CAIRO: Cairo's infamous traffic worsened over the weekend as cars wait in long, gridlocked queues at gas stations to fill up their tanks in light of rumors of an impending cut in state gas subsidies. Some fear that the rumor may be a tacit method employed by the government to get people used to paying more for gas, which is now heavily subsidized and set at artificially low levels. However, on Monday, Oil Deputy Minister Mahmoud Nazim said that the government has no intention of raising gasoline prices and in fact increased supplies to local markets. “Companies providing petroleum products to stations have begun increasing their gasoline supplies to 5.21 million litres per day, 33 percent higher than usual quantities,” said Nazim in a statement from the Oil Ministry published on Monday. As people flood to the gas stations, however, gas supplies have quickly vanished. “People can't find gas anywhere,” Sher Ash, a resident of Cairo, told Bikyamasr.com. “A lot of gas stations are not even working because they have nothing left to sell.” Economic experts have warned for years that Egypt's heavy energy subsidies could become unsustainable. Egypt spends as much as 10 percent of its GDP on consumer energy subsidies. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/9NePP Tags: featured, fuel subsidies, Oil Ministry Section: Egypt, Latest News
