E-Finance to operate new electronic petroleum subsidies programme

Egypt’s cabinet recently decided to activate and support a new electronic payment system for gasoline and petroleum products, awarding the rights to implement the project to the electronic payment company e-Finance for a period of three years.

Egypt’s Finance Ministry estimated that a total of EGP 3bn will be saved monthly through implementation of the new programme.

The government agreed to accept e-Finance’s bid to implement the project, set to last up to three years at a cost of EGP 12.8m a month.

The company initially sought to secure ownership rights for the project for a period of five years at a cost of EGP 768m, however Egypt’s cabinet felt that a period of three years was sufficient.

Government sources stated that e-Finance’s primary competitor for the project took the form of a joint offer made by National Bank of Egypt (NBE) and Banque Misr.

Their bid also sought to acquire ownership rights of the project for a period of five years, at a cost of EGP 1.16bn, EGP 400m more than that proposed by e-Finance. The banks initially proposed that the project’s implementation process would last nine months, as opposed to e-Finance’s four months. Egypt’s government chose the latter, as it would save up to EGP 15bn over the five month difference, amounting to savings of EGP 3bn a month.

The government reportedly already paid EGP 200m to e-Finance, set to be distributed over the next two months as the project’s first payment installment, with payments over the next three years set to decrease 24% monthly.

An official with e-Finance said that Egypt’s Petroleum and Finance Ministries were set to meet to decide the specific timeframe for the project’s implementation, in addition to the specific regions in which the first stage of the project would be implemented.