CAIRO: The bulk of Egypt's population is "frustrated, demoralized, desperate and indignant, revealed a recent study by Ministry of State for Administrative Development. The study, which polled 2,000 Egyptians from 40 different sectors, was conducted in cooperation with a research team from Cairo University. It aims to examine the changes in societal values and attitudes, especially when it comes to the government. "This information needs to be analyzed in order to understand the ongoing changes in the society so we would learn how to cope with them, said the Minister of State for Administrative Development, Ahmed Darwish, in the introduction. The negative attitude Egyptians have is due to the fact that they believe the state is biased towards "businessmen and those in power. According to the study, the state protects them, allowing them to make profit and benefit at the expense of the lower segments of society. In addition, 50 percent of Egyptian citizens have no trust in the government. Respondents were also asked to give their opinion on how we can put an end to administrative corruption and widespread bribery. The study outlines three key concepts related to corruption: Transparency (not enough information made available to the public by the government regarding politics, laws and decrees); accountability (the extent to which officials are held responsible for their actions); and integrity (the ethics and morals promoted at the workplace to make employees honest guardians of public funds). People mainly said that transparency is vital for citizens to make sound judgments and that it will put an end to administrative corruption and foster mutual respect and confidence between the government and the people. However, the study concludes that people in general prefer working for the public rather than the private sector. "Civil society feels that there is a gap between it and the government, but having the Ministry [of Administrative Development] keen on knowing what the people feel and what areas they want to change, shows that the government is with us and not against us, said Mahmoud Gabr, chairman of the Egyptian NGO Support Center and secretary general of the Egyptian Red Crescent. The Support Center has been working with the State Ministry for Administrative Development since October 2008 on a project titled "Raising Awareness of E-government Services in an effort to ease Egypt's notorious bureaucracy.
