Sisi firm on boosting economy, announces 13 new ministers

CAIRO: President Abdel Fatah Al Sisi of Egypt announced a cabinet reshuffle on Saturday to improve his administration’s performance as it faces towering economic challenges stemming largely from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The cabinet shake-up, which was approved by parliament in an emergency session, affected 13 porfolios, including health, education, culture, local development and irrigation ministries.

A statement said the House of Representatives had approved “all the nominations set forth in a leter from President Abdel Fatah Al Sisi regarding a ministerial reshuffle.”

Also included in the reshuffle was the tourism porfolio, a key job at a time when Egypt is struggling to revive the lucrative sector decimated by years of turmoil, the pandemic and most recently the war in Europe.

Sisi said the shake-up came in consultation with Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouly. It was the third cabinet shake-up since Madbouly was named prime minister June 2018.

The president said in a Facebook post that the changes aimed at “developing the governmental performance in some important files ... which contribute to protecting the state’s interests and capabilities.”

Banker Ahmed Issa took over the Tourism and Antiquities Ministry, replacing Khaled Al Anani who led Egypt’s efforts in recent years to revive the tourism industry, a pillar of the economy. Such efforts included displaying ancient discoveries, opening new museums to atract international tourists.

Hani Sweilam, professor of water resources management at Germany’s RWTH Aachen University, was named as Irrigation Minister. He replaced Mohammed Abdel-aty who oversaw years of technical negations with Ethiopia over its controversial dam on the Nile River’s main tributary.

The new ministers are expected to be sworn in by Sisi early on Sunday.

The changes, however, didn’t affect key ministries including foreign, finance, defence and the interior, which is responsible for the police force.

The decision to replace outgoing irrigation minister Mohamed Abdel-aty comes just a day ater Addis Ababa announced it had finished its third filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

The Ethiopian water project damming the Nile is proceeding without agreement from downstream countries Egypt and Sudan.

The new irrigation minister is Hani Sewilam, a professor of sustainable development and water resources management at the American University in Cairo. He assumes the post amid increasing fears over water security and an impending water crisis.

The health porfolio has been filled by Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, the acting minister since October.

Abdel Ghaffar’s former post of higher education minister will be filled by his deputy, Ayman Ashour.

Another notable appointment is Egyptian Air Force chief Mohamed Abbas Helmy, who takes on the civil aviation porfolio.

Recently, Egypt’s cabinet had approved a plan to ration electricity to save natural gas that it will instead divert to the export market to generate foreign currency, it said.

Egypt has suffered from an acute foreign currency shortage since Russia’s February invasion of Ukraine, which pushed up global commodity prices, led to the collapse of tourism from the two countries and drove up the cost of borrowing.

Under the drat plan, shops and malls will have to limit their use of strong lights and keep their air conditioning at no cooler than 25ÚC.

Ministries and government facilities will have to turn off lighting at the end of working hours, the statement added. Street lighting will also be reduced. The government last month postponed a planned increase in electricity prices by six months. The higher prices would have been intensely unpopular among a population that over the last few years has endured a series of harsh austerity measures.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Madbouly said the government hoped to reduce the amount of gas used to generate electricity by 15%. He said domestic power plants bought their natural gas at one-tenth the price that it could fetch on international markets.

Europe has been seeking alternative sources of gas to cut its reliance on Russian gas as the war in Ukraine escalates.

Rapid growth in Egypt’s natural gas supplies, boosted by the discovery of the Mediterranean’s largest field, turned it from a net importer to an exporter in late 2018.

Egypt exported 9.45 million cubic meters of liquid natural gas in the first seven months of 2022, up 44% from a year earlier, according to Refinitiv data.

Egypt’s economy has been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing war in Ukraine, which ratled global markets and hiked oil and food prices across the world.