Cairo -
Between fears of liquidating government newspapers institutions and defending their investment, controversy is renewed in Egypt whenever officials talk about the fixed assets of these institutions, in conjunction with the global economic crisis and repeated government talk about excess employment in the government sector and the need to reduce burdens.
An observer specializing in the file spoke to Al Jazeera Net, who believes that the Egyptian government is already moving towards liquidating the national press institutions within what he called a "selling frenzy", in conjunction with measures that did not stop to include various press releases, cancel some of them, or offer assets for investment, and this raises more question marks. Despite the official denial.
This official denial came from the head of the National Press Authority in Egypt, Abdel-Sadiq El-Shorbagy, in response to a question from the editor-in-chief of the government newspaper Al-Akhbar and the representative of the Syndicate of Journalists, Khaled Miri.
In a televised interview, Al-Shorbagy affirmed that newspapers or their employees will not be harmed, and that no press release by national press institutions will be cancelled.
liquidation of loss-making institutions
In this context, the Director of the Arab Observatory for Media Freedom, the former Assistant Secretary-General of the Supreme Council, Qutb al-Arabi, believes that Al-Shorbagy's repeated denials are "pure personal opinions or temporary palliatives that do not cancel the idea of liquidating losing institutions, at least."
Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Al-Araby believes that the issue of selling press institutions is extremely sensitive because it affects the loudest sector in society, and therefore the Egyptian regime deals with it with what he described as "cunning tricks" to get rid of it step by step, according to him.
Al-Araby added that the government wants to reduce the angry reactions as much as possible, continuing, "We have finally seen what happened with the suspension of Hawa magazine and your private doctor, as a large number of writers, writers and intellectuals rose up against it."
He points out that the idea of getting rid of most press releases, especially those that achieve great losses, is in full swing;
In light of a significant decline in newspaper sales, the total daily distribution did not exceed 200,000 copies for all daily and weekly newspapers and magazines, and this is a very small number compared to Al-Ahram and Akhbar Al-Youm newspapers when each of them distributed one million copies in its weekly issue.
Al-Araby believes that the sale will include some press institutions, saying, “Given the ruling regime’s way of thinking and its plan to sell assets equivalent to $40 billion in 4 years, this means that the press institutions will not be far from the frenzy of selling, with only a limited number of them.”
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Indications and concerns
Despite the official denial that the Egyptian governments have maintained since 2012, the matter has witnessed more coverage in recent times, in light of measures that journalists see as an indication of an official tendency to liquidate.
In late May, news circulated in media circles affiliated with the opposition about “transferring the ownership of the assets of 3 of the largest national press institutions to a sovereign entity, within the framework of the scheme to gradually acquire the assets of all state-owned press and media institutions to take advantage of their distinctive places,” but The National Press Authority denied the matter in an official statement.
The authority explained that it has started investing a number of untapped assets owned by the Al-Ahram Foundation, Dar Al-Tahrir for Printing and Publishing and Rose Al-Youssef, as part of its plan to invest and exploit the assets owned by the eight national press institutions, through investment projects prepared by these institutions according to feasibility studies and on the lands owned by them.
Examples were given of this by establishing a university affiliated with the Akhbar Al-Youm Foundation, and completing the faculties of Al-Ahram Canadian University, with the aim of developing its financial resources in the face of urgent financial needs, and improving the financial and service conditions of workers.
Two years ago, there was widespread talk about the government's intention to invest the assets of national newspapers, which prompted the National Press Authority to meet with the Syndicate of Journalists, to issue a joint statement confirming "support for plans to exploit the untapped assets of national press institutions in investment projects whose proceeds are allocated to the development and development of institutions' resources."
But the statement stipulated that the approval of any exploitation or sale of assets should be “through the boards of directors of press institutions and their general assemblies and with the approval of the authority,” according to the text of the statement, which made the sale of assets subject to the approval of the general assemblies.
Merge and filter
In early June, the journalists were surprised to cancel the two magazines and your doctor, and include them in Eve magazine, amid widespread professional dissatisfaction.
The former head of the Syndicate of Journalists, Yahya Qalash, described the decision to cancel it as a death sentence based on "a mentality ignorant of Egypt's history and hostile to the role and history of the Egyptian press," according to what he posted on his Facebook account.
This decision was not the first of its kind, as it was preceded in July last year by a decision to stop printing 3 daily paper newspapers, with the three newspapers switching to electronic editions only, namely the Al-Ahram Evening and Evening News, in addition to Al Masaa.
This coincided with the continuation of the arbitrary dismissal decisions within the national institutions, according to the report of the Arab Observatory for Media Freedom in early July.
According to the observatory concerned with following up on Egyptian media affairs, the state-run Akhbar Al-Youm Foundation decided to dismiss 9 journalists “for escaping their appointment and being included in the lists nominated for the Syndicate of Journalists, despite the fact that some of them spent more than 9 years working within the institution.”
Egyptian officials reiterate on several occasions that the government sector is saturated with about 6 million employees, while the conduct of government work needs only about one million employees.
accumulated debts
According to unofficial statistics published by the Masrawy news website, citing unnamed sources, the debts of national press institutions exceed the 20 billion pound barrier (the dollar = 18.87 pounds), including taxes, insurances and customs, as well as bank debts.
According to the latest official data, the National Press Authority revealed that the debts of press institutions amount to 13.9 billion pounds.
The head of the commission, Abdel-Sadiq Al-Shorbagy, announced - in press statements - that the government subsidizes the salaries of workers in national press institutions by about 33%, and subsidizes the institutions' expenses by about 25% of their expenses.
As for the former Minister of State for Information, Osama Heikal, he announced before the House of Representatives in 2021 that the debt amounted to 22 billion pounds.
Heikal spoke at the time about the weakness of the Egyptian media and the public's abandonment of it.