Egypt To Appoint 10 Ministers In Cabinet Overhaul
Egypt will name 10 new ministers, including for finance and the interior, as President Mohamed Mursi’s administration prepares for talks with the International Monetary Fund to shore up the economy amid political unrest.
The appointments will be made today, Prime Minister Hisham Qandil said in an interview in Cairo, declining to identify the appointees. El-Mursi El-Sayed Hegazi, a professor of economics at the University of Alexandria, will head the finance ministry, the state-run Middle East News Agency said yesterday.
Police General Mohamed Ibrahim told reporters he will become interior minister. Ahmed Imam told reporters, after speaking with Qandil, that he will become electricity and energy minister.
Egypt is seeking a $4.8 billion loan from the IMF as its foreign currency reserves fell to $15 billion, down 60 percent from their level before the uprising that ousted President Hosni Mubarak about two years ago. The decline in the reserves prompted the central bank to begin dollar auctions last week. The Egyptian pound has fallen by more than 3 percent since the auctions began.
IMF Middle East and Central Asia Director Masood Ahmed will visit Cairo tomorrow to discuss with the Egyptian government “the most recent economic developments, their policy plans for addressing Egypt’s economic and financial challenges, and possible IMF support for Egypt in facing these challenges,” the organization said in a statement yesterday.
IMF Agreement
Egypt last year reached a preliminary agreement with the IMF and later requested a delay amid the tensions linked to a constitution pushed by Mursi, a U.S-trained engineer backed by the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. The charter was approved last month with a majority of 64 percent in a referendum. Almost 70 percent of the 52 million eligible to vote didn’t cast ballots.
The opposition, comprised of a mix of secularists, minority Christians and youth activists, has rejected calls for talks and some groups have set Jan. 25, the second anniversary of the start of the uprising, as a date to overturn the new charter.
Among the other cabinet members, Wael al-Madawi will become civil aviation minister and Khaled Mohamed Fahmi will head environmental affairs, according to MENA. Hatem Abdel-Latif will be in charge of transportation, while Mohamed Ali Bishr will head local development, the state news agency said.
Basim Kamal Mohamed Ouda will be sworn in as minister of supply and internal commerce, Atef Helmi becomes communication and information technology minister, while Omar Mohamed Salim will be minister of parliamentary council affairs, MENA reported.
Bloomberg
