After a year of controversy and the death of three men of letters without taking advantage of it, the Egyptian Writers Federation has announced the end of its crisis with the Ministry of Finance over the LE20-milion grant by the Ruler of Sharjah. The controversy broke out after the Ministry of Finance added the grant to the Ministry of Culture's budget. Finance Minister Youssef Boutros Ghali has apologized to the federation's members. Ghali justified his misunderstanding by saying that he "was suffering from a detached retina over the past two months, so he could not read and, therefore, relied on his assistants to read the Federation's letters and complaints about the grant", well-informed sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm. In a press release yesterday, the federation said Ghali visited it on Thursday night and met with its board of directors to announce his response to the Federation's legal memo. In this memo, the Federation had demanded the non-diversion of the grant to the budget of any ministry, as the Federation does not depend on any ministry.
The Federation added that the minister had submitted a letter with his signature in which he admitted that the Federation is independent and its money should not be transferred to any other body. The head of the federation's subsidies and pensions Mohamed Al-Sayyed Eid said the crisis was solved and that the Minister of Finance understood the situation and said that his assistants had not passed him the truth. Speaking to Al-Masry Al-Youm, Eid said the grant was deposited in a bank and its interests would be disbursed next February. He also affirmed that he would submit draft regulations to the Federation's general assembly next March over how to spend the interests, adding that "these interests won't be disposed of until next March". Intellectuals and writers had expressed their anger at the obstacles put in front of the grant, which they said could have helped save the life of three men of letters in need of the grant itself to pay for their treatment.
