Important pieces of legislation will be tackled by the new People's Assembly. Gamal Essam El-Din investigates The newly-elected People's Assembly is expected to debate key economic legislation as well as such controversial issues as privatisation and the sale of public banks. Outlining his reformist vision, President Hosni Mubarak said in a keynote address before the PA in its opening session on 19 December that he had directed the government to refer to parliament some key economic laws. The laws, said Mubarak, are part of a larger legislative agenda aimed at liberalising the economy and opening it up to foreign investments. Mubarak's liberalisation steps taken over the past year have already borne fruit -- growth rate rose from 4.8 per cent to 5.2 per cent, foreign direct investments topped an unprecedented $4.7 billion, while foreign exchange banking reserves boomed to approximately $22 billion from $13.2 billion in July 2004. There is no doubt that the achievements, carried out in the space of a few months by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif's young and dynamic economic team, have generated optimism in the new parliament. Many MPs, belonging to both the opposition and the ruling National Democratic Party, believe it will be a busy season for the country's legislators. Mubarak's address put the spotlight on four key socio-economic laws: land tax, economic courts, unified construction, and education and health quality. Land tax aims at introducing a drastic overhaul of the law. It is basically in line with last year's package of laws which brought big reductions in income tax rates and average custom tariffs. The reductions are designed to boost the construction sector and lower prices of housing units. Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali's thinking is that if there is any drop in tax revenues from the reduction, it will not be expensive and will be compensated by a broadening in the base of tax-payers. Going hand in hand with the land tax is the unified construction law. According to President Mubarak, this piece of legislation is primarily aimed at boosting investments in the construction sector and helping overcome the growth of poor slums and haphazard communities around cities. The outgoing assembly strongly urged the adoption of the law because of its importance in urban planning and the elimination of squatter communities. The economic courts law is long awaited, aiming to meet a basic demand for the business community. Mustafa El-Sallab, an NDP MP and deputy chairman of the assembly's Economic Affairs Committee (AEAC), told parliamentary correspondents that businessmen have been calling for the passing of this law for more than 10 years. "Settling economic disputes in court is a waste of time and effort and usually ends up with a loss in money and rights," said El-Sallab, adding that special courts to settle economic disputes is a necessity to address relevant problems and minimise investment risks in general. The education and health quality law figured prominently on Mubarak's agenda, seeking as it does to raise the quality of educational and health services. The means to achieve this, Mubarak said, will come by establishing two education and health quality authorities that will aim to ensure that services in these two vital sectors are offered in line with internationally recognised standards. In addition, the AEAC recently approved a new law aiming to keep Port Said city duty-free for an additional two years (from 2007 to 2009). During his presidential campaign in July, President Mubarak pledged that a 2002 law decreeing that Port Said should no longer be a duty-free city after 1 January 2007 be postponed until January 2009. Mubarak's pledge was adopted after Port Said's NDP MPs and leading provincial officials complained that the revoking of Port Said's duty- free status before development projects underway are completed will worsen the city's unemployment crisis. The AEAC is also scheduled to discuss another key economic legislation; the consumer protection law. Complementing the anti-trust law, the 23-article legislation seeks to tighten control over consumer markets by boosting the supervisory role of civil society organisations and stiffening penalties on illegal and unfair practices on the market. To achieve this, the legislation calls for the creation of a consumer protection authority charged with implementing the law. The board of this authority will include representatives from both the Supply Ministry and civil society organisations. Also on the agenda of the AEAC is several crucial issues, primarily the progress in the privatisation programme and the selling of public banks. The committee's chairman Mustafa El-Said said one of the committee's basic roles is ensuring that privatisation transactions are conducted in a transparent way and in a way that serves the national economy as a whole. He said the committee will closely follow the sale of the Bank of Alexandria and the merger between Banque Du Caire and Misr Banque. The recent shake-up of the assembly's economic committee has sparked controversy in parliamentary circles. Some Muslim Brotherhood and opposition MPs said they fear that the committee's make-up will make it look like the People's Assembly's "businessmen's lobby". Approximately 30 businessmen managed to win seats in the newly-elected parliament. Most of them decided to join the assembly's key economic committees -- the economic, industrial, budget and housing committees for example -- thus enabling them to form a strong lobby. In addition, the ruling party chose three prominent businessmen to chair important committees: Ahmed Ezz for the Budget Committee, Mohamed Abul- Enein at the Industry Committee and Tareq Talaat Mustafa in the Housing Committee. Ezz and Abul-Enein are members of the NDP's influential Policies Committee led by Gamal Mubarak. As for the 32-member economic committee, it includes 15 businessmen active in banking, foreign exchange, tourism, import and export and other businesses. Mustafa El-Sallab, a business tycoon in the ceramics and sanitary ware industry, and Hani Sorour, a large-scale manufacturer of medical equipment, were elected the committee chairman's deputies. The committee's chairman, former economy minister Mustafa El-Said, is now a businessman owning a law office for industrial and business projects. El-Sallab told parliamentary correspondents that allegations that businessmen are trying to form a lobby in the economic and budget committees were entirely unfounded. According to El-Sallab, MPs, be they businessmen, farmers or workers, should not confine their debates to personal interests. "It is my duty," said El-Sallab, "to raise all kinds of issues, especially raised by citizens who elected me." Ali Lotfi, a former prime minister, said businessmen MPs have the right to defend their interests in parliament. "They have only themselves to blame when they concentrate all their debate on their core interests at the expense of national issues and the interests of citizens who elected them," Lotfi said.
