كلمتي في الحوار المصري الامريكي بواشنطن لمن ارادها بالانجليزية من الاالافاضل The New Egypt Political and Economic Challenges by Nashwa Elhofy A New Egypt … is a dream that entices every Egyptian, living on its land or abroad. However, to talk about a New Egypt we have to highlight some of the facts that lead to our current situation. Not to grind any pains or re-live the past, but to realize what has really happened … why … and benefit from the lessons learned in the new construction. Let me take you back to the fifth of June defeat in 1967, when everyone expected it to be the end of the state of Egypt at that time and the collapse of its people. Conversely, the state did not crumple; the president did not step down or commit suicide and the Egyptians held tight to each other with profound determination to cross for victory. Research centers studied our case to determine the causes of this phenomenon. Three factors were recognized. The first was a strong economy that depended on industrialization, and semi-self-sufficiency that was supported by the public sector and progressive taxation. The second factor was homogeneity and harmony among all Egyptians where one could not differentiate between a Christian and a Muslim except only when each of them go to the house of worship; whereby all Egyptians shared a patriotic perseverance to support their country and their leader in the war against global tyranny, despite their feelings of anger, frustration and defeat. The last, but definitely not the least, factor was the Egyptian Army, which has always been the pride of every Egyptian. The army that is founded on a solid doctrine that has been based on three pillars: protect the land, the citizens and the institutions. Thus, it was necessary to weaken the power of those factors that give Egypt the independence of the decision and the political willpower. Ignition of sectarian war among religious doctrines was the basis of the plan developed by Brzezinski US national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter that adopted, unlike the conventional, the support of Khomeini in the Islamic revolution in Iran with the help of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Thus, the American administration e became the engine of the regions sectarian war. The American administration supported the economic open door policy in my country, which not only transformed the Egyptians to the culture of consumption over time but have also contributed to the destruction of the form of culture of a society that used to highly respect the classes and differences among them. Later, as a consequence, we had to sell the public sector and the culture of privatization for economic reform prevailed as per your advice. As for the control of the third pillar in power factors – The Army- the administration thought it was achieved after the peace agreement in 1979. I will stop here and recall the advice of the late Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to President Sadat just a few days before his death in Egypt: Do not trust the Americans and do not believe them. While Jimmy Carter was dancing with my wife in the Imperial Palace, the CIA was coordinating with Khomeinis Islamic Revolution. Unfortunately, President Sadat did not listen to that advice. However, to be fair the American administration was not the sole reason in all that happened in our political and economic sectors, but there were also errors committed by the political system which believed your talks about democracy, world peace and social justice and your never ending support ... and as time passed by, my country and our nation system became more and more dependent on the USA, its support and its protection of its interests. Even the American aid provided to Egypt in accordance to the terms of the Peace Treaty, when we study its result after 3 decades -which could be up to 28 billion dollars- we could simply state that it is closer to a cooperation agreement from being an aid. Actually, the gains that the United States reaped in terms of economy, security and strategy - far exceeds any economic benefit won by Egypt in return. The economic aid does not target to address the roots of poverty, illiteracy, or even bring about any real development. According to the statistics from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), only 10% of the value of the aid is directed to provide the basic needs of the citizens. And yet the American administration eliminated on the public sector, and insisted on freeing the Egyptian economy without the presence of the structure of national economic competitiveness or any commitment to the development priorities in Egypt; helped in all this by the absence of political will and the dominance of corruption and monopoly in the last decade in particular. Militarily, Egypt ensured a regular supply of American arms, without prejudice to the balance of power associated with the security of the United States and Israel, with the adoption of American visions issues in the region, in addition to facilities for the logistics related to the use of Suez Canal. Simply stated the United States was not the upper hand that gives, and Egypt was not her lower hand that takes! However you insist on using your aid at all the time as leverage on us and threat to put it off every time we say “No”! And you see to forget that you are dealing with the oldest civilization in the region whose people have always taken pride in their defeat to any arrogance or attempt of control. Despite all the talk about the January revolution and your role as a co-conspirator in it, I believe that the Egyptians supported it to restore the dream that was stolen from them under the system of mating between money and power which emerged and flourished under your support since 1977. Nevertheless, the 25th of January revolution was also stolen with your help when you arranged for the attainment of power of the Muslim Brotherhood. Again you forgot the nature of our people who have always loved God, arts, life and freedom since thousands of years. We surprised the world with our revolution that was supported by our army to save our country from the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist, and from the ending in the same fate of Syria, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen. Today we face great challenges and legitimate hopes, relating to the right to independence of our political and economic systems, and the right to liberate our national decision of any pressures that could detract from Egypts regional role. In the framework of a series of economic and social reforms promised by President Sisi, the first decision taken was to reduce fuel subsidies by 44 billion pounds to keep the limit at 100 billion pounds in the fiscal year 2014-2015 budget. With another decision to increase electricity prices, in order to reduce the deficit in the new budget, which began last July worth 240 billion pounds, about 33.6 billion dollars. All these actions were meant to reduce the ratio of the deficit to only 10% of GDP, compared to 12% of the value of the estimated deficit in last years budget from 2013 to 2014. We took this step at a time when the risk of drowning in debt haunts as the total debt amounted to more than 3 trillion pounds, about 417 billion dollars. Egypt has emerged from the era of the former Egyptian President Mubarak with an amount of debt that has reached the peak of danger in January 2011 where it was valued at one trillion and 172 billion pounds, of which 962 billion pounds were of internal debt. Mubarak had sought in 2009 to reschedule the foreign debt with both the Paris Club and the IMF and the World Bank, and has propagated for scheduling intervals until 2050, with great benefits and semi-annual installments. Equivalent drained about 25 percent of the economic resources of the country! And then the Muslim Brotherhood completed the rest of the mission. So, President Sisi had no another choice with decisions taken, supporting them except to give instructions to the government to activate the mechanism of control the market, which has hindered the progress of Egypt so far. At the same time, he took steps to lift the growth rates to help the poor out of poverty and improve conditions for low-income people. This would be achieved by increasing the productivity of the poor sector of the society and increasing their involvement in the development process. So the plan focused on the economic and social development for the fiscal year 2014-2015: to improve public services and to achieve justice among all Egyptians through targeted investments of more than 44.5 billion pounds, which accounted for 47.7% of the total public investment target in the plan. In addition to the allocation of 19.5 billion pounds for social housing projects, drinking water and sanitation. It remains to know that all of us share in Egypts foreign debt that amounts to about 15,500 pounds, which is equal to about 50 times the per capita spending on health, and 23 times the share of spending on education, and 300 times the annual expenditure on housing services. Despite these economic difficulties, the Egyptians expressed confidence in decisions taken from the head of state twice. Firstly, when they accepted the raise of the prices of energy and electricity in contrast to the expectations of the reports issued by some Western media, which was expecting demonstrations rejecting the decisions similar to what happened in Yemen. And secondly, when the Egyptians bought Suez Canal investment certificates at a worth of 64 billion Egyptian pounds in less than one week in an attempt to provide support to this national project. The majority of the people in Egypt support the state in crisis. So, we are really working hard to overcome the difficulties, despite the challenges, and we are planning to set up a conference for supporting investment in our country to be held on 21 and 22 February, 2015. As I am standing here among you, I would like to assure you that we, Egyptians, are confident in our ability to achieve and build a new crossing in Egypt accompanied by a profound democracy on the basis of justice and development. We do not want false democracy, but we strive for a true democracy that would protect our country and enable it to regain its status in the region and the whole world. Long live Egypt.
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 12:18:18 +0000
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