One person was killed in a fight to obtain butane gas cylinders in the Daqahlia province on Sunday, as people clashed with a stock owner for allowing street vendors to get their share before other people.
A local hurled stones at the owner, but one rock mistakenly hit another local who was standing in line next to his empty cylinder, killing him.
Dozens of residents in Kafr al-Sheikh staged a protest outside the municipality council in Beiala city because of the lack of cylinders. They accused employees of selling the cylinders on the black market.
In Minya, disputes erupted between citizens and distributors. The price of the cylinders on the black market reached LE100 in the southern part of the Sohag governorate, compared to LE75 in the north. The supply department said it has intensified campaigns to stock stores and has arrested one of the owners for selling 30 cylinders on the black market.
Meanwhile, Abdel Hamid al-Haggan from the Qena province said 33,000 cylinders were pumped into the market, while the supply department in Damietta said 302 tons of gas arrived in the province and that a task force was formed to receive any complaints.
In related news, Waheed Abu Zeid, head of the general division for petroleum substances, said the deficit in gasoline and diesel oil reached 40 percent nationwide. He told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the crisis started almost two weeks ago in Upper Egypt and that it will not ease unless additional amounts of fuel are pumped.
An informed source from the Supply Ministry, however, has said that the actual deficit is no more than 20 percent and that there has been coordination with the Petroleum Ministry to pump additional amounts of fuel. He said the crisis should be resolved by the Petroleum Ministry and not the Supply Ministry as it is the former that should provide the product.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
