The People's Assembly (parliament) approved yesterday the balance sheet of the State Budget for 2007/20008. The parliament witnessed a heated discussion between the MPs on the Central Auditing Organization (CAO) report, which was announced by its chairman Gawdat al-Malt two days ago. Some MPs called for bringing down the government or dissolving parliament. Independent lawmaker Kamal Ahmed has accused the government of being unable to solve problems without borrowing, adding: "After the CAO report, President Mubarak should change the government or dissolve parliament."
MP Mohamed Abdel Alim has called on the president to dissolve parliament after it lost its role of control in light of the corruption of management that was exposed by the report.
Independent MP Alaa Abdel Moneim said parliament would do nothing but hear the words of the government and the opposition as usual, and wait for al-Malt's statement next year, although the scandals exposed by the report are enough to bring down any government. The ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) MP Nashat al-Qasas, who has previously accused the opposition MPs of treason, has caused a new crisis when he said: "The report is good and the government is also good, but it is the people who are bad." The independent and opposition MPs got angry, and PA Speaker Ahmed Fathi Sorour decided to cancel al-Qasas's comment from the minutes, saying: "MP al-Qasas often says inappropriate words that make it incumbent upon us to delete them." MP Hamdi al-Tahan, head of the PA Committee on Transport and Communications, said the situation of no war and no peace between the government and CAO would never lead to any progress, pointing out that the government's performance should be assessed.
For his part, al-Malt said it is not he who said that the poverty rate in Egypt is 18%-40%, as these rates were announced by the World Bank, which confirmed that the current government achieved economic success, but it has not been felt by the poor and low-income categories.
In a related context, the Shura Council Speaker Safwat al-Sharif has described al-Malt as "just". During the Shura Council's discussions on the government's economic reform policy, al-Sharif said al-Malt's statement was balanced, as it defined the government's achievements in 21 points and its failure in 25 points.
