Dr. Abdullah Hassan, a spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Endowments, told Sky News Arabia that the electricity bills for any mosque, mosque or corner on the land of Egypt are paid for through the endowment directorates affiliated to it.
He stressed that the officials of each mosque send invoices to the directorate they are affiliated with, and they are approved and paid from the budget of the Ministry of Awqaf.
For its part, the Ministry of Awqaf said in an official clarification that “the publication that caused this confusion relates to the mechanism of switching from the old electricity meter system to prepaid meters according to the joint plan between the Awqaf and Electricity, which has been applied in more than 95 percent of mosques, and the rest of them are being completed. In the same system in which full accounting for consumption is carried out, through endowment approval of consumption, and to ensure that electricity is not cut off from the mosque in any case.
She explained that “two meters have been allocated, one for lighting and the other for air conditioners, related to mosques that are being built new, or those that want to install air conditioners that did not exist before and are not supported by the mosque’s current electricity connections.”
Regarding mosques’ annexes (events homes, nurseries, medical clinics, or residential annexes), the ministry said that “a separate electricity, water and gas meter must be installed, so that the beneficiary bears his consumption of it, and this is not charged to the consumption of the mosque or to the mosque’s prepaid counter.”
The ministry stressed that what some news websites mentioned about uploading the mosques’ electricity bill to the people “is baseless, and there are absolutely no new instructions in this regard.”
The statement stressed that “the Ministry of Awqaf, thanks to God and the state’s care for it, will continue to perform its duty to the fullest extent in caring for the homes of God.”
She pointed out that “if the ministry announced a few days ago the lifting of donation boxes from mosques to control and govern the donation process, and to preserve the civilized form that befits the Egyptian state, it confirms that it is continuing thanks to God Almighty and thanks to the state’s sponsorship of places of worship in their performance and obligations. In the service of God’s houses, construction, replacement, renovation, maintenance and furnishing.”
And she stressed that “what has been implemented in terms of replacement, renewal, maintenance and furnishing for the houses of God since 2014 until today records unprecedented numbers in the service of the houses of God, which it announces successively and in detail on the official website of the ministry.”
She noted that “it is sufficient that the ministry opened in one year more than 1,700 mosques, of which more than 1,500 mosques were completely built new or replaced and renovated, which is a number and an unprecedented achievement in the history of mosque architecture, and we do not know which country in the world, old or new, built this number.” of mosques in one year,” according to her description.
Regarding the huge number of new mosques that have been opened, and some assert that it was the first to spend that money on education and health, Dr. Abdullah Hassan said that this number of mosques is not huge and a new mosque is not established except with specific controls and that there is actually a need for it.
In his statements to Sky News Arabia, he explained that if the main role of the Ministry of Awqaf is to take care of the houses of God, it plays a great societal role as well, as the ministry donated 200 million pounds to the Ministry of Education to establish new schools.
He added that the ministry also contributed to a decent life initiative to develop poor villages and initiatives to care for people with special abilities and other societal roles.
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