National Bank of Egypt (NBE) delayed the Health Ministry project of establishing an international medical project until the circumstances in Egypt get better. Central Auditing Organization (CAO) released a report recently saying that NBE purchased 20 acres in October 6th city which in return for EGP 42 million to start a medical project, to be established by National Company for medical projects and services, in cooperation with National Capital company, which said earlier that it did not want to purchase the land assigned for the project as it is inappropriate for the project. The report added that the Bank's public project manager said that returning the land will constitute a 25% loss in the value of the land. CAO called the bank to be committed the laws and to determine the responsible for purchasing an inappropriate land. NBE said that the land is purchased for establishing an international medical project in the medical area under Health Ministry umbrella medical project, to be established by National Company for medical projects and services, in cooperation with National Capital Company. However, the project is delayed until the current situation in Egypt will be better and afterwards the bank will reconsider the issue. NBE demanded from October 6th city more flexible alternatives for different lands' usages responding to market's supplies and demands of administrative, services and housing buildings. NBE added that it hedges with providing other custom claims of about EGP 1, 4 million, despite the difficulty of calculating the fine imposed when the land is returned. In other respect, CAO called for faster resolving of the issue of El-Ashgar town buildings. NBE repaid EGP 43 million to the other banks participating in the settlement of Abdel-Mohsen Sheta Group debt, in return for conceding a number of Al-Ashagr buildings units, to be reoffered to the bank's employees with a 15% increase of the payment value, in accordance with NBE's board approval in 2009/2010. On this respect, NBE assured that the purchasing was executed in accordance with a settlement contract with one of the bank's customers and that the bank is currently studying a plan on how to return the land. CAO noted that the bank did not benefit from some assets such as Cairo Plaza tower, which was bought by the bank with EGP 285 in the end of 2007. Also, the bank did not benefit from the EGP 17,5 million allocated for El-Baron branch, listed since 2006. NBE said that the North Cairo Plaza tower is about to be finished. In order to execute a faster implementation of the project, the bank is assisted by a consultations office, acting as a project manager, together with a current consultations office, and the bank will changed the contractor and contracted with the Arab Contractors. Source: Al-Masry El-Youm
