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Monday, 29 August 2016

What we’re tracking on August 29, 2016

The House of Representatives will discuss the fact-finding report on allegations of corruption in the domestic wheat-buying program. Reuters reviewed the report, which it says finds that the government played a key role in “wasting public funds.” The report claims “government entities neglected their own storage facilities in favor of less regulated private sites, made contracts with ‘fake entities,’ and oversaw flawed reforms that caused subsidy spending to increase rather than decrease as publicly stated.” The scandal’s second victim, after now-former Supply Minister Khaled Hanafy, is the ministry’s spokesperson, who told Reuters he resigned from his post and could no longer comment on the issue. The fact-finding committee has called on protection for whistleblowers and witnesses in the case, Al Masry Al Youm said.

The Ismail government appears to have flip-flopped once more on ergot contamination in wheat imports, with Agriculture Ministry announcing yesterday a total ban on wheat with any level of the fungus. Cabinet had previously agreed to accept the UN FAO’s standard of 0.05%. More in Speed Round, below.

A Russian delegation is set to arrive as early as today to investigate airport security ahead of possibly lifting the flight ban on Egypt entirely, TASS reported.

The annual meeting of the Egyptian-Jordanian Commission and the conference Wastewater Egypt both begin today.

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