Who’s Who In El-Sisi’s New Cabinet
Ministers who will remain in their posts are:
1. Minister of Tourism – Hisham Zaazou
Zaazou, 59, continues in his post as tourism minister.
He is a political independent who was appointed tourism minister in August 2012. He was previously assistant to former tourism minister Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour.
Zaazou resigned in June when a member of militant Islamist group Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya was appointed governor of Luxor. He later withdrew his resignation and continued as minister after the governor resigned.
2. Minister of Communication – Atef Helmy
Helmy was originally appointed communications minister in January 2013. He resigned from the cabinet on 1 July in protest at then-president Mohamed Morsi’s failure to respond to nationwide protests against his rule.
A graduate of a military technical college, Helmy obtained a diploma in computer science from Ain Shams University in 1979.
After leaving the army in 1983, he began his career in the civilian IT sector, working at several Egyptian and multinational corporations, including Oracle Egypt, where he became managing director.
3. Minister of Agriculture – Ayman Abu Hadid
Abu Hadid was first appointed agriculture minister in the cabinet of Ahmed Shafiq, which was formed during the January 2011 uprising. He continued to serve as minister in the following cabinet under Essam Sharaf.
He was replaced as minister under Hisham Qandil in 2012, but returned to the ministry in Hazem El-Beblawi’s cabinet following Morsi’s ouster.
4. Minister of Industry – Mounir Fakhry Abdel-Nour
The 68-year-old served as tourism minister from February 2011 until August 2012 under Essam Sharaf.
Abdel-Nour claims to have refused a ministerial position under Mohamed Morsi.
As secretary-general of the Wafd Party, he was the first minister from an opposition party to hold a cabinet post for 30 years.
He is also the founder of the Egyptian Finance Company and was a member of the National Council for Human Rights.
He is a director of the Egyptian Federation of Industries and the Egyptian Competition Authority.
5. Minister of Planning – Ashraf El-Araby
El-Araby served as planning minister from August 2012 until May 2013 under prime minister Hisham Qandil. He was replaced by Muslim Brotherhood figure Amr Darrag.
An economist by training, El-Araby received his doctorate from Kansas State University in the United States. For the majority of his career, he worked at the country’s National Planning Institute.
From 2006 until the end of 2011, he headed the technical advisory office of former planning minister Fayza Abul-Naga.
After a brief interlude, during which he worked at the Arab Planning Institute in Kuwait, El-Arabi was called back to head the ministry.
He was a key part of the Egyptian team negotiating with the International Monetary Fund over a $4.8 billion loan.
6. Minister of Petroleum – Sherif Ismail
Ismail is chairman of the state-owned Ganoub El-Wadi Petroleum Holding Company which manages exploration and production concessions, establishes joint ventures with private companies and constructs oil infrastructure.
7. Minister of Religious Endowments – Mokhtar Gomaa
Gomaa is dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Al-Azhar University and a member Al-Azhar’s senior clerical institute.
He was born in 1939 in Qalioubiya governorate. He earned his degree in Arabic in 1965 and later completed a master’s degree and a doctorate.
Gomaa worked at several newspapers as an Arabic proof-reader and has been a member of the Journalists’ Syndicate since 1972.
He is also the author of several books on religion.
8. Minister of Education – Mahmoud Abou El-Nasr
Abul-Nasr was formerly head of the ministry’s technical education sector.
He was a faculty member at Cairo University’s mechanical engineering department.
9. Minister of Sports and Youth – Khaled Abdel-Aziz
Abdel-Aziz was the head of the Shooting Club, a private sports club in Giza, and then became chairman of the National Council of Youth.
He is a member of the Egypt Party, founded and led by moderate Islamic preacher Amr Khaled.
Abdel-Aziz was director of the 2006 African Cup of Nations, which Egypt hosted and won.
10. Minister of Military Production – Ibrahim Younis
Younis is a major general in the army and chairman of the Arab Organisation for Industrialisation (AOI), a military-owned company considered one of the largest industrial organisations in Egypt.
The AOI supreme committee is headed by the country’s president and includes several other cabinet ministers.
11. Minister of Health – Adel El-Adawy
El-Adawy served as an assistant to two former ministers of health, Ashraf Hatem and Amr Helmy.
He is also vice president of Banha University with responsibility for graduate studies and research, as well as the head of the Egyptian Society of Orthopaedics.
12. Minister of Housing – Mostafa Madbouly
Madbouly is retaining his position from the previous cabinet as he took up the position of minister of housing in February succeeding Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahleb.
He is an architect and urban designer who was director of the UN’s HABITAT Regional Office for Arab States.
Madbouly holds a PhD in urban planning from Cairo University and a postgraduate diploma in urban management from the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies in Rotterdam.
He served as chairman of the General Organisation of Physical Planning for almost four years.
13. Minister of Supply – Khaled Hanafy
Hanafy is chair of the Internal Trade Development Authority (ITDA), a governmental body belonging to the ministry of supply. He was appointed chair of ITDA after a decision by outgoing prime minister Hazem El-Beblawi in late November 2013.
He is also dean of the International Transport and Logistics faculty at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport.
14. Minister of Social Solidarity – Ghada Waly
Waly is the secretary-general of the Social Fund for Development (SFD), a government entity that provides start-up companies with financial help and other services. Her past experience includes a stint at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) where she worked towards poverty reduction and job creation.
She has previously called on the Egyptian government to encourage entrepreneur innovation and development in the microfinance sector.
Waly was also a board member of the Consumer Protection Agency, the first government body for consumer protection, which was created in 2006.
She studied at Colorado State University in the US, earning a bachelor’s in arts and humanities in 1987 and a master’s in 1990.
