The campaign “Our Voices Against Your Money” prepared a report that is the first of its kind to monitor candidates financially. In its report, the campaign focused its monitoring on two departments in the governorates of Alexandria and Fayoum, tracking the candidates ’practices and the spending limits for their advertising campaigns.
The campaign is monitoring 64 candidates in Muharram Bey and Bandar Al-Fayoum
In its report on electoral financing and spending in the first round of the parliamentary elections, the campaign monitored 64 candidates in the two constituencies of Muharram Bey in Alexandria and Bandar Al-Fayyoum in Fayoum, with an average of 27 candidates in Fayoum, and 36 in Alexandria. For example, Mamdouh Hosni Ramadan, the independent candidate for the Muharram Bey constituency in Alexandria, spent more than one million pounds, equivalent to double the amount specified for advertising on the individual system, which the law restricted to 500 thousand pounds.
While the candidate, “Mohamed Mohamed Hassan Ghaith,” the candidate for the Free Egyptians Party in Bandar Al-Fayoum district, was one of those who exceeded the electoral ceiling for propaganda in the two monitored constituencies, as his spending on advertising reached more than 600,000 pounds.
Candidates exceed the ceiling ... and others spend 8,000 pounds
On the opposite side of this team, which exceeded the ceiling of the electoral campaign, the report said that the two monitored departments witnessed spending rates that did not exceed 8000 pounds for other candidates, which reveals a large difference between the candidates in spending on the electoral campaign.
The report noted that all the candidates in the two departments did not announce their bank accounts, with the exception of only one candidate, Haitham Abul-Ezz Hariri, as the law stipulated that the candidate announce his bank account to the people of his constituency, so that he could receive donations to it, and the report revealed that the estimated cost of the candidate Haitham Hariri It amounted to 35 thousand pounds.
Regarding this violation, the report said that the candidates' failure to announce their bank accounts is an indication of the lack of transparency, and evidence that candidates are spending on advertising from unseen resources.
Candidates deny receiving donations incorrectly
With regard to donations, the report stated that most of the candidates denied receiving any donations except for candidate Haitham Hariri, while the report noted that more than half of the candidates received in-kind donations, such as banners, election conferences and cars carrying loudspeakers for propaganda, and all these things were not done by the candidate or his supporters, but rather Others did it as a donation, but it did not appear and was not registered in the campaign accounts.
The report emphasized that all candidates do not have legal accountants in their campaigns, which contravenes the provisions of the law, as the law imposed the presence of a legal accountant for each candidate, in order to provide accounting books with the costs and rates of campaign spending recorded, and the financial report submitted by the candidate is not approved. Unless it was submitted by a certified accountant, but the candidates resort to fake accountants who do not know any details to approve their financial reports.
60 candidates spend outside of bank accounts on their campaigns
The most dangerous thing in the report is that 60 candidates spent their election propaganda outside of bank accounts, which is a clear violation of the law, which stipulated that spending on election campaigning should be from the candidate's bank account.
The report monitored the average spending in the Moharram Bey district in Alexandria, from 350 to 500 thousand pounds, while the Fayoum district was the least spending, as spending reached less than 200 thousand pounds, with the exception of "Mohamed Ghaith", a candidate for the Free Egyptians Party.

Partners for Transparency: We formed a committee in each department that includes 3 members
As for the details of the report and the mechanism of work and monitoring, Dr. Walaa Jad Al-Karim, Director of the "Partners for Transparency" Foundation - on how to access the size of candidates' spending - said that the campaign formed a committee in each department that includes 3 members: a legal accountant, an advertising expert and a community activist.
"Jad Al-Karim" added that the campaign has assigned a form to each candidate from the 64 monitored in the two constituencies. Each form carries a data package for each candidate's spending, then these data are converted into numbers, meaning that the number of banners, billboards, electoral conferences or appearing in Satellite TV, its cost is calculated and converted into a financial number.
In his statement, “Jad Al-Karim” indicated that the campaign had met more than half of the candidates, and most of them did not express any cooperation with the campaign, or provided it with incomplete information, stressing that the campaign will send its report upon its completion to the Supreme Elections Committee, as it is expected to be completed. Report within two days.
Partners for Transparency - a non-governmental organization - had announced the implementation of an initiative that is considered the first of its kind to monitor the funding and electoral spending of the candidates. The initiative is being implemented in five governorates at the rate of one district in each governorate, which are: Cairo, Port Said, Alexandria, Dakahlia and Fayoum.