After one month of taking the office, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly presented the new cabinet’s policy in a statement before Parliament in a plenary session on Tuesday, asserting that the government will not leave any person poor through the continuation of the social protection services.
The policy of Madbouly’s cabinet is entitled “Misr Tantaleq” (Egypt kicks off), in reference to the next stage that country is going to witness after the full accomplishment of several development projects, which is on its forefront state’s economic reform programme launched in 2016.
The policy included some directives from President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi regarding the state’s economic reform programme to be implemented during the coming period.
“I would like to remind you that the basic mandate entrusted by the president of the republic to the government is to work on helping impoverished classes to get benefits from the results of the economic reform programme within two years,” Madbouly said, adding that main directives of Al-Sisi were related to economic reform and prioritising public demands.
He also said that his government will continue what was established by the previous government. Previously, the prime minister said that it will be a completion of the plans and goals initiated by the cabinet of former Prime Minister Sherif Ismail, pointing out that Egypt is a state of institutions that respect the achievements of former officials and work on continuing them.
The policy focuses on main pillars starting from protecting state’s national security, enhancing Egypt’s foreign policy to preserve region’s security, advancing security confrontation for terrorist operations, anti-crime activities, securing ports, touristic and archaeological areas, in addition to achieving water security.
The second pillar was the developing of the Egyptian human capacity, through the consolidation of cultural and civilisational identity and activating the role of cultural institutions and media awareness of the value system, as well as cultural heritage, spreading the culture of science and innovation, combating and treating addiction and abuse.
The third axis was economic development, regarding raising the efficiency of government’s performance and access to an economic growth rate of 8%, through the provision of funding resources and improve the management of public finances of the state and the development of sectors leading to economic growth. Regarding economic reform, Madbouly said that 85% of the economic reform has been accomplished since 2016, which marks its beginning.
The fourth axis of the government programme is to improve the levels of employment through the development of more projects, human skills development, and the integration of the informal sector in the formal work system.
The fifth and last pillar axes included improving the standard of living of the Egyptian citizen by controlling population growth and urbanisation, as well as, development gaps.
The policy further focused on starting and continuing a number of development projects, such social housing programme, as it is expected to complete the implementation of 230,000 housing units under implementation in various governorates and start the implementation of another 500,000 housing units to reach the total of the programme to 1.1m million housing units for low income citizens and youth.
Moreover, Madbouly said that the problem of unsafe residential areas will be solved through the completion of the 80,000 housing units being implemented in the various governorates.
The National Roads Project will be completed with the addition of 1,600 km at a cost of EGP 20bn, the development of the existing 2,500 km road network at a cost of EGP 25bn and the establishment of 20 bridges to cancel intersections on the road network at a cost of EGP 2.5bn, which will reduce road accidents by 30%.
Article 146 of the constitution stipulates that a newly appointed prime minister must deliver a policy statement before parliament, after which MPs should vote on the policy, in a process that ends within 30 days of the appointment of the PM.
Following the speech, Abdul Aal prevented some parliament members from voicing their comments and said that the MP did applaud, hence this meant that they agreed to the government’s proposed policy.
Egypt’s newly-appointed cabinet reviewed during their first meeting two weeks ago the letter of the presidential mandate for the new government.
On 14 June, Egypt’s new cabinet was sworn in before President Al-Sisi, days after appointing Madbouly as the new prime minister, succeeding Sherif Ismail, who has resigned in June. The new cabinet has the highest rate of women ministers ever, with eight ministers.