The Government appears to have been swept off its feet by a series of domestic crises. Refusing to confess to its state of helplessness, it has announced, for the first time, a consistent economic policy – euphemistically named rationalisation – of cutting the supply of all basic and other commodities. Moreover, services are also included in this collective rationalisation, which can only be described as a consistent policy, because all economic and service-providing ministries are, for the first time, jointly campaigning to make sure that the entire nation (especially low-income and poor citizens) will honestly comply with the new strategy. Accordingly, Egyptian citizens have been told to rationalise their food consumption, because prices of basic commodities have spun out of control and the Government is unwilling to intervene; citizens are also told to reduce their consumption of subsidised baladi bread because there are going to be shortages and the unsubsidised alternatives are expensive. The recurrence of the bread crisis comes in the wake of a decision by Russia to suspend its wheat exports to regular customers, including Egypt, after unfavourable weather conditions have disappointed Russian wheat growers this season. It seems that the price hikes are a sinister governmental mechanism to compel obstinate poor and low-income citizens to buy fewer basic commodities than they normally do. Therefore, to beat the citizens' obstinacy, the Government has allowed the prices of sugar, food oil, rice, macaroni, cheap imported beef, lentils, beans, tea and so on to soar. In response to the public's pathetic complaints, the concerned ministers have been hiding behind the three noes: ‘Hear no, see no, speak no'. And that is not all. Citizens have also been told to rationalise their consumption of electricity, in order to put an end to the hours-long power cuts. Years ago, the government announced that it was exporting electricity, after succeeding in connecting the national grid to countries such as Jordan – if I am not wrong, Spain was also involved in Egypt's connection bid. Two weeks ago, the Ministry of Electricity bleated that the nation's consumption of electricity has become so huge that electricity-generating stations were unable to cope. Since then, there have been repeated power cuts. The Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources has contributed to the Government's unprecedented and consistent policy this year by appealing to both ordinary citizens and crop growers to rationalise their water consumption. The Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources and his experts confess that rationalisation of water consumption is the only way out after talks with the other Nile Basin states over Egypt's quota of riverwater failed. African countries said that Egypt's quota was unfairly big. Wages have also been treacherously rationalised in the form of the imposition of higher taxes. In addition to soaring prices, higher taxes have reduced the value of a monthly salary of, for example, LE1,000 ($1=LE5.6) to only LE700 or even less. Birth control is another arrow in the Government's rationalisation quiver, with successive governments trying to get couples to have fewer children, without taking their economic circumstances into consideration. Citizens are afraid that this unprecedented and enforced rationalisation will never end. In the past, the Government always had a five- or 10-year fiscal plan, but there weren't any deadlines for rationalisation. Nor are there any signs that this Government will be reshuffled, which suggests that its policy of rationalisation will continue. Regardless of its difficulties, the Government insists that it is achieving success after success and that the international community is impressed by its performance and achievements. At the end of the day, the Premier and his ministers must be confident that the nation's poor are to blame for the crisis in the local market. [email protected]
