The controversy over the "Long Live Egypt" Fund, which is personally sponsored by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, has returned, after it recently obtained exclusive and unprecedented benefits that were not available to other funds in the history of funds in the country.

It is decided that the House of Representatives will approve a bill amending some provisions of Law No. 84 of 2015 establishing the "Long Live Egypt" Fund, after the Council's Plan and Budget Committee approved the introduction of new amendments to the law.

The amendment stipulates exempting the revenues and grants of the "Long Live Egypt" Fund from all taxes, fees and customs, registration of the contract in the real estate month, and exemption from real estate taxes, income taxes, the state development fee, and other current or future fees and taxes.

According to the explanatory memorandum attached to the draft law, the fund is concerned with assisting state agencies in "establishing service and development projects, developing slums, reducing the phenomenon of street children and the homeless, establishing micro enterprises, infrastructure projects, small projects for youth, and establishing development projects for new companies to build on." Fully owns the fund or contributes to its capital.

The government justified the amendments as aiming to enable the fund to carry out the activities for which it was established, especially since the practical reality revealed some obstacles, which led to the fund bearing the real estate registration and documentation fees, and the exemption of the exemption on donations and grants received from the fund from abroad, as well as The exemption referred to does not include the value added tax law

The Parliament’s Budget and Plan approves a law exempting revenues and granting the “Long Live Egypt” fund from taxes, customs and fees, current and future https://t.co/tQiSTo7l2X

- khaledelbalshy (@khaledelbalshy) January 26, 2021

The president's first thoughts

Long live Egypt, Sisi's first thoughts after taking office in 2014, and he revealed it in July of the same year, calling on businessmen to pump 100 billion pounds into the fund, which is equivalent at the time to more than $ 14 billion.

Al-Sisi presented the donors, as he personally donated half of his 42,000 EGP salary and half of the wealth he owns for the benefit of the fund, amid great media coverage, without revealing the size of half of his wealth that he donated, and said at the time that he aims to collect at least 100 billion pounds.

Since that time, there has been no operating company in the country, a businessman, artist, athlete, or even state institutions such as the judiciary with its branches, Al-Azhar Sheikhdom, and endowments, unless they made donations again and again, the last of which was the "Emaar Misr" company donating again at an amount of 90 million pounds, as well as The Supreme Council of Administrative Prosecution, who donated three million.

Since that date, laws and amendments related to the "sovereign" fund have been successively issued. In November 2014, the president issued a decree by law No. 139 to establish the "Long Live Egypt" fund, which has legal personality and reports to the Prime Minister, and has its headquarters in Cairo, and it may establish branches And offices in other provinces.

However, in July 2015, another decision was issued by Law No. 84 of 2015 amending some provisions of Decree Law No. 139 of 2014 establishing “Long Live Egypt” so that it enjoys financial and administrative independence.

In early 2016, the House of Representatives approved the decision by Law No. 139 of 2014 to establish "Long Live Egypt".

And according to the presidential decision approved by the House of Representatives in early 2016, financial control over the fund was implicitly abolished from the state's general budget.

Secret entity

The economic expert, Dr. Mohamed Rizk, criticized the imposition of secrecy on Al-Saduq's accounts, saying, "The Long Live Egypt Fund is a container in which state property and the proceeds of donations are placed away from the supervision of the state apparatus entrusted with monitoring public money."

And he considered - in statements to Al-Jazeera Net - that the recent decisions regarding exempting this fund from all fees and taxes are just a procedure to dye this entity with legitimacy.

Rizk, an Egyptian-American businessman, described the fund as an opaque, bastard entity that no one knows the outcome of the money that enters or exits from it, as well as its source, which is a great hotbed for corruption and a vessel in which state property can be hidden.

He did not rule out the exploitation of "Long Live Egypt" as a tool to sell state property, or to surrender it to others, away from the laws and oversight of state agencies entrusted with controlling aspects of spending public money in collusion with businessmen and private sector companies.

There are no figures related to the proceeds of the fund since its launch 6 years ago (communication sites)

Absence of numbers

In the absence of information, there are no figures related to the proceeds of the fund since its inauguration 6 years ago, but companies, businessmen and state institutions do not stop donating every occasion to the fund in millions of pounds.

The businessman and Senator, Ahmed Abu Hashima, who recently donated two million pounds again, praised the fund and its role in providing community support.

And he indicated in a telephone intervention on a private channel that he is ready to donate always to the fund, because of his efforts in solving many crises, providing social services, and relieving citizens' shoulders, he said.

The resources of the fund come from donations, gifts, cash grants, in kind and any other resources issued by a decision by the President of the Republic, and the campaigns to launch donations are renewed every occasion and crisis such as the Corona pandemic, and an amount of 160 million pounds (10 million dollars) has been collected according to the head of the fund, Major General Muhammad Amin, until midway through current month.

Wrong decisions

In turn, the economic expert, Mohamed Kamal Okdeh, described the new "Long Live Egypt" exemptions as a "catastrophic approval" and complemented a long series of fortifications and exemptions, sometimes for the fund and at other times for Egypt's sovereign fund, and these are "suspicious decisions."

In statements to Al-Jazeera Net, he warned that such decisions support the absence of transparency and open the doors to corruption in the absence of any transparency, indicating that there are other problems that are represented in the fund's competition with the private sector and local investors: how can they compete in light of this great imbalance .

The expert concluded by confirming that the repercussions of such exemptions and immunizations go beyond the effects of the absence of transparency and suspicions of corruption, the lack of real competition, the increase in unemployment and the exit of some companies from the local market that are being marginalized, and what (the fund) should have applied to all.