With so much going on over the weekend, the country’s talking heads had an assortment of topics to dive right into on Saturday night.

Kol Youm’s Amr Adib covered Supply Minister Ali El Moselhy’s Saturday press conference, where he discussed the ministry’s plans for commodity subsidies and offered a glimpse at the subsidy bill for the FY2017-18 budget (more in the Speed Round). El Moselhy also announced that the state has launched a tender to buy rice ahead of Ramadan (watch, runtime 2:50).

El Moselhy proposes another layer of smart cards for Kramers to abuse: El Moselhyalso phoned into Masaa DMC to talk to host Eman El Hossary about a proposal to offer subsidized meals at public schools through a special ration card, which he says is not only a form of financial support but will also decrease the risk of outbreaks like last week’s, when around 400 school children got food poisoning from their school cafeterias (watch, runtime 8:19).

On Hona Al Assema, Lamees El Hadidi spoke to Metro Company official Ashraf Abdel Salam about the company’s plan to repay its EGP 500 mn in debt over two years. Both Lamees and her guest seemed in favor of the decision to raise the metro ticket price to EGP 2 from EGP 1 (more in the Speed Round), which they said will make it possible for the company to meet its obligations. The Metro Company is also looking to increase its revenue from advertisements and has already entered into five-year EGP 175 mn agreement with a Railway Authority subsidiary (watch, runtime 37:46).

El Hadidi also gave people a little insight into the confusion caused by a text message sent by the three main operators Orange, Vodafone, and Etisalat, asking some 1.1 mn mobile users to head down to the nearest branch to update their user data in person rather than via phone or online. The request was made by the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA), according to Vodafone PR Director Noha Saad and Orange Egypt PR Director Hala Abdel Wadood, who said that the NTRA is refusing to make any exceptions, even for the elderly who would find it difficult to leave their homes (watch, runtime 4:20). The move is part of a campaign launched in 2015 by the NTRA to every mobile line is associated with a national ID or foreign passport.

On Al Hayah Al Youm, Lobna Assal hosted 1980s economy minister Sultan Abou Ali to discuss recent economic policies, particularly the EGP float, which Abo Ali said has not done much in the way of improving the investment climate or increasing exports, adding that a higher number of foreign transactions in the stock market is not a measure of economic growth (watch, runtime 2:26).