The Ministry of Supply on Monday refused the technical and financial offers by Blumberg Grain to develop 300 shounas. Minister of Supply Khaled Hanafy told Daily News Egypt that Blumberg completed the first phase of the project, in which it developed 105 shounas for the Egyptian Holding Company for Silos and Storage (GSSC). He added that the company had submitted technical and financial bids to begin the second phase of 300 shounas. "The offers were not acceptable," he said. Sources at Blumberg told Daily News Egypt earlier that the company is facing several problems with the Ministry of Supply, as well as the GSSC. Blumberg warned it would exit the Egyptian market if its shouna development project did not solely fall under the supervision of the Armed Forces Engineering Authority, instead of the Ministry of Supply. GSSC chairperson Mahmoud Abdel Aziz refused to comment on the accusations against Blumberg. However, he said that his company had received the developed shounas from the first phase, but had not yet linked them to the electric grid, in order to monitor and manage the shounas. The first phase of the development project aimed to develop and store 3.7m metric tonnes of wheat per year in storage spaces amounting to 334,451 sqm. Yasser Omar, a member of the parliament's Fact-Finding Committee on wheat supplies, said that parliament has been holding hearing sessions with officials at the Supply Ministry to put together an understanding of the extent of corruption within the wheat supply chain.
