Parliament has extended the president's right to conclude secret arms deals despite objections from independent and opposition MPs, reports Gamal Essam El-Din The People's Assembly decided on Monday to extend President Hosni Mubarak's unrestricted mandate to make financial allocations for armaments and other military procurements for another three fiscal years. The decision authorises Mubarak to conclude military purchases from foreign countries without making them public or informing the People's Assembly. The assembly approved the latest extension by a majority of 314, allowing Mubarak to "ratify agreements on military purchases and sales, and issue law-decrees concerning military production until 26 June 2013". A report by the assembly's National Security and Defence Committee argued that, "successive political and security troubles at both the international and regional levels require that Egyptian military forces remain equipped with all kinds of arms in quantity and quality", adding that "armament agreements must be concluded secretly and quickly in order to meet the state's defence requirements". According to the report, "Egypt's military strategy is based on diversifying sources of military supplies and ensuring its armed forces remain the Arab world's bulwark against aggression." Leftist and Muslim Brotherhood MPs complained that the extension was unconstitutional inasmuch as it undermined the authority of the People's Assembly to supervise arms agreements. "This mandate has now been extended for 36 years without the People's Assembly having any role in supervising money spent on secret military purchases," said Ahmed Abu Baraka, a Muslim Brotherhood MP. The mandate, he continued, violates articles 108 and 151 of the constitution, which stipulates that parliament should ratify military purchases in all but exceptional cases. Mahmoud Abaza, chairman of the Wafd Party, said extensions of the mandate for 36 consecutive years made a mockery of parliament's supposed supervision of military procurement deals. He proposed that a parliamentary sub-committee be formed to review arms contracts. "This will ensure secrecy and affirm that parliament monitors these deals without making them public at the same time," said Abaza. Opposition and independent MPs stressed that their objections should not be construed as a criticism of President Mubarak. "We fully respect President Mubarak and are happy that he is back from Germany in full health," said Abu Baraka. "We are objecting to a principle rather than to a person." Speaking for the government, Moufid Shehab, minister of state for legal and parliamentary affairs, said the extension was necessary to ensure the armed forces remained strong in times of peace as well as war. "This extension does not violate the constitution because it is not open-ended," argued Shehab. "We stress that this extension applies for a fixed period, even if in total they have extended for 36 years. When it comes to an end we will inform the assembly of all the armament deals that had been concluded." Major-General Mamdouh Shahin, deputy minister of defence, explained that, "the first time a military mandate was issued was in May 1967 and at that time it was comprehensive, including all matters of national security and not just military purchases." "When a new constitution was issued in 1971, it was decided that Article 108 be formulated to give the president of the republic certain powers on military purchases only." Responding to Shahin, Brotherhood MP Sobhi Saleh said "the mandate was necessary in 1974, less than a year after the end of the October War in 1973, because military purchases had to be kept a closely-guarded secret with Israeli forces still occupying Egyptian land in Sinai." "But now," argued Saleh, "there is no necessity. We are not in a state of war with Israel." Saleh proposed that, "instead of extending the mandate indefinitely, let's stop and review contracts already concluded, and should the legislation need renewing then it can be renewed." Saleh's proposal was rejected by the majority of ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) MPs. Ahmed Ezz, chairman of the assembly's Budget Committee, insisted that, "whatever the opposition's 'utopian' talk about the mandate and armament deals, they should answer one question: do they approve of armament deals being made in secret or not?" "As far as I know nobody is arguing that contracts concerning Egypt's army be made in public so the CIA and Mossad have full information about them." In Ezz's words: "Egypt's national security is a red line and we can maintain it only by guaranteeing the secrecy of armament deals."
