The government has identified a list of its service projects to improve Egyptians' quality of life and ease their troubles, according to Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb. The ministerial committee held its first meeting on Saturday evening under the chairmanship of the prime minister and featuring officials from ministries including local and urban development, Awqaf (religious endowments), education, housing, social solidarity, environment resources and irrigation, international cooperation, agriculture, and transport and supply. "The committee is one of the most important ministerial committees because it interacts with the services provided to citizens, and will contribute to solve interface problems with different ministries through meeting and consultations to resolve financial entanglements and organise tasks. The committee will also assign priorities for a number of service projects that cannot wait, and necessary financing will be coordinated with the Ministry of Finance" stated Mehleb in a statement on Saturday evening. He added that he has assigned the Ministry of Supply to prepare a list of cooperative societies to be developed and provided with rations, and to ensure that delayed food supplies are provided to citizens. The past few days have seen obstacles in applying the new rations system due to a lack of displayed rations with distributors and incidences of fraud. "New facilities for the beneficiaries of the social security pension include six free rail trips annually, and four free subway trips daily," according to the Minister of Transport Hany Dahi. Minister of Housing Mostafa Madbouly said that businessman Yassin Mansour announced that the Mansour Foundation for Development will donate EGP 200m over four years for sanitation projects in a number of villages, and there is another group of businessmen, who are currently in negotiations to sign agreements for similar donations. "The rate of supply for school textbooks is currently two million books daily and are being distributed to schools nationwide," says the Education Minister Mahmoud Abou El Nasr, stating that at the beginning of the school year around 95% of books will distributed to schools, although press houses are currently operating at full capacity. The El Nasr said that a protocol will be signed with the Ministry of Youth and Sports to build 275 schools and youth centres. There is an agreement with the Minister of Religious Endowments to build school and housing complexes on a number of plots, 18 of which have already been obtained. El Nasr stated that there is a problem of delayed permits for the construction of new schools in some governorates, and the Mehleb underlined that he is coordinating with the Ministry of Local Development to expedite the speedy issuance of these permits. Regarding the Ministry of Education's announcement that 30,000 teaching job opportunities will be created, the Mehleb emphasised the need to set transparent standards, that nepotism or favouritism would not play a part in the new appointments, and that applications should be submitted electronically. Mehleb underlined the need to announce the results for the appointments on the ministry's website, accompanied by the applicant's assessment. Mehleb also instructed the Minister of Housing for the creation of a national project to train the unemployed to work on various crafts in 62 training centres affiliated with the ministry, in order to have a national plan to export skilled Egyptian labour abroad. According to the Minister of Local Development Adel Labib, "it has been agreed with governors to begin developing five villages in each governorate as a model, to be achieved within three months with the participation of civil society and in coordination with the relevant ministries," as part of the government's efforts to give attention to the poorest villages.
