Egypt's Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly gestures during a news conference in Cairo, Egypt July 17, 2019. REUTERS
In a statement delivered before parliament on Tuesday, Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said that Egypt is currently facing one of the most severe non-conventional wars.
“This war primarily seeks to create a state of confusion, spread a national sense of disappointment, and disrupt confidence between Egyptian citizens and state institutions, at the top of which is the presidency,” said Madbouly, adding that “the non-conventional war also tried its best to sow distrust in the Egyptian army and police forces.”
“They know that they are not able to disrupt Egypt by resorting to a conventional war because they know that the Egyptian army is very strong and that they can’t defeat Egypt in a conventional way,” said Madbouly, “so they resorted to the current non-conventional war to tarnish the Egyptian army in the eyes of the people, but I am sure that the Egyptian people and state authorities will not allow the old scenario of chaos be repeated, and that we will all protect Egypt from the collapse that many countries around us have faced.”
“When some citizens took to the streets two weeks ago, security forces were able to contain this in a legal and professional way. They used the laws you drafted and passed to contain this, and I want to stress that while moving to contain this, security forces were keen not to commit any violations,” said Madbouly.
In his one-hour statement, Madbouly reviewed the achievements of his 15-month government. Madbouly drew a comparison between economic conditions in Egypt in the second half of 2014 when President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi took office, and the economic conditions in the second half of 2019.
“In the middle of 2016, Egypt’s economy was on the edge of collapse and the country was suffering deterioration in security conditions and a state of political upheaval,” said Madbouly, “but after three years and following the implementation of a successful economic reform, conditions have completely changed for the better.”
“The Egyptian pound recovered 10 percent of its value against the dollar, foreign exchange reserves rose from a low of $15 billion to an unprecedented $45 billion, the inflation rate dropped from 33 percent to 6.7 percent, and unemployment fell from 13 percent to 7.5 percent,” said Madbouly, also highlighting that most international and foreign reports on Egypt’s economy show that it is moving in the right direction and achieving progress.
“Many countries tried to implement the IMF economic reform programme we adopted, but they failed, and had not we implemented this programme, the Egyptian pound would have increased from EGP 19 to EGP 30 against the dollar,” said Madbouly.
Madbouly also reviewed all the measures the government has taken to contain the negative impact of economic reform on ordinary citizens. Madbouly focused on ration cards, indicating that budgetary allocations to ration and subsidy cards increased from EGP 35 billion in 2014 to EGP 89 billion in 2019.
“We just wanted to remove those who do not deserve these ration cards from the lists in order to allow poor citizens who are in bad need of this subsidy to be included on the lists,” said Madbouly.
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