It was a night of dreariness on the airwaves as talking heads struggled to entertain themselves with the (non-)issues of the day.

Kol Youm’s Amr Adib offered what may be the most useful segment of the night, calling for interest rates to be cut and saying they are among the highest in the world. His view is that high interest rates have encouraged people to save their money in banks rather than invest it. Our data shows the exact opposite — that folks are pulling funds out to cope with cash flow squeezes — but his basic demand is right.

Adib also went on a diatribe about the informal economy, citing Prime Minister Sherif Ismail’s figure from yesterday that the informal economy was about EGP 1.8 tn in size. He urged the government to adopt more creative and lenient policies to bring SMEs into the formal economy, going as far as saying that the government offer to not look into the source of a business’ funds if the business agrees to come into the Holy Light of the Banking Sector (watch, runtime: 7:49).

Al Hayah Al Youm’s Tamer Amin also discussed the informal economy. Ismail cabinet spokesperson Ashraf Sultan phoned in to list to host Tamer Amin the initiatives the government has adopted to encourage financial inclusion. Sultan also noted a meeting Ismail had with steel manufacturers to discuss policies that would benefit the sector. Repricing gas undoubtedly came up (watch, runtime: 6:52).

Amin also delved into the issue of our absentee MPs with House of Representatives Deputy Speaker Soliman Wahdan who admitted that the issue has become a habit among representatives, while offering no solutions such as mandating detentions and writing lines on a blackboard (watch, runtime: 6:36).

Hona Al Asema’s Lamees Al Hadidi spoke MP Anissa Hassouna who said that she will submit a draft law allowing women to be appointed in judicial roles in the Egyptian Council of State (Maglis El Dawla).The council has been barring the appointment of women for some time now in violation of the constitution, she claims (watch, runtime: 6:13).

Lamees also spoke with Antiquities Minister Khaled El Anany on stolen artefacts. El Anany denied that some 33,000 artefacts had been looted from the ministry’s coffers (watch, runtime: 9:17).