It was a mixed bag on the airwaves last night, with the first day of the National Dialogue, the Telecom Egypt stake sale, and the president’s visit to East Owainat all getting lots of attention from the nation’s talking heads.

It was the first day of the National Dialogue yesterday, which featured four sessions focusing on the electoral system and discrimination, each of which was attended by around 600 people, lawyer Essam Shiha told Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi (watch, runtime: 10:43). Two sessions were concerned with choosing the best electoral system for the upcoming parliamentary elections, which saw a large number of political parties attend. The discussion ended with split votes. The other two sessions were focused on discrimination in education and health due to religion or race, he said. Ehab Al Tamawi, member of the dialogue’s political parties subcommittee, joined Masa’a DMC (watch, runtime: 5:15) to give his two cents on the sessions.

The TE stake sale continued to get attention: The government finalized the sale of a 9.5% stake in Telecom Egypt (TE) yesterday, raising EGP 3.75 bn. “It is clear that the purpose of the sale is for the government to prove how serious it is about the privatization program … and that it is flexible when it comes to the selling price,” El Hadidi said (watch, runtime: 7:02). “We need to see actual steps in the government backing out of the economy and more private-sector participation,” she added.

Everyone is asking: Who bought in? The state is yet to disclose the buyers behind the TE transaction but it needs to make the information public soon given TE is a listed company, El Hadidi said. “According to EGX regulations, when a company sees a change in its shareholders it needs to share an update with the new shareholders list,” Egyptian Capital Market Association VP Ayman Sabry told El Hadidi (watch, runtime: 4:27). FRA head Mohamed Farid also commented on the sale during an interview with El Hekaya’s Amr Adib (watch, runtime: 3:16).

A golden debut: Amr Adib dedicated most of his interview with Farid to discussing the launch of Azimut and Evolve Holding’s gold-backed investment fund, which was officially unveiled yesterday (watch, runtime: 12: 07 | 1:07 | 3:19). We have more information in this morning’s What We’re Tracking Today, above.

El Sisi’s visit to East Owainat got some airtime: President Abdel Fattah El Sisi yesterday inaugurated (watch, runtime: 2:45:20) the wheat harvest season at the military’s East Owainat desert reclamation project in the Western Desert. The project, located in the south-west of the country, is Egypt’s second largest wheat production site, producing around 3 mn tons of wheat every year. Egypt is working to cultivate 700k acres of wheat in East Owainat and Toshka this year, all of which will use smart irrigation, El Hadidi said (watch, runtime: 4:39). Ala Mas’ouleety (watch, runtime: 5:14) and Masa’a DMC (watch, runtime: 6:44) also had the news.

The government has so far bought more than 2 mn tons of local wheat since the start of the harvest season at the beginning of April, Supply Minister Ali El Moselhy said, taking it a third of the way to its 6-mn-ton target for the season. El Moselhy also added that the government currently has enough wheat reserves to cover five months and sugar to cover 10 months.

ALSO FROM THE EVENT- Australian food processing company TNA Australia is looking to further invest in Egypt, the company’s managing director said during the event, according to Al Borsa.

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