CAIRO: Talk of corruption has marred the privatization of the Omar Effendi department store chain, while the new imprisonment sentence given to a reporter, combined with the closing down of the Muslim Brotherhood's newspaper, have spurred concerns over the future of journalistic freedom. Newspapers were also concerned with updates on the financial compensation to poultry farm owners for continuing losses during the bird flu scare and the results of the sunken ferry's black box. The week began with a spat of accusations regarding the Omar Effendi deal. Yehia Hussein, one of the members of the committee responsible for placing a value on Omar Effendi assets before the government sells the chain of stores, said that he was under pressure to give a price estimate of less than half of the actual value. The public prosecutor is currently investigating the case, while members of parliament demand an explanation. The parliament's economic committee will investigate the deal. The case has also spurred talks regarding the integrity of the privatization process that has marked the country's economic scene for the past few years. "The government said the public sector is worth LE 500 billion and then it sold 70 percent of it for LE 25 billion, read the front-page headline in the weekly El-Destour, "Those responsible got LE 33 billion worth of commissions. In Al Ahram, Abdel Raham Aql cited a number of incidents in the country's privatization history, the Omar Effendi deal among them, to make his point. "[This] proves that the government hasn't gone through the privatization process with enough wisdom and transparency to convince public opinion. But there are other concerns troubling Al-Masry Al-Youm's Soliman Gouda. "The real problem and the most important question still exist: it's whether the state that sells these sizable units [referring to Hussein's over LE 1 billion estimate], is able to at the same time to add in return other units parallel to [Omar Effendi's] assets and productivity . or not. Gouda inquired about the fate of other productive projects, the likes of Toushka, saying that getting consumed with selling rather than producing is a "disaster. Yet, as doubts were raised as to the integrity of the government's business deals, uplifting news made its way to the front pages. On Wednesday, Al Ahram announced that the agricultural banks have started rescheduling the debts of all poultry producers. This seemed, however, to be the only good news that made it to the front pages of local newspapers. While many expected the data stored on the ferry's black box to reveal the events that led to last month's ferry sinking, the papers quoted Minister of Transport Mohamed Mansour's announcement stating that recovering such data could take up to two months. According to Al Ahram, new safety regulations will be applied to ferries. Independent newspapers, however, had other topics on their agendas; abolishing prison sentences in publishing related cases topped the list. Pessimism soared as Amira Malash, reporter for the weekly Al-Fajr, was sentenced to one month in jail after an eight-minute trial for quoting a source accusing a judge of corruption; the higher council of journalism annulled the publishing license of the Muslim Brotherhood paper Afaq Arabia and Al-Wafd newspaper is expecting a new crisis endangering its existence. However, collective efforts for legal changes continue. Efforts for freedom of the press were not limited to independent newspapers. In Al-Gomhuria, Salah Eissa said that although he doesn't support an initiative to change the publishing law at the present time (because many are dissatisfied with the way some newspapers are misusing press freedom), the only way to accomplish such a change is to start an overdue campaign to rally public support. Eissa noted that out of 50 law articles that punish publishers with prison sentences, only three pertain to libel, slander and defamation. The rest, he says, incriminate voicing opinions. Meanwhile, only national newspapers gave much attention to President Hosni Mubarak's visit to Europe. Mubarak kicked off a European tour yesterday with a visit to Italy. "The tour has acquired great importance concerning its numerous significances, whether in terms of timing or the topics discussed, read an Al Ahram editorial on Thursday.
