CAIRO - While the Government seeks a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reduce the budget deficit, it ignores domestic resources, observers say. MP Yasser el-Qadi recently asked Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri and Finance Minister Momtaz el-Saeed to include private funds, estimated at LE350 billion, in the budget. "The Foreign Ministry and a number of holding companies have private funds in foreign currencies. The Finance Ministry doesn't monitor these funds. The Government needs to investigate their size," MP el-Qadi said in his request. When questioning the Cabinet of Ahmed Nazif in March 2010, MP Ashraf Badr Eddin described the status quo regarding private funds as a "major scandal" and stated that president Mubarak abused his power in this context. "While Article 3 of the Public Budget Law No. 53/1973 states that the budget must include all resources, revenues and expenses, article 20 of the same law permits the president to establish 'private' funds for 'specific' purposes," Badr Eddin said. Yumn el-Hamaqi, a professor of economics at Ain Shams University's Faculty of Commerce, has revealed that private funds often squandered public wealth. "Since monitoring agencies and institutions don't supervise these funds, they were established illegally," he explained. "According to a Central Auditing Agency (CAA) report in 2008/2009, private funds are worth LE1,272 billion, which is 80 per cent of the public budget. The CAA doesn't supervise or monitor these funds. Consequently, only 20 per cent of the State's revenues end up in the public budget," said Badr Eddin, now Deputy of the Parliamentary Planning and Budget Committee. Earlier, the International Egyptian Law Centre filed a lawsuit in the State Council, asking the interim ruling military council and Cabinet to include private funds linked to different governmental institutions in the public budget. It also requested the permission for the Central Auditing Agency to monitor the funds. Meanwhile, MP Azab Moustafa of the Freedom and Justice Party has asked the Government to reveal how many such funds there are. "There are no precise figures or numbers. While some people claim that there are 12,000 private funds, others quote different numbers. The Government must uncover the truth," Moustafa said. The 2011/2012 budget is expected show a deficit of LE180 billion. Experts assure that private funds can easily pay Egypt's debts of over LE1.2 trillion. "Private funds can pay Egypt's internal and external debts and reduce the budget deficit. LE1.27 trillion is 446 per cent of the budget," said Shehata Mohamed Shehata, the Director of the Transparency and Integrity Centre.
