A case of self-sabotage at the state privatization program? Conventional wisdom would have it that it a share sale would not be well served by antagonizing potential investors. That appears not to have come across to the Public Enterprises Ministry, as the head of the Holding Company For Metallurgical Industries, Medhat Nafei, penned an oped in Al Shorouk critical of what he calls “flaky investors.” Nafei, whose company owns Egyptalum, one of the 24 companies that will issue shares as part of the privatization program, goes into a long diatribe against “brokers” who are not serious about committing to the share sales and other investors who are fearful of getting into business with the state. We expected this from regular opinion writers, but from the head of a company about to issue shares? Welcome to the free market, Public Enterprises Ministry.

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