"Egypt will implement new measures to reduce errors in electricity bills and will launch a new application for charging prepaid meters," Minister of Electricity Mohamed Shaker announced recently.
Shaker clarified, during a press conference, that the ministry has created a unified reading program that will be used during June, as the meter reader will photograph it with a recording of the time and date to be reviewed, which leads to reducing the existing problems.
"All readings will be photographed and kept for a period of time to be used in case the owner of the meter submits a complaint,” he stated.
According to the minister, a new program will be launched that allows charging the prepaid meter card via the mobile phone "Smart Phone" at the beginning of July 2020, noting that the program's trial phase has been launched with 5,000 subscribers only.
Meanwhile, Shaker announced Tuesday extending the plan to lift subsidies on electricity to another 3 years, to end in fiscal year 2024/2025 instead of fiscal year 2021/2022, due to the negative repercussions of the coronavirus pandemic.
Shaker said, during a press conference, that the price of electricity for the domestic sector will be raised by the beginning of July 2020 by 19.1 percent.
"The period of lifting the subsidies will be extended for another 3 years so that the increase is distributed over 5 years instead of the 2 two years as previously planned, and the financial burden of LE 26.7 billion will be borne as a result of that," he added.
He pointed out that the electricity prices will be fixed for the next 5 years for the high, and medium effort, reducing the price of electricity to about 10 piasters for industrial applications. He noted that the state will bear LE 22 billion.
The Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy decided in 2019 to postpone lifting the subsidies on electricity entirely until 2021/2022, within the framework of taking into account economic conditions, setting the duration of the plan to lift the electricity subsidy to 8 years instead of 5 years.