When you enter Tahrir Square, you cannot miss it. A huge, ship-like structure, Al-Mugamma was built in 1951 by architect Mohamed Kamal Ismail. Inside, 9,000 civil servants work in 1,356 offices on 14 floors. Al-Mugamma is considered the embodiment of Third World-style red tape. For Egyptians who have to run an errand to Al-Mugamma, it's taken for granted that it will be a long day's work. You are lucky if your errand is on the lower floors: the higher you go, the more the antiquated elevator is needed but you must stand in line first and wait for the outdated contraption to arrive. The Al-Mugamma experience has been a topic of both humour and satire in Egyptian films. An early 1990s movie by comedian Adel Imam, Al Irhab wal Kabab (Terrorism and Kabab) is about an ordinary Egyptian citizen who ends up putting the Al-Mugamma under siege, with a machine gun, because the bureaucracy is preventing him from transferring his children to a new school. A more recent movie by comedian Ahmed Helmi shows him trying to get a government identity card and standing in a day-long queue. When he finally reaches his destination, the civil servant asks for a bribe to give him the ID. When Helmi refuses, the employee tells him to return the following day — with more papers. The two films depict the bureaucracy and corruption Egyptians have to deal with. The civil servants in Al-Mugamma are a fraction of the six million-plus employees in the government apparatus whose salaries account for around a quarter of the state's annual budget. Bureaucracy is an obstacle not only in the daily lives of ordinary citizens but a common complaint by investors whose projects remain on hold until all the necessary paperwork and licences have been issued. Bureaucracy is often associated with corruption as there is always an employee willing to speed things up for the right price. Egypt ranked 94 out of 175 countries on Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index for 2014. This may be an improvement on the previous year, when it ranked 114 out of 177 countries but, nonetheless, it remains very low. The index ranks countries according to how corrupt its public sector is perceived to be. The government's long-time promises to deal with red tape and bureaucracy have not borne fruit. In an attempt to improve the performance of the government apparatus and eliminate bureaucratic inefficiencies, the government this year issued the civil service law. The law was prepared by the government and approved by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi in March 2015. It replaces Law 47 of 1978. Because the law deals with issues of hiring, firing and wages, it has proven controversial. It shakes bedrock principles that have for decades been associated with public sector employment. Although, in theory, Law 47 stipulates that if an employee receives a weak assessment for two years running he can be fired, in practice this is a rare occurrence. The norm is that government employees have guaranteed lifetime job security. The new civil service law greatly reduces benefits that the state has granted to civil servants for decades, said a study entitled “Low-Cost Authoritarianism: The Egyptian Regime and Labour Movement since 2013” written by labour economist Fatima Ramadan and political economist Amr Adli. The possibility of firing civil servants as a result of unsatisfactory evaluations was viewed as one of the most sensitive aspects of the new law. There were concerns that the evaluations could be biased. But the government has said that a decision to fire an employee is the last of many steps. Under the new law, an employee with a weak assessment for two years can be transferred to another post at the same level. If the assessment is still weak after three years, a percentage can be deducted from his salary. If the weak performance continues, a human resources committee can decide his or her fate, a cabinet statement explained in August. The statement was issued by the cabinet in response to protests by tax and customs employees, who complained that the new law will mean a cut in special bonuses they receive based on their respective revenues. But despite the protests, the government has not backed down from implementing it. Basic salaries under the new law will constitute 80 per cent of overall wages. Under the old law, the basic salary constituted 20 per cent of the wages. Bonuses, traditionally dependent on seniority, will now be calculated on performance. The law accelerates promotion and makes it dependent on an employee's performance as opposed to his or her seniority. Under Law 47, employees were promoted every six to eight years. Linking promotion to performance rather than seniority is considered one way to encourage civil servants to improve their performance. While a more efficient government apparatus would make life easier for the public as well as the business community, the latter needs it even more. For years, investors have complained about difficulties in acquiring licences and land to set up shop. Egypt's ranking on the World Bank's “Doing Business 2016” report leaves a lot to be desired. Out of 189 countries, Egypt's overall ranking was 131. In dealing with construction permits, it came in 113th; registering property, 111th; and enforcing contracts, 155th. To tackle these issues the government, ahead of the Egypt Economic Development Conference held in Sham El-Sheikh in March, introduced amendments to the investment law aimed at facilitating licencing, land-allocation procedures and costs through a one-stop shop run by the General Authority for Investment and Free Zones (GAFI). The amendments also introduced a new mechanism for out-of-court settlements of disputes arising from disagreements between an investor and the state, the aim being to reduce time, effort, cost and damages to investments resulting from litigation. But the amendments were not perfect. Economist and former deputy prime minister Ziad Bahaaeddin has written that there are several faults with the law. “The law was presented to investors as a solution to the convoluted process of obtaining operating approvals and licences. In fact, this issue cannot be resolved without major changes to the licencing regime itself and the prerogatives of local councils,” Bahaaeddin wrote on the Ahram Online website. Second, he said, the law creates a lottery for competing firms to acquire land and gives the GAFI authority to give away the land for free. “This creates fertile ground for corruption and favouritism to thrive and will cast the entire process of land distribution into doubt once more,” he said. Following the 2011 Revolution, many land contracts between the government and the private sector were questioned. Bahaaeddin called for the law to be revised, regardless of the embarrassment that it might cause the government. “It will inflict the least cost on the national economy. It is also much less damaging for investment than clinging to errors and infringing legal and constitutional precepts to save face.”