15. Minister of Aviation – Mohamed Hossam Kamal
Kamal was appointed as the chairman of the national aviation company EgyptAir in August 2013. That same year he was also chosen as a representative for Arab airlines in the International Aviation Union.
Kamal’s career in the aviation industry has seen him involved with cooperation projects for fuel and equipment purchase as well as a plan to exchange used parts to cut costs on Arab airlines.
16. Minister of Local and Administrative Development – Adel Labib
Labib, 68, served as governor of several provinces under Hosni Mubarak, including Qena in Upper Egypt, Beheira in the Nile Delta, and Alexandria.
There were major protests against him in Alexandria, with some local groups accusing him of mismanagement.
In 2011, prime minister Essam Sharaf appointed him governor of Qena for a second time after local protesters backed him over an unpopular alternative.
He was Qena governor until June 2012 when he was replaced in a reshuffle by president Mohamed Morsi.
17. Minister of Finance – Hany Kadry Demian
Demian was first deputy finance minister for seven months from October 2012 to April 2013, when he resigned for apparent unease over the rising influence of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated economists, according to sources from the finance ministry. Before this post, he was deputy minister for five years.
Demian has been a key Egyptian negotiator with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In 2008, he was appointed as the Chairman of Deputies for the IMF’s International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC). He was the IMFC’s deputy at a G20 summit and chaired the IMFC communiqué drafting sessions.
He was close to Youssef Boutros Ghali, a powerful finance minister from the Hosni Mubarak era who fled the country in February 2011.
Demian attended Columbia University in New York, where he received a master’s degree in international affairs and economic policy management.
18. Minister of Urban Development – Laila Iskandar
Although the ministry of urban development is a new addition, Iskandar served in the previous cabinet as minister of environment.
Iskandar is an Egyptian social entrepreneur who has worked on environmental projects that have received international recognition, notably with garbage collectors in Cairo, for which she won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 1994 and the Social Entrepreneur of the Year award from the Schwab Foundation at the World Economic Forum in 2006.
During her ministerial post, she was opposed to cement plants and sought to obtain cabinet approval to render coal an alternative source of energy due to shortages in traditional fuels like natural gas. The issue remains unresolved.
Iskandar studied economics and political science at Cairo University. She then went on to gain a master’s in teaching and a doctorate in education at UC Berkeley, California and Columbia University, New York respectively.
The newly-appointed ministers are:
1. Minister of Transport – Hany Dahy
Dahy served as head Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) from 2011 until his retirement in 2012. In his capacity as EGPC head, Dahy was one of the authorities responsible for the decision to terminate Egypt’s natural gas export contract with Israel.
2. Minister of Environment – Khaled Fahmy
Fahmy served as Egypt’s minister of environment during Morsi’s reign from January to July 2013, quitting as part of mass resignations in the cabinet before Morsi’s ouster.
He received his PhD in economics in 1984 from the University of Economic Sciences, Bruno Leuschner. He was Deputy Chief of party in Chemonics International from 2005 to 2008.
3. Minister of Foreign Affairs – Sameh Shoukry
Shoukry served as Egypt’s ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2012.
He received his bachelor’s degree in law from Ain Shams University in 1975.
Shoukry previously served as secretary for information to deposed president Hosni Mubarak from 1995 to 1999.
He was also Egypt’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva from 2005 to 2008 and ambassador to Austria from 1999 to 2003.
4. Minister of Culture – Gaber Asfour
Asfour served briefly as minister of culture following the 25 January 2011 uprising, from 31 January to 8 February 2011.
A literary critic and author, Asfour held the post of the General Secretary of the Supreme Council for Culture, where he focused on the department of literary translations.
Asfour later left the department to create the National Translation Foundation, which he headed and secured funding for from the Ministry of Culture.
For several years, Asfour was also editor-in-chief of Fousoul, a literary quarterly publication. In 2008 he was awarded the UNESCO-Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture.
5. Minister of International Cooperation – Naglaa El-Ahwany
El-Ahwany is the second woman to be appointed as minister of international cooperation, in the footsteps of Fayza Aboul-Naga. She was appointed as economic advisor to Egypt’s cabinet in May 2011.
An economic researcher at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Cairo, she has published several studies on informal labour and rural development, issues that are particularly relevant to Egypt’s economic agenda.
She is also responsible for many publications on development issues, workers’ rights and legal empowerment of the poor.
El-Ahwany served as director of the European Studies Centre at the faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University and is a member of the National Council for Women’s (NCW) economic committee.
6. Minister of Investment – Ashraf Salman
Salman is currently CEO of Cairo Financial Holding, a Cairo-based investment bank of which he was a co-founder. Founded in 2008, the bank has as an authorised capital of LE500 million and a paid-in capital of LE240 million.
Salman is an experienced financier, with over 20 years of experience with the public and private sector. A member of the Management Development Centre for Industry, Salman was one of the architects of Egypt’s privatisation program under the Mubarak regime in the 1990s, taking part in the restructurings and valuations of public and private companies.
7. Minister of Justice – Mahfouz Saber
Saber is head of Mansoura’s Appeals Court. He was the secretary-general for the parliamentary election commission in the 2010 parliamentary polls, which are widely known to have been rigged.
8. Minister of Higher Education – Sayed Abdel-Khalek
Abdel-Khalek is head of Mansoura University, where he was previously dean of the law school. He graduated from Cairo University in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree in law.
9. Minister of Transitional Justice – Ibrahim El-Henedy
El-Henedy is head of Egypt’s Illicit Gains Authority, which in the past has investigated corruption charges on a host of prominent figures from Mubarak’s regime.
10. Minister of Scientific Research – Sherif Hamad
Hamad is the dean of engineering at Ain Shams University, where he also received his PhD in engineering in 1992. He previously served as the engineering department’s dean for student affairs.
Source : Ahram online
