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Cairo: Last week two locals were killed in a fight over queuing up for cheap bread in Helwan in southern Cairo. A few days earlier, the semi-official newspaper Al Ahram reported that a customer in Alexandria, Egypt's second biggest city, sprinkled petrol at a bakery after its owner refused to give him bread heavily subsidised by the government.
Over the recent months, bread queues in this country of 76 million have grown longer.
"I usually come to the bakery immediately at the day break to buy my family's daily need of the government bread," said Rawia Hamad. "If for one reason or another, I come late, I'd have to stand for at least three hours before laying my hands on the bread," said the 34-year-old housewife.
Strict control
The government has recently tightened control of the bakeries receiving subsidised flour to ensure it would not be sold on the black market.
Out of the daily 20,000 tonnes supplied to government bakeries, around 4,000 tonnes are sold in the black market, according to official figures.
"This means the public treasury is robbed of some LE1.5 billion [about Dh1.01 billion] annually," said Fahmi Yousuf, an inspector at the Ministry of Social Solidarity.
"Some unscrupulous owners of bakeries sell part of their daily quota of subsidised flour to the black marketeer in return for hefty gains," Yousuf told Gulf News.
Authorities have recently declared a cash reward of LE1,000 for anyone offering information about people involved in selling such flour in the black market.
The subsidised bread sells for 5 piasters per loaf against 25 piasters for the non-subsidised bread.
"Being the head of a family of seven, I cannot afford non-subsidised [bread]," said Abu Al Anein Saeed, a government employee.
"However, I have to stand in a queue for hours and would not be allowed to buy more than one pound worth of bread, which can hardly feed my big family," he added.
Amm Mahmoud, who has been selling bread at a government bakery in northern Cairo for 20 years now, is not pleased.
"We are condemned by the government and the customers alike," he told Gulf News. "The former accuses us of selling flour in the black market and slaps heavy fines on us for illusory reasons," he added, as a long queue stretched out in front of his bread counter.
"The government forgets that it had cut down the quota of flour it provides to bakeries and reduced our working hours. The poor clients have only us to vent their anger on. Tempers are frayed nowadays," said a grim-looking Mahmoud.
The government of President Hosni Mubarak said it spends around $2.7 billion (about Dh9.9 billion) annually in bread subsidies alone. Around 40 per cent of the Egyptians are believed to be living under the poverty line.
An attempt by the Egyptian government in 1977 to raise prices of some non-subsidised goods sparked off massive rioting.
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