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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 August 2000 Issue No. 496 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 24 - 30 August 2000 Issue No. 496
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Upwardly mobile bureaucracy
IN THE most extensive move of its kind in the history of Egyptian bureaucracy, Prime Minister Atef Ebeid approved the promotion of over 1 million government employees to higher posts on Tuesday.This is not, however, another expansion of an over-bloated bureaucracy. Minister of Administrative Development Mohamed Zaki Abu Amer explained that the mass promotion decision was in line with the government's policy of administrative streamlining. The aim is to make the performance of government employees more effective by enhancing their job benefits.
In a statement to the press, Abu Amer was careful to stress that although the cost of the promotions would range between LE30 and LE35 million, this would not constitute an additional burden on the state budget. He also said that the structure of government employment would not change as a result of the promotions and that the civil service would not become top heavy because senior promotions, involving 480,000 employees, would be given on an individual basis. These positions would become redundant after their incumbents retired.
Smoking out the government
GOVERNMENT employment is getting slicker by the minute. The Ministry of Health announced this week that it would only hire and promote non-smokers, the rationale being that the ministry is a place for curing people and so a basic job requirement is for applicants and incumbents to refrain from harming them. Fair enough, if it were not for the fact that many doctors are smokers and that the government itself monopolises the production of cigarettes, the Eastern Tobacco Company being one of the largest cigarette-manufacturers in the Middle East and an important source of revenue.Paradoxes aside, the new guideline comes within the framework of the government's anti-smoking campaign, a drive initiated in 1977 when television cigarette advertisements were banned.
Last year, the Ministry of Education forbade smoking and the Ministry of Transport announced this week that smoking at airports would be restricted to specific areas.
According to a study prepared by the Ministry of Health, 40 per cent of adult Egyptian males and eight per cent of adult females are smokers.
This is one battle, however, where the effectiveness of one government body is another's loss.
The last suspect
MOHAMED Emara, a policeman suspected of taking part in the forgery of voter registration cards in the case of Saadeddin Ibrahim, sociologist and head of the Ibn Khaldun Centre, was released last Sunday on a bail of LE500.Emara was the last suspect to be released. Five others, including Ibrahim, had been freed on bail by the State Security Prosecutor. Although no formal charges have been pressed, Ibrahim was accused of receiving funds from abroad illegally, forging voter registration cards and acting to tarnish Egypt's image abroad.
A total of 22 people have been questioned or held in the case.
A horrible escape
WHAT is it that would drive a woman to concoct a poisonous potion of hair dye and fruit juice in an attempt to kill herself and her three children, aged five, six and eight?To date, the details are unclear. But Amal Abdel-Meguid, a woman from the Upper Egyptian governorate of Qena, appears to have mixed the lethal cocktail for the purpose of escaping her marital life and sparing her children possibly a harder life in case her husband re-married after her death.
Amal cannot tell the story of the horrors she must have seen because she is no longer alive. Her children are in critical condition at a local hospital.
Death chain
IT SEEMS that Qena was the governorate of calamities this week. In addition to Amal's suicide, six people were killed in what began as an attempt to clean out an abandoned well.The tragic deaths began when a man initiated the attempt, but got caught in the well and died of lack of oxygen. His brother tried to help him but was also asphyxiated, as were the four other compassionate citizens, each newcomer attempting to save those before him.
As if that were not bad enough, an old tree fell on the road as a minibus was passing by, resulting in the death of two people and the injury of 10.
Compiled by Fatemah Farag
