The Central Auditing Organisation (CAO) said that the balance sheet for the last fiscal year (FY) 2017/18 showed that the state's special funds did not deliver EGP 1.7bn to the ministry of finance. Mervat Elksan, a member of the Plan and Budget Committee in parliament, said the committee has asked the ministry to inform them of the number of special funds under its supervision. In accordance with the law, 5% of the special funds of annual revenues of over EGP 5m and not exceeding EGP 7.5m, 10% of those of over EGP 7.5m and not exceeding EGP 15m, and 15% of those of more than EGP 15m, are tied to the state budget. ‘Special funds' are monies raised by state institutions through means other than customs or taxes, such as hospital fees or parking tickets. In May 2017, the ministry of finance provided the economic committee in parliament a report saying that Egypt has 7,282 special funds totalling EGP 52bn. However, the committee requested that the study include the special funds created in private banks. “The balance sheet for the last FY showed irregularity in money delivery from special funds to the state treasury, which forced the state to borrow to finance the budget deficit,” said the deputy of the economic committee, Yasser Omar. He added that the balance sheet also disclosed that some state entities could not finance their self-financing projects worth total EGP 8bn due to their inability to secure the required funds. Elksan noted that the income and value-added tax (VAT) revenues in the first quarter of the current FY exceeded the target.
