... except for 600 EGP. I transferred the remainder, amounting to 6300 EGP, to the reserve. I did not find among the approved projects any significant ones of this nature, except for an eye hospital in Sharqia and a hospital for boys in Minya. It appears that the councils encountered difficulty in identifying matters of public benefit that lacked financial assistance or encouragement, despite the urgent need for improving transportation, constructing bridges and canals, attending to medical care, improving health conditions, establishing schools in villages, and eye hospitals, among other urgent needs suffered by the rural population. I am certain that the councils will exert effort in the coming year to remove any criticism directed at them now due to these matters. I note with satisfaction the decision to establish eye hospitals in the villages of Assiut, Al-Buheira, Sharqia, and Minya, in accordance with the practice in other governorates, to support this endeavor. It is evident that this can be achieved without neglecting education, which the government supports the councils in with a grant of 10,000 EGP, as I mentioned in a previous chapter. This grant is strong evidence that the councils' important work in spreading literacy is duly appreciated. The government's primary motivation for providing this grant was its desire to spread primary education in the villages, with the hope that this sum would be used, as much as possible, to build high-quality schools that the councils would then manage and maintain, so that it would not be long before every large village had such a school.

37 - Municipalities and Local Councils The grants provided by the government in the past year to mixed local councils and municipalities amounted to 93,656 EGP, compared to 53,082 EGP in the previous year. These grants totaled 640,000 EGP in the first year and 191,253 EGP in the second. The law had previously allocated specific amounts for these grants, but it was decided in these two years to give each council half of the house revenues in its city, and to reduce the grant that the government was providing by an amount equivalent to that. This was a replacement for a fixed amount with a variable and increasing amount. The councils were motivated by this change to improve and develop the cities entrusted to their administration, based on the success of their assistants. Mixed councils were established in Meet Afra, Zarfi, Kafr El Zayat, Tanta, and Minya, and councils ```