In a move rarely seen in Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak accepted the resignation of Transportation Minister Mohamed Lotfy Mansour on Monday Oct. 26, following a tragic railway accident.
Mansour took full responsibility for the Oct. 24 Al-Ayyat train crash that claimed 18 lives and injured 36 people.
At around 6:45 pm on Oct. 24 two trains crashed into each other near the village of Girzah, in the area of Al-Ayyat about 40 kilometers south of Cairo, when one train stopped after hitting a water buffalo that had wandered onto the tracks. The second train, heading from Cairo to Assiut, crashed into it from the rear.
Taking responsibility
“For a minister to resign taking responsibility for an accident is a healthy trend. It shows how he takes responsibility morally, but it doesn’t mean he will be held criminally accountable, explained Amr El-Choubaki, analyst at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
“Mansour is a man with a vision and stepping down is a great move which also tells whoever succeeds him not to make the same mistakes and change whatever needs to be changed, he explained.
“His resignation is a clear statement that there is something in the system at fault and needs to be addressed, added El-Choubaki.
The drama of Mansour’s resignation was compounded by the fact that only one day before he resigned, he had told terrestrial television show “El-Beit Beitak that he will not step down, fuelling rumors that he was let go upon orders from the President himself.
“I am responsible for the transportation system in Egypt and I will not step down from my position and relinquish my responsibility, Mansour had said at the time.
He added that the accident was caused by “human error and is not the responsibility of the entire transport system.
Eight railway workers, including two train conductors and three signalmen, are on trial for Al-Ayyat train crash, facing charges of negligence and involuntary manslaughter. The Misdemeanors Court will issue its final verdict on Jan. 4.
Mansour is the second transport minister this decade to resign following a deadly train crash. Ibrahim El-Dumairi stepped down from his post after 361 people died when a fire swept through a train in 2002.
In the couple of days following the accident, before his resignation, Mansour was heavily criticized. The editor-in-chief of state-owned Al-Gomhuria newspaper, Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, attacked him and asked him to resign or be dismissed.
The People’s Assembly’s transportation committee held an emergency meeting the night before Mansour’s resignation, during which Presidential Chief of Staff Zakaria Azmy held the government and the PA responsible for the train crash.
The meeting was attended by the Ministers of Transportation, Health, Local Development and Legal Affairs.
“Personally I don’t think that when Mansour steps down the problem is solved. Although it calms down public [fury], the root of the problem is in the system itself and this is what needs to be changed. If another person comes and applies the same strategy, accidents will continue to take place and the deterioration will continue, said MP Abdel Fattah Eid, member of the transportation committee who was present at the meeting.
Ill-fated tenure
An accomplished businessman, Mansour comes from a wealthy family whose company is the sole distributor for General Motors in Egypt. He joined the Egyptian Cabinet of Ministers, headed by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, in early 2006 as part of a cabinet reshuffle, replacing Essam Sharaf.
To begin with, Mansour was ill-starred as a minister; approximately 20 days after he took the position, the businessman-cum-minister had to deal with the aftermath of one of the worst maritime disasters in the nation’s history: the sinking of ferry Al-Salam Boccaccio 98 that claimed the lives of more than 1,000 passengers.
Also during his tenure, at least 58 people were killed and 144 injured in August 2006 when a passenger train slammed into the back of another one on the same track, derailing carriages and setting one train alight.
In July 2007, a road accident in the governorate of Matrouh left 44 people dead and 35 injured when a truck pushed waiting traffic into the path of a speeding train. A bus was among the vehicles pushed into the path of the train, two train carriages overturned and another two were derailed.
However, he escaped another transportation catastrophe which took place earlier this month, when two Nile ferries collided near Rashid city in the governorate of Beheira. One of the ferries was a passenger ferry that broke apart during the accident, while the other, carrying both passengers and cars, overturned. Thirteen people were reportedly injured, six of whom had to be hospitalized.
Minister of Electricity, Hassan Younis, was assigned to temporarily supervise the Ministry of Transportation, and to this day, Mansour’s replacement has not been named.
