PARLIAMENT is angry with the Government, because its privatisation policy has caused a major crisis for many workers who've been fired by the new owners of the factories that have been sold off in the past few years. There have been endless demonstrations by workers sitting on the pavement outside the Cabinet or the People's Assembly (PA) in Cairo, demanding the Government interfere to stop their factories being closed or, if they do close, to make sure the new owners pay them their dues. Those new owners tend to sack workers in order to decrease their costs or to replace them with foreign workers, mainly from Asia, who are prepared to accept lower wages. Some owners even liquidate the entire privatised company, selling off its assets and making a huge profit. Because of this injustice to local workers and the national economy, PA Speaker Fathi Sorour has warned that such projects could be confiscated or even nationalised, if these Arab and foreign investors aren't serious about running and developing them. In a recent parliamentary session, Sorour asked the Minister of Investment to activate Article 116 of the Penal Code that imposes custodial sentences on investors who aren't committed to the terms and conditions of their contracts, thereby causing public harm. But how many of the privatisation contracts actually safeguard workers' rights and prevented owners from firing them, or forcing them to take early retirement, while they are still young and capable of working? With the absence of new industrial projects to absorb these unemployed workers and the big drop in Egyptian workers in the Arab Gulf countries which prefer cheap Asian labour, the national economy is losing a lot because of all this wasted human potential. It is time to review the privatisation programme, launched twenty years ago, and consider whether Egypt has really benefited from it, or not.
