Cairo: Fardous Farhat, a mother of five, has repeatedly waited in a long queue outside a depot in northern Cairo to replenish her cooking gas cylinder. But it is to no avail.
"Every time I come here to replace my cylinder from the early hours of the day. But almost halfway, I am always told that the depot has run out of supply," Farhat, 46, said. "I cannot afford to buy the cylinder ten times or more higher than their actual price from black marketeers."
Farhat, whose husband is "a simple" government employee has decided to use firewood instead for cooking purposes "until the officials take notice of our woes".
Over the past weeks, millions of Egyptians across this nation of 80 million have been suffering from an acute shortage of the heavily subsidised LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) cylinders. The cylinder officially retails for three Egyptian pounds (Dh2), but recently its price has soared to 60 pounds at the black market.
Desperate to lay their hands on the "precious" commodity, two men were last week crushed to death while clinging to a speeding truck loaded with gas cylinders in the area of Imbaba near Cairo. Eight others were injured in a fight in which guns were used in Kerdasa, south of Cairo.
Opportunists
The government has blamed the crisis on "opportunists" who exploit the cold weather to jack up prices of cylinders.
The crisis, which has made local headlines, prompted the government to discuss the issue during a weekly Cabinet meeting. Officials said after the meeting that four more distribution companies will be set up and the supply will increase by 25 per cent to meet the demand.
In a bid to curb illegal dealing in LPG cylinders, police have been cracking down on suspected profiteers.
Meanwhile, the nation's Chief Prosecutor Abdul Majeed Mahmoud has declared that "exploiters of the gas crisis" would be put on trial and heavily punished.
"The problem is due to the misuse of the subsidised butane gas by diverting it to the hen-hatching farms and brickmaking kilns," said Ahmad Darwish, the minister of state for administrative development. He suggested that such cylinders be available only to people who hold ration cards, a lingering system from the days of socialism in Egypt in the 1960s.
"It seems I am doomed to spend my life in queues," said Mahmoud Shukri, a pensioner. "I have to queue up every month to get my pension and stand in another line to buy [subsidised] bread. Now I have to join a third line to buy a gas cylinder. This is unfair."
The government has provided different areas across Egypt with environment-friendly natural gas. But the service has yet to reach poor areas.
"I decided to use the paraffin stove to cook food and for heating," said Hala, a mother of three. "It's better than this daily ordeal."
