The central bank’s Monetary Policy committee is expected to keep interest rates unchanged when it meets tomorrow, Reuters suggests. Ten out of 12 economists polled by the newswire said the CBE would keep the deposit rate at 18.75% and the lending rate at 19.75% as post-float inflationary pressures continue to ease. “Although monthly inflation is declining, annual headline inflation is still too high for the CBE to cut interest rates … We believe the cut will most likely occur when headline inflation breaks the 20 percent in Q1 of 2018,” Arqaam Capital senior economist Reham Eldesoki says. The two outliers in the poll are Pharos Holding COO Angus Blair and Naeem’s head of research Allen Sandeep, who both expect rate cuts. Blair says “we expect (and hope that) the MPC will bite the bullet and begin cutting rates again, to revive the private sector” and Sandeep sees a 100 bps cut, noting that “it should be turning increasingly less cost-effective to banks to operate at these rates, given the substantial drop in T-bills yields (now trading well below the corridor rates) and with lending growth unable to catch-up with rising deposits.”

The management and board-level shakeup at state-owned banks remains under wraps, reportedly pending security clearances, but that hasn’t stopped the rumor mill. Youm7 reports that sources at the Central Bank have told it that we can expect a big shakeup at Banque du Caire, which remains stuck in the government’s IPO pipeline. The newspaper still has CBE Deputy Governor Tarek Fayed becoming chairperson, but writes that Mohamed Mashhour will hold onto his position as executive vice chairman. Interestingly, our friend Wael Ziada, the former head of research at EFG Hermes founder of the firm’s finance subsidiary, is said to be joining the board. Hit the link for the name-by-name rundown.

We’re also waiting to hear that the Council of State has concluded its review of the Dabaa nuclear power plant’s four contracts this week, potentially paving the way for the return of Russian tourists.

Commercial 4G services will be going live tomorrow, the national telecoms regulator confirmed this week. Maybe that’s why they turned off all the telephone lines on the block that is home to Enterprise World Headquarters yesterday afternoon? To drive sales to “We,” as they insist on calling their network? (No phone line, no internet — and that continues into this morning.)