Egyptian Transport Minister Kamel Al Wazir announced that the railways were £88 billion in debt and added: “We are in trouble and ticket prices must be raised.”
The Minister explained that in the event of an increase in the cost of travel by train or subway, “students and veterans will not pay for the increase.”
He said the railways owed £88bn “and we paid £83bn to the banks after we cleared most of our debt to the Treasury and the Investment Bank”, noting that the Railways Authority owes £5bn to the Oil Ministry. .
He added that “an annual Treasury support of £5.5bn is going to the Railway Board in favor of student subscription and funding for non-economic destinations”.
He said: “We are aiming to use all rail resources to increase our financial capacity and we need to increase our financial resources by £2.1bn in order to achieve self-sufficiency”, noting that the cost of administration staff salaries was £4.1bn. pounds.
Source: “Cairo 24”