Workers and employees of Egypt’s largest private construction company Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) blockaded Cairo’s Nile-front Corniche on Wednesday, to protest the Egyptian government's ongoing investigation of the company on allegations of tax evasion.
Thousands of OCI workers raised banners demanding the government let them earn a living by resolving a recent LE14 billion (approximately $2 billion) tax dispute with OCI, related to its 2007 subsidiary sale to Lafarge.
Over the past week the Egyptian Tax Authority and OCI each released several statements explaining their legal claims.
Last Thursday, Egypt’s Prosecutor-General Talaat Abdallah ordered the formation of a technical committee tasked with looking into the tax dispute between OCI and the tax authority, after having issued a travel ban on OCI chairman and CEO Nassef Sawiris, and his father, former company chairman Onsi Sawiris.
