The Sawiris Foundation for Social Development donated on Saturday EGP 100 million to the Egyptian state for coronavirus relief efforts, days after vice chairman of the foundation’s board of trustees Naguib Sawiris made controversial comments about the measures taken to contain the coronavirus.

The foundation – founded in 2001 with an endowment from the Sawiris family – will dedicate EGP 40 million of the donation to daily wage workers and EGP 60 million to support medical facilities and provide them with ventilators.

Sawiris stirred up controversy recently after urging people to go back to work despite the epidemic in a phone interview with Al-Hadath TV channel on Tuesday.

The Egyptian billionaire said the state needs to open up the economy through “revolutionary decisions, no matter the consequences,” threatening to “commit suicide” if the restrictive measures to curb the spread of the coronavirus, like the partial curfew, were not relaxed.

Sawiris later clarified in a tweet that the suicide threat was a joke.

Sawiris, who is Egypt’s third richest man, told host Lamis El-Hadidi that after the two-week period of the curfew ends, people should gradually go back to work, warning that otherwise “collapse and disasters will occur.”

The businessman warned of an “economic bloodbath” if restrictive measures were not lifted next week.

Sawiris suggested several ways by which people could go back to work amid the pandemic.

“There are many solutions, we can distribute the workforce into a group that works on even days and another group on odd days,” Sawiris said.

“Another suggestion is that factory workers can sleep at their workplaces, stay there and avoid contact with their families,” he added.

“I personally am forced to not go out, I’m staying with my children [at home], I prevent them from meeting their friends and I don’t meet with anybody either,” Sawiris said on the precautionary measures he has taken.

The number of coronavirus cases in Egypt has so far reached 985 cases, including 66 fatalities. The highest number of increases in a single day was recorded on Friday with 120 new cases and eight deaths.

On 24 March, Egypt declared a two-week curfew from 7 pm to 6 am, the broadest measure yet taken to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

Authorities have warned that those who break the curfew are subject to penalties under the country's emergency law, which range from a fine of EGP 4,000 ($253) to imprisonment.

Egyptian authorities had already halted international flights, banned mass gatherings, shuttered cinemas, mosques and churches and suspended communal prayers.