Privatization scandal

I've always been fascinated by Cairo's mouldy old department stores, like Omar Effendi's and Sidnaoui's. These were once gleaming, fashionable shopping meccas; after nationalization and decades of state management, they're the kind of places you walk by and wonder: "Who buys anything there?"
Not that surprisingly, Minister for Trade and Investment Mahmoud Mohieddin has put Omar Effendi on his list of state enterprises to be privatized. But he's already run into trouble. Al Masri Al Youm reports today that Mohieddin has been sued by an employee of the company for allegedly trying to push the sale through and evaluating the shopping chain at half its value.