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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 February 1999 Issue No. 417 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 February 1999 Issue No. 417
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Special Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Slammin the bare facts
By Gamal Essam El-DinOn 16 December, Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri delivered his government's annual policy statement to the People's Assembly. Although El-Ganzouri had been confronted two weeks earlier by an unusual outburst of opposition from deputies of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), the prime minister was pleased to see that his policy statement, currently being discussed in the parliament, was welcomed and applauded by the Assembly.
But the statement has not gone down well with most opposition parties and several independent political and economic analysts. There was general agreement among them that the statement was lacking with regards to several vital issues.
For one, it was claimed, the statement made hardly any mention of political reform and democratisation. According to Hala Mustafa, a political analyst at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, democratisation and reinvigorating political activity with new blood are now a top priority on the agenda of many developing countries. "Despite this fact, it is a pity to see that the government's policy statement dealt with this urgent issue ambiguously and in the briefest of terms. The statement mentioned in just a few lines that the government is doing its best to show greater dependence on young leaders in various positions and to provide them with the necessary training. It is unbelievable that the government would whittle down its perception of democratisation to just a few lines and rhetorical phrases," said Mustafa.
For people like Gouda Abdel-Khaleq, chairman of the leftist Tagammu Party's economic committee, the statement's failure to properly address political reform is due to the fact that the issue has been struck off the government's agenda, now and for years to come. "This explains why the government not only ignores political reform in its policy statements, but also prevents political forces from raising such an important issue," Gouda said. He pointed to the failed attempts by parliamentary deputies to submit bills to the Assembly aimed at amending the law on the exercise of political rights. "The government has managed to block the passage of all these bills since 1990, a fact which proves its narrow perception of democracy and political reform," said Gouda.
Tagammu leader Khaled Mohieddin, addressing the Assembly on Tuesday, said it was not enough to have a free press in the country. "True democracy is measured by whether citizens are allowed to stage street demonstrations. Demonstrations are the barometer of democracy." Mohieddin added that the government not only prohibits street protests but also bans labour strikes.
El-Ganzouri, however, said the main objective of the policy statement was to explain to parliamentary deputies the achievements made by the government the previous year and to detail what it aims to achieve in the coming year. "The policy statement aims to tell the Assembly how far the government managed to fulfil its promises in the previous year and how it will proceed in the new year. This covers mainly economic and financial issues. As for political issues, they are left to the president's speech which is usually delivered on the opening day of each new parliamentary session," El-Ganzouri said in a press interview.
El-Ganzouri said that demonstrations always come at the expense of stability and security. "It is better to devote our efforts to production and development. Public marches and demonstrations will never ensure the stability needed for development and production," the prime minister said. As for labour strikes, El-Ganzouri said that they could be allowed provided that employers are given the right to dismiss workers. "The government does not give employers this right because it is very keen on securing the rights of workers," he added.
On the economy, independent and opposition analysts agreed that the government's policy statement was excessively dependent on stark naked figures. "The figures were cited in absolute terms without showing their relevance either to the national economy or the man on the street," said Mustafa.
Tagammu's Gouda agreed, noting that the statement said that since 1981, the government had allocated as much as LE48 billion to improve the services provided to citizens. "Here, the figure is mentioned in absolute terms, without telling us whether it is correct and without providing examples to demonstrate that this amount has really led to a concrete improvement in the lives of citizens. Not only that, but the figure also fails to tell us how much of this amount was paid to contractors and suppliers and how much went illegally to the pockets of consultants, as reports by the Central Auditing Agency at times uncover," said Gouda.
Mustafa, however, lauded the government's commitment to protect limited-income families from the ravages of new market-oriented policies. "On this point, the statement managed to redefine in specific terms the state's new role. It is a role that makes the private sector the main player in socio-economic development plans. Clearly, the state's role in economic production has been minimised, but at the same time its role in achieving social equality and raising the standard of the lower class has been maximised," said Mustafa. She said El-Ganzouri emphasised this new role after announcing that the government would allocate LE600 million this year to raising the salaries of average-income citizens, especially government employees. "The government's new role is dubbed in Western Europe as the third route or the new type of social liberalism adopted by Tony Blair in Britain and Gerhard Schroeder in Germany," Mustafa said.
But Ibrahim El-Essawi, an economist at the Institute of National Planning, argued that the government had so far failed to redefine its role in the post-liberalisation years. "The policy statement was clearly devoid of any new programmes aimed at combating poverty and glaring social inequalities. The new United Nations Human Development report mentioned that 48 per cent of Egyptians live under the poverty line. The same report affirms that 10 per cent of Egypt's richest people get as much as 26.7 per cent of the national income while limited-income brackets take in 25.1 per cent," said Essawi.
El-Ganzouri said the figures cited by the opposition are outdated because they were based on a 1986 census. "Conditions in the countryside have greatly improved since then, with 65 per cent of the rural population owning television sets, 65 per cent owning washing machines, 47 per cent with gas stoves, 38 per cent with refrigerators and 20 per cent owning water-heaters," El-Ganzouri said. In general, he added, the annual per capita income climbed from LE1,050 in 1986 to LE4,870 at present.
El-Ganzouri argued that the state will take on added responsibilities in a market economy. "The more the economy is liberalised, the greater the state's burdens will be. The state is now required to exercise strict control when supervising development projects. We have to make sure that these projects, regardless of whom they belong to, are in line with developmental objectives. We have to make sure that wealth is justly distributed among all classes," El-Ganzouri said.
