Chief Executive Officer of UAE’s Dana , Patrick Allman-Ward, said that the company will not inject new investments in Egypt because of delays in obtaining payments owed by the government, Reuters reported.

The government owes an amount of $265m of arrears to the Emirati company as of the end of 2016, up from $221m by the end of 2015. In this sense, Allman-Ward said: “As uncertainty remains we must therefore be rigorous in balancing any additional capital investment in Egypt with actual collections.”

Despite the halt of all non-critival projects since the start of the year, Dana is committed to complete current Egyptian investments in critical health, safety, security and environmental areas and all the up-and-running projects.

Allman-Ward now hoped part of a combined $5.5b that Egypt has secured through an international bond issue and loans from the World Bank and African Development Bank would be used to meet outstanding petroleum debts.

Dana’s investment freeze would be reviewed once it had been paid by the Egyptian government, Allman-Ward said, adding that the company wanted to continue developing its assets there.

The Company recently announced it posted a $7m net profit in Q4 of 2016, down from $134m in 4Q2015.