Close up: Sad picture By Salama A Salama A broadside of accusations has been unleashed at Farouk Hosni, the minister of culture, since the theft of Van Gogh's Poppy Flowers from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum. As chief of Egypt's cultural institutions, Hosni is automatically blamed for anything damaging Egypt's artistic wealth. Investigators have discovered that security precautions were inadequate in the museum and that most of the surveillance cameras were out of order. This made things worse for Hosni, for it was clear that things have gone badly wrong in the top rungs of his ministry. A minister runs an army of senior employees and top aides. He can hire and fire them at will, and they are given some powers, but they still need to go back to the minister to get anything done. This is the curse of the Egyptian bureaucracy; that officials can be in charge and not in charge simultaneously. The whole thing was déjà vu. The chief of the Plastic Arts Sector was accused of dereliction of duty. He in turn accused Hosni of failing to take corrective action, although he knew that the situation was bad at the museum. With top aides failing to understand exactly where their responsibility begins and that of the minister ends, things were bound to get messy. There is no specification of duties in such an unwieldy bureaucracy. No one seems to know the limits of the political and legal responsibilities of the minister and his assistants. I cannot remember one case in which an Egyptian minister admitted responsibility or resigned over a serious error committed by him or his assistants. So why are we blaming Hosni now? A few months ago, the worst scandal in the history of the Ministry of Health was uncovered. Some parliamentarians were using state funds illegally to treat well-connected patients. Investigators in the case found out that senior ministry officials were involved. As a result, the public attorney summoned the health minister, not to interrogate him, but for a chat over coffee. It seems holding a minister accountable is not a tradition we wish to start in this country. Ministers are rarely questioned about their actions. The recent hullabaloo about state-owned land being sold at less than its real value is a case in point. The newspapers slammed the housing minister and his predecessor. A lot was said about land being sold to cronies. On more than one occasion, the minister was summoned to the office of the public attorney to testify. But no public statement has been issued. No one cared to tell the public what was going on. To this moment, the matter of Egypt's gas supply to Israel is unresolved. The Administrative Court has issued a ruling on the matter, but the government failed to implement it or even comment on it. When power cuts started this summer, mainly because power stations couldn't handle the elevated consumption of electricity, Ministry of Electricity officials said that shortages of gas caused by the low- priced gas we're selling to Israel were to blame. Reports were filed with the public prosecutor, but then nothing happened. In Egypt, ministers are never put on trial, for any reason. Sometimes, in very rare occasions, they are asked to resign quietly, and nothing more. We'll keep talking about the theft of the Poppy Flowers until we get tired of talking. The minister and his assistants will keep trading charges until we're tired of listening. Then we'll stop caring, because we'll discover the fate of the painting, or because a bigger theft has happened. That's when we'll start talking about the new theft instead.
