Abnegating responsibility

In an interview with Gamal Essam El-Din the Chairman of the People's Assembly Transport Committee Hamdi El-Tahhan takes the government to task for a series of tragic accidents

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Hamdi El-Tahhan

Last week's acquittal by a Safaga misdemeanours court of businessman Mamdouh Ismail, charged with manslaughter following the loss of 1,034 lives after a ferry he owned sank in the Red Sea two years ago, saw Hamdi El-Tahhan, chairman of the People's Assembly Transport Committee, thrust once again into the limelight. In February 2006 El-Tahhan was appointed head of a fact-finding committee on the sinking of the Al-Salam ferry. The committee eventually produced a 600-page report which criticised the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and held Ismail, a senior member of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), to be largely responsible for the deaths of the passengers.

How do you see last week's acquittal of Mamdouh Ismail of manslaughter charges?

Like many Egyptians I was deeply shocked by the verdict. All I can say now is that we have to be patient and wait until the appeal filed by the prosecutor-general begins hearings on 3 September. The decision of Prosecutor-General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud to file an appeal only four hours after the verdict was announced was a very good step and managed to contain public anger.

My shock stems from the fact that most Egyptians now believe that their government stands up first for the interests of businessmen. They see how Ismail and his son were able to flee the country in the immediate aftermath of the accident and they think his membership in the ruling party, his connections with senior government officials and enormous wealth all helped him avoid conviction. Cynicism runs so deep that it is regularly suggested the government ordered the court's verdict. The court ruling will serve to deepen distrust between the government and most Egyptians.

Do you believe what is said about Ismail and his connections with senior members of the NDP?

I was entrusted by the People's Assembly to chair the parliamentary committee charged with investigating the circumstances which led to the sinking of Al-Salam 98 ferry. The committee focussed on the causes of the tragic accident and the reaction of government authorities in terms of rescuing passengers and compensating the families of the victims. During the investigation the committee did not find evidence of what some now characterise as personal connections between Ismail and top NDP officials. During parliamentary debates, however, some opposition MPs pointed accusing fingers at the chief of presidential staff Zakaria Azmi, accusing him of helping Ismail flee to London. Azmi responded to these attacks at once, admitting he was a friend of Ismail but strongly denying extending any helping hand.

How do you view the reasons the court gave for acquitting Ismail?

These were very shocking to me. Most of them contradicted the report prepared by the parliamentary fact-finding committee which detailed all the circumstances leading to the tragic accident and reviewed the performance of Ismail and his company and government authorities in terms of rescue operations. I am not sure that the court read the report carefully. In its appeal the prosecutor-general's office emphasised that the court ignored much of the evidence presented.

But the court also said that the evidence presented by prosecution was not strong enough to convict Ismail.

Most of the evidence provided by the prosecutor- general's office drew on the parliamentary fact- finding report. An independent technical committee formed by the prosecution also agreed with many of the findings contained in the parliamentary report. Let me then review some of the reasons the court cited for acquitting Ismail. The court said Ismail was not obliged to inform the Red Sea Research and Rescue Centre of the accident and that the person entrusted with that job was the manager of Ismail's Al-Salam company's department of operations. This is not correct. It is Ismail who is charged with this task and the fact that he sent a fax to the centre on the morning of the accident suggests he was fully aware of this. The court also said Ismail was not the owner of the rescue vessels Al-Salam Knight and Eleanora and as a result he was not in a position to order them to participate in the rescue operations. Again, this is not true. The parliamentary report, supported by documents, showed that Ismail is the agent of the two vessels in Egypt and that they work upon direct orders from him. Ismail did indeed order Eleanora to participate in rescue operations, but only after a delay of many hours. This delay is likely to have caused a great many unnecessary deaths.

Two years after the ferry accident, do you still believe the government must bear some responsibility for the disaster?

I believe that the poor performance of this government is to blame for the many of the tragic accidents that have occurred in Egypt in recent years. Nazif's government does not care about the majority of Egyptians. It is a government for businessmen, devoted to implementing market- economy policies. The reaction of its members to disasters is slow and lacks any sense of urgency. Nazif himself did not bother to attend the discussion of the parliamentary report about the ferry in the People's Assembly. He should have come to the assembly to take note of the performance of government authorities and then have vowed to take whatever measures were necessary to fight the negligence and corruption that is rampant in the maritime authorities. The same response, or lack thereof, was evident following last year's Qaliyoub (North Cairo) train crash, and after the May clashes between Christian priests and Arab Bedouins in Minya. It is clear the government is unwilling to enforce the rule of law. It depends only on the security forces. I had hoped that the assembly would react to the report levelling accusations of negligence and corruption against public officials by withdrawing confidence from Nazif's government.

Yet the ruling NDP, to which you belong, always intervenes to save the government...

This is true. It is why we so urgently need reform, transparency, accountability and peaceful change.