The ruling party and the government renewed their pledge to solve the problems of the needy, reports Gamal Essam El-Din The NDP's six-member steering bureau held a two-hour meeting on Sunday with Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif to review the government's legislative and economic agenda. The meeting was attended by NDP Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif, chairman of the party's influential Policies Committee Gamal Mubarak, Chief of Presidential Staff and NDP Assistant Secretary-General Zakaria Azmi, NDP Secretary for Organisational Affairs Ahmed Ezz, NDP Secretary for Media Affairs Alieddin Hilal, Minister of State for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and NDP Assistant Secretary-General Moufid Shehab and Sami Zaghloul, secretary-general of the council of ministers. According to El-Sherif the meeting was aimed to assess the measures necessary to curb inflation, fight poverty and find solutions to the problems facing citizens in poor villages. The party's provincial offices, said El-Sherif, have been instructed to regularly review the demands of citizens. "This will enable the party to form a true picture of the needs and aspirations of citizens and thus help the government confront their problems." El-Sherif stressed that the NDP and the government were committed to maintaining food subsidies and boosting investments to generate more job opportunities. He also disclosed that the NDP and the government believed the highest priority should be given to completing draft laws on comprehensive health insurance and local administration. "The first law," he said, "aims to bring as many Egyptians as possible under the health insurance umbrella while the second seeks to decentralise local administration." NDP sources say that in meeting with Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif senior party officials urged the government not to adopt any inflationary measures that might provoke citizens. Nazif also discussed government preparations for the implementation of the ruling party's parliamentary election programme. Gamal Mubarak indicated that the Policies Committee will begin holding meetings next week to debate issues covered by the party's parliamentary election programme. "These issues require close coordination with the government because they focus on employment, subsidies, inflation and public services," said El-Sherif. The NDP's parliamentary election programme has cost LE2 billion. Many believe that Nazif's government is currently on probation. Its survival will depend on how it will be able to implement the NDP's election programmes while avoiding measures that might inflame public opinion. On Sunday the cabinet approved a raft of laws that seek to protect consumers against the vagaries of the market economy by toughening penalties for making misleading statements or wrongly advertising products and regulating the use of commercial trademarks. Penalties against sexual harassment will also be strengthened. In a television interview broadcast on 12 January Nazif sought to deflate accusations that the government is biased towards the wealthy and businessmen. "The fact that we provide subsidised food products to 60 million citizens is clear proof that this government is working primarily for the poor and needy," said Nazif. "The government is currently working on consolidating two kinds of programmes. The first, President Hosni Mubarak's 2005 presidential election programme, is now almost five years old and the government has implemented some areas of it 100 per cent." In other areas, however, Nazif conceded that implementation was behind target -- 70 per cent or 80 per cent. "For example," he argued, "Mubarak promised 4.5 million new jobs. We created just four million jobs but by the end of 2011 we will reach the required benchmark." The NDP's parliamentary election programme, said Nazif, was drafted in close coordination with the government. "This programme aims to increase annual growth rates to eight per cent, upgrade commercial legislation and open up infrastructure projects to private investment," said Nazif. "Infrastructure projects are very costly and in order to secure eight per cent growth you have to spend at least LE300 billion, an amount beyond the capacity of a government focussed on social subsidies and meeting the basic requirements of the needy." As a result, Nazif said, the private sector will be allowed to tap into large-scale infrastructure projects in vital areas like potable water, sanitary drainage and hospitals. "The fact that it is the private sector that will foot the bill of these investments does not mean that services will be offered to citizens at a high price. Instead the private sector," argued the prime minister, "will relieve the state budget of high costs and allow financial resources to be directed towards raising salaries and beefing up subsidies."
