CAIRO — While the draft law on the Economic Commission of Nature Reserves has been failing to pass in Egypt since June 2015, Minister of Environment Yasmin Fouad announced Jan. 4 that parliament will soon adopt it. This gave rise to rumors whereby the Ministry of Environment and the Cabinet intend to pass the draft law in a bid to privatize nature reserves. Both Fouad and the government’s Media Center denied such rumors on Jan. 11-12.

The draft law, previously named the General Authority of Nature Reserves, was prepared by the Legislative Reform Committee, a government committee that was formed in 2015 to prepare and submit important laws to the president, who took over the legislative power until a parliament was elected and its first session was held in January 2016.

The committee submitted the draft on June 27, 2015, to the Cabinet for approval and referral to the president. However, the draft was not approved at the time for reasons that are yet to be revealed.

Subsequently, the parliamentary Energy and Environment committees prepared another draft of the same law in December 2017 under the title of the Economic Commission of Nature Reserves.