The specter of accumulated debts is haunting Cairo’s metro, putting Egypt's most popular means of transportation in jeopardy.
Hit by a severe cash crunch, the state-run Egyptian Company for Metro Management and Operation failed to pay huge water and electricity bills worth about 300 million Egyptian pounds ($16.6 million) for the past 18 months. Compounding the problem is that water and power companies have warned that they will halt their services if these bills are not paid. Between the hammer of these outstanding debts and the anvil of hefty annual losses, the three-line metro network is struggling to curb its budget deficit.