MPs demand delivery not promise

The recent limited cabinet reshuffle seems to have done little to save Prime Minister Atef Ebeid's government from accusations of poor performance. Gamal Essam El-Din reports
Ruling party MP Zakaria Azmi, who is also President Hosni Mubarak's chief-of- staff, stunned the People's Assembly this week when he took the floor to respond to Prime Minister Atef Ebeid's policy statement delivered on 8 January. Azmi told the House that, in fact, there was nothing to say about Ebeid's policy statement. "I have, however, one recommendation to give this government about the coming period -- please refrain from giving any new promises and just concentrate on delivering on the previous ones. I even recommend that, when the government next comes to parliament, it has to be armed with a balance sheet of actual achievements." Speaker of parliament Fathi Sorour thanked Azmi for his advice and urged the government to heed it "because it is loaded with both implicit and explicit significance."
Azmi's blow encouraged other MPs to join forces in slamming the performance of Ebeid's government and arguing that last week's limited cabinet reshuffle would prove ineffectual in improving government performance. Mohamed Farid Hassanein, an independent MP and a big businessman, charged Ebeid's government with "lying to President Mubarak."
"It is our right to tell President Mubarak that this government is deceiving him and that we demand its replacement with another," Hassanein said. His words enraged Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Kamal El-Shazli who replied that Ebeid's government has never lied to Mubarak. "This is besides the fact that the president would never let anyone deceive him. President Mubarak knows quite well that the government's performance is constrained by budgetary limitations," El-Shazli said.
For his part, President Mubarak moved last week to issue a number of instructions to the Ebeid's government. In a meeting, held on 12 March, Mubarak urged cabinet ministers to be realistic and honest in making public announcements. "Cabinet ministers must avoid issuing rosy statements which are far from being realistic. Improving public services must be a top government priority in the coming period and this is why cabinet ministers must give greater attention to systems of field supervision and rules of good management," Mubarak said. The president also urged provincial governors to have direct contact with ordinary citizens and adopt decisive and innovative measures to solve the problems faced by Egyptians in their everyday lives.
Mubarak also gave strict instructions that cabinet ministers must gain his personal approval before travelling abroad. "Visits abroad by cabinet ministers and provincial governors must be regulated to ensure that they are necessary and cost- effective. In addition, they must have the president's personal approval," Mubarak said.
The meeting with the cabinet ministers took place in the aftermath of public outrage over the government's reaction to the train inferno and following a limited cabinet reshuffle carried out on 11 March. The change included assigning responsibility for civil aviation to a separate ministry. The new transport minister, Hamdi El-Shayeb, was previously head of the Petrojet oil and gas construction company. The new civil aviation minister, General Ahmed Shafiq Zaki, is an ex- commander of the Egyptian Air Force.
The cabinet change, however, included a surprise -- Health Minister Ismail Sallam was replaced by Mohamed Awad Tageddin, the former dean of Ain Shams University.
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