This is called “spitting in the soup”. The Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, regrets having invested in Algeria where he was nevertheless able to make superprofits in telecommunications and the manufacture of cement.
More than ten years after having left it, Naguib Sawiris shows ingratitude towards Algeria .
Asked by a user on Twitter about the projects and countries where he regrets having invested, he directly quotes Algeria and a telephone network he set up in Canada.
The Egyptian’s adventure in Algeria ended in a stormy way, but the profits he made there should have dissuaded him from making such a judgment.
It is not even certain that this is the fund of his thought since, logically, we do not regret projects where we put little to reap a lot. Because that is exactly what Naguib Sawiris did in Algeria.
The Egyptian businessman entered Algeria in the early 2000s through its telephone subsidiary, Orascom Telecom, not without much largesse from the Algerian authorities of the time.
In an almost virgin market, Orascom had obtained a telephony license which will be operated under the commercial brand Djezzy, becoming the second operator on the Algerian market with the incumbent operator Mobilis.
At the time, it was even rumored that Naguib Sawiris had built the network without large investments, by selling inactive telephone lines which would only be functional after several weeks, even several months.
This money thus collected which would have allowed the installation of the installations necessary for the operation of the Djezzy network in Algeria.
Whether the scam is true or unfounded, the fact remains that the profits that Orascom will realize from the first years are impressive, amounting to several hundred million dollars per fiscal year. The situation lasted nearly ten years, until the famous case of the cement plant sold to Lafarge.
As part of the facilitations from which he benefited, the Egyptian billionaire had acquired a public cement plant at an advantageous price, with the commitment to turn it around and develop it.
But in 2008, it was sold to Lafarge with a significant capital gain and without informing the Algerian authorities. It was the beginning of the end for Sawiris in Algeria. In 2009, Orascom Telecom will be subject to a tax adjustment of more than 600 million dollars for irregularities in the balance sheets of previous years.
The following year saw Algerian-Egyptian relations go through a period of crisis because of the football match between the selections of the two countries for the account of the qualifications for the 2010 World Cup.
The measures taken against Orascom coincided with this period but they are the result of the actions of the group’s managers in Algeria. The Telecom subsidiary of Sawiris in Algeria will change hands several times until it becomes the property of the Algerian state in 2022. By selling its shares to a Russian group in 2011, the Egyptian had made a significant capital gain.
