, it will remain restricted paralyzed by debt and creditors.

He went on to say that the Egyptian-Emirati fund of $ 20 billion is a front for "Zionists" through the Emirates to buy Egyptian assets, and the evidence for this happened in occupied Jerusalem last year when Arab associations in Jerusalem discovered inside the Green Line that the Emiratis who buy the surrounding homes Al-Aqsa Mosque are the mediators of the Zionists, and the story is repeated to us, but with more facilities, as he put it.