The General Authority of Government Services announced that auction revenues recorded EGP 99m in six months, according to a Saturday statement from the Ministry of Finance. The ministry attributed this number to a report issued by the authority, which stated the amount of auction revenues it had generated between July and December 2013. Eight auctions held in December generated revenues of EGP 23.4m, according to the statement. On 8 and 9 January, the concerned authority held an auction, where unwanted government cars and goods, worth EGP 2.8m, were sold. Head of the General Authority of Government Services Lotfy Shendy stressed in the statement that the authority aims to rationalise public spending and discharge scraps. In June 2013, the finance ministry hosted its first public auction to sell gifts received by government officials, worth $100m or more. The then Prime Minister Hisham Qandil, along with other members of the government, sold a total of 42 luxury and ordinary gifts they had received since July 2012 from various Arab and international officials. The initiative was begun by Qandil, who decided that officials and ministers should not keep gifts valued at $100 or more. Revenues of selling these gifts will return to Egypt's public coffers as a way to promote "transparency and accountability" principles and to safeguard public funds, former Minister of Finance Fayyad Abdel Moneim said in June. Officials who had received gifts include Qandil, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed El-Tayeb, the ministers of Parliamentary Affairs, Information, Industry, Investment, Communication and Information Technology, Higher Education, Petroleum and Mineral Resources, among others.
