The NDP and government close ranks to head off growing criticism as bread shortages continue, reports Gamal Essam El-Din The government, in coordination with the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), moved on more than one front to refute accusations that they had failed to act to end bread shortages or combat rising food prices. Officials insist that the bread crisis will end "within a few weeks" and that the government remains committed to providing food staples at affordable prices to poor and limited-income citizens. Gamal Mubarak, the younger son of President Hosni Mubarak and chairman of the NDP's influential Policies Committee, used the ruling party's public rallies organised in preparation for the local elections, to address citizens in four governorates on the bread crisis and soaring prices. Speaking to NDP members in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria on 24 March, he said the NDP was discussing with the government the most efficient ways of lessening the burdens shouldered by the poor. "Our main objective is to earmark additional financial resources to the most needy [and ensure] the number of poor families receiving social insurance pensions increases from 1.2 million to two million in the next few years." Gamal Mubarak added that the salaries of state employees will be doubled in 2011 and promised that bread shortages will end in the next few weeks. "There will be a separation between the production and distribution of bread. It will take some time," he said, "but in the end will guarantee that citizens have easy access to their bread needs." He surprised some commentators by the sharpness of his attack on the economic legacy of the 1960s, which he took to task for distorting internal trade and pricing mechanisms in the local market. "There can never be a return to the policies of those years," he said. Three days later, in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Assiut, he drew the attention of party members to the promise in President Mubarak's 2005 election manifesto to allocate more money to subsidies. To meet this objective he said the government will add 15 million new names to the list of those receiving subsidised basic products including cooking oil, rice, sugar and tea. The move, Gamal Mubarak continued, would increase the government's annual food subsidy allocations by $3.1 billion to a total of $13.7 billion this year. And yet again he rejected calls to fix the price of food products. "This is a hangover from the 1960s and if it were to be re-applied most products would vanish from the market," he said. On 30 March, at a rally in the Nile Delta governorate of Beheira, he underlined the government's continuing commitment to buy local crops such as wheat and rice at international prices. Over a 10-month period, during which international wheat prices tripled, he revealed that the government had spent $2 billion on buying more than five million tonnes of wheat. "This is more than fair for local wheat growers," he said. Egypt grows just over half of the 14 million tonnes of wheat it consumes every year. Last Thursday the government also moved to ban exports of rice in an attempt to conserve supplies for domestic consumption. In Damietta on 31 March, Gamal Mubarak launched a scathing attack against independent newspapers and some TV satellite channels, singling out the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera. He accused them of painting a deliberately bleak picture of economic and living conditions in Egypt. "These channels seek to upset our citizens and it is important that we stand up to them," he said before going on to praise the government of Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif for getting the economy back on track, attracting more than $11 billion in foreign investments last year and increasing annual growth rates to 7.5 per cent. The spectre of Egyptians queuing for bread was raised last week in the People's Assembly when independent and opposition MPs called the long lines standing in front of bakeries, broadcast on satellite channels almost daily, a national scandal. On Tuesday 226 MPs joined ranks to denounce the government's response to the bread shortages, with Muslim Brotherhood and leftist MPs demanding Nazif be dismissed from office. Mohamed Abdel-Alim, a Wafdist MP, demanded the government pay compensation to the families of those that had died while queuing for bread, and to others hurt as violent clashes broke out in front of bakeries. Responding to claims that the government can not meet the economic challenges without the help of the president or the army, Minister of State for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Moufid Shehab said there was no shame in the army helping to solve the problem of bread shortages. "This is a national crisis which is too big for the government to shoulder alone," said Shehab, adding that, "President Mubarak decided to intervene and ordered the army to mobilise in order to solve the crisis more quickly." Minister of Social Solidarity Ali Meselhi insisted that the bread crisis will be solved within a matter of weeks. "It is not caused by a shortage of flour but is a result of bad management and the activities of black marketeers," he told parliamentarians.
