Rage at Ebeid

A preliminary debate on Saturday into the causes of the Upper Egypt train disaster was well-orchestrated to cushion Prime Minister Atef Ebeid from criticism. He was not so lucky during a fact-finding meeting on Monday. Gamal Essam El-Din reports
This week's preliminary debate by parliament on the 20 February train tragedy in Upper Egypt was a massive disappointment. Party leaders had ordered most of the deputies of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) to exercise restraint and refrain from criticising Prime Minister Atef Ebeid. As a result, their discussions on Saturday were pusillanimous in the extreme.
The opposite was true at the first meeting, held on Monday, of the fact-finding committee set up on Saturday to investigate the causes of the tragic inferno. Although hardly any NDP deputies cared to attend, the committee made up in fury what it lacked in numbers. Out of a total of 133 deputies who submitted requests to take the floor in the committee's debates, only 50 were present. Of them, only 20 were given the floor. Most were members of opposition parties and the banned Muslim Brotherhood. But those attending made use of the absence of NDP deputies to shower Prime Minister Ebeid with criticism. Their vitriol was so acid that independent and conservative deputies such as Fayeka El- Rifai, one of 10 deputies appointed by President Hosni Mubarak and a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), could not help lashing out at Ebeid, too. Everyone joined forces to press for one demand: Prime Minister Atef Ebeid should be dismissed by President Hosni Mubarak as soon as possible "if Egypt is to save itself from more tragic disasters and crises," the deputies said.
"Our political system must dispose of this irresponsible government and make a new reconciliation with the Egyptian people," said Mohamed Ouda, an independent deputy for Shubra El-Kheima district in Qalyoubiya governorate (North Cairo).
The opposition and Brotherhood deputies also slammed People's Assembly Speaker Fathi Sorour for orchestrating Saturday's meeting of parliament to save Ebeid from an avalanche of criticism. "It is shameful that we were quite helpless in this meeting. We must apologise to the Egyptian people for failing to live up to their expectations," said Wafdist MP and journalist Mohamed Abdel-Alim Dawoud. Sorour was also vilified for failing to honour promises to air a live broadcast of the meetings of the fact- finding committee.
The only NDP deputy who stood up to the anti-Ebeid criticism was Mohamed Aboul- Enein, a ceramics tycoon, appointed by the NDP as head of the parliament's housing committee. Aboul-Enein described the attack launched by the opposition and Brotherhood deputies as false. He also charged the furious deputies with making propaganda for their own purposes at the expense of truth and to the detriment of Egypt's image in the foreign media.
The parliament's transport and telecommunications committee was charged on Saturday with acting as a fact-finding committee, investigating the causes behind the tragic train fire and suggesting ways of putting the railway authority back on track. The committee's chairman, Hamdi El-Tahan, an NDP deputy for Beheira governorate, said the committee was empowered to summon as many government officials as it pleased, ranging from Ebeid and cabinet ministers to Railway Authority officials. "We are also empowered to gather as much information as possible about the accident and the Railway Authority from all kinds of sources. It is also possible that we will be obliged to hold secret meetings," said El-Tahan. El-Tahan suggested that Ibrahim El-Dumeiri, the former transport minister, and Ahmed El-Sherif, the former chairman of the Railway Authority, be summoned to evaluate the recent performance of the Railway Authority.
El-Tahan also reproached the opposition and Brotherhood deputies who "concentrated on attacking prime minister Atef Ebeid rather than delivering objective statements and raising issues worthy of consideration and discussion." The fact-finding committee's first meeting was attended by Industry Minister Ali El-Saeedi, who has taken over as Transport Minister.
Addressing the People's Assembly on Saturday, Ebeid delivered a routine statement on the worst rail disaster in Egypt's history. Before delivering his statement, Ebeid was briefly menaced by Ahmed Abu Heggi, an independent MP for the Upper Egypt governorate of Sohag. Abu Heggi claimed that the true number of victims in the disaster was 1400, not the officially reported 373. "The people of Upper Egypt want to kill us for failing, as their MPs, to retaliate against their killers," Abu Heggi said.
In his statement, Ebeid gave a brief account of the measures taken by the government in the aftermath of the tragedy. Ebeid emphasised that all state authorities were mobilised at the speed required to give firsthand help to the injured and provide the families of the dead victims with provisional cash compensation. "I was informed of the accident just half an hour after the train caught fire. My instructions resulted in as many as 75 modern fire-fighting and ambulance cars reaching the accident site within two hours," Ebeid said. Ebeid vowed an overarching investigation into the causes of the accident and promised to review the conditions set for the Railway Authority to improve its safety performance in third-class trains and coaches. "Within this context, I assigned one of the Authority's leading officials (Eid Abdel-Qader, formerly the Authority's deputy chairman for engineering matters) to serve as acting board chairman," Ebeid said.
Ebeid blamed the deteriorating conditions in the Railway Authority on under-investment and long years of accumulated debt. "The Authority is saddled with LE17 billion in debts and 10 consecutive years of accumulated losses," Ebeid said. The authority, which employs 97,600 people, spends LE550 million on annual wages. "This is 70 per cent of its annual revenues," Ebeid said. Worse, Ebeid added, the streamlining and refurbishment plans require a further $200 million every year.
Ebeid, however, declared that he was up to the challenge of improving matters. "I'm ready with a comprehensive reform programme and I'm ready for you interrogation at any time. This is your right and this is my duty," he said.
Ebeid's lavish promises, however, fell on deaf ears. In the meeting of the fact-finding committee. Fayeka El-Rifai, deputy chairman of parliament's Plan and Budget Committee, verbally bludgeoned Ebeid for replacing the Authority's chairman with the deputy chairman for engineering matters. "This is utterly irresponsible. This man is sure to bear a large part of the blame for negligence in this authority," said El-Rifai.
During the meeting, most MPs also attacked Ebeid for "his premature conclusions" as to the cause of the accident, which he announced just a few hours after reaching the scene of the accident. "Ebeid's conclusion that the train had been in good shape before it embarked on its journey for Cairo to Aswan and that the fire was due to a butane cylinder is irresponsible," independent deputy Ouda said. Some MPs suggested that the Egyptian Armed Forces take charge of running the Railway Authority to bring it under discipline. They also thought that the Chemical and Intelligence Armies should be trusted with investigating the causes of the train fire.
A final sobering comparison explained why this latest trauma has caused such outrage. "The number of Egyptian martyrs in four wars against Israel stands at 63,000, while in 25 years the victims of train accidents stands at 136,000," pointed out Sayed Hozayen, a Brotherhood MP.
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