The spokesperson for Egypt’s Cabinet announced a ministerial reshuffle on Wednesday, including 10 ministers and four deputy ministers.
The reshuffle comes just a few days before the government presents its program to parliament on Sunday March 27, and after a number of parliamentarians urged Prime Minister Sherif Ismail to conduct a Cabinet reshuffle.
According to the Constitution, if parliament rejects the government’s proposed program, the Cabinet should resign and a new cabinet should be formed by the largest coalition in parliament.
The reshuffle particularly affected the economic ministerial group, following their perceived failure to address the escalating dollar crisis, which resulted in the drastic depletion of the country’s foreign reserves, impacting individuals and businesses and prompting the Central Bank to devalue the pound to LE8.85 to the dollar last week.
The new ministers include: Galal al-Saeed for transportation, Hossam Abdel Rehim for justice, Sherif Fathy for civil aviation, Mohamed Abdel Aty for irrigation and water resources, Khaled al-Anany for antiquities, and Mohamed Saafan for manpower.
The ministers in the economic group include: Amr al-Garhy for finance, Ashraf al-Sharqawy for the public business sector, which has now been separated from the Ministry of Investment, headed by Dalia Khorshid, and Mohamed Rashid for tourism.
The separation of the public business sector from the Investment Ministry follows reports that a number of ministerial nominees and public sector representatives rejected the new investment minister.
The reshuffle includes a number of surprises, including the appointment of Galal Saeed to head the Transportation Ministry, after he headed the ministry in 2011 as part of Kamal al-Ganzoury’s Cabinet. He was appointed Cairo Governor in 2013, was a former member of the previously-ruling National Democratic Party, as well as heading Cairo University’s branch in Fayoum.
Minister of Antiquities Khaled al-Anany was general supervisor of the Egyptian Museum in 2015 and obtained the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in October for his contribution to the field of archeological research.
The Investment Ministry’s Dalia Khorshid is the only female minister to be appointed in the reshuffle. She held leading positions in the Commercial International Bank, Citi Bank and Orascom for Construction Industries.
Other ministries, including the Ministry of Interior, education, agriculture, culture and health, were not affected by the reshuffle, despite reports the education minister would be replaced after he made a number of contentious remarks and decisions, including removing the name of Mohamed ElBaradie from the list of Nobel Prize winners in primary school books.
Other reports speculated that Interior Minister Magdy Abdel Ghaffar would be replaced by Giza Governor Kamal al-Daly, but Ghaffar survived the reshuffle.
Health Minister Ahmed Rady also remained in post, despite growing tensions with the Doctors Syndicate and his referral to disciplinary investigation by the syndicate for his stance against the doctors’ strike.
