Corruption Drives Egypt Bread Crisis

CAIRO, Egypt — It's a sore point for a country struggling to contain bread riots: Bakeries that get government-subsidized flour often sell it on the black market at a huge profit, taking food from poor people's mouths.

But in Egypt — notorious for low wages and corruption — bakery workers say they have little choice but to steal the flour and sell it, both to feed their families and to pay the crushing bribes demanded by government officials and police.

The bread crisis here in recent days has largely been fueled by the worldwide increase in food prices, which has pushed more people to rely on subsidized bread in an impoverished country where 20% of the 76 million population live on less than $1 a day. The result has been bread shortages and riots by customers waiting in long lines at subsidized bakeries.

But the crisis has also highlighted the widespread petty corruption pervading Egyptian life — from bakeries to hospitals to police stations — that many who earn meager paychecks maintain is the only way to make ends meet.

In one poor district of Cairo, a government official in charge of a public bakery shows his paycheck: After 20 years in his position, he earns about $55 a month, including supposed bonuses.

"I have to steal — how would I survive without stealing?" the official, a father of eight, told the Associated Press.

He spoke on condition that he and the district where his bakery is located not be identified, fearing reprisals.

The government provides a ration of wheat to state-run bakeries at a subsidized price of about $1.50 for each 110-pound sack. The wheat is supposed to produce bread that sells for less than one cent per loaf.

But many bakeries sell some of it to private bakeries at up to $37 a sack.