Egypt’s new government, sworn in by President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi on 3 July, is expected to gain a vote of confidence from MPs when the House of Representatives reconvenes this week.

The vote of confidence comes after newly reappointed Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli delivered a policy statement before parliament on 8 July. The 300-page statement was discussed and reviewed by an ad hoc parliamentary committee between 10 and 15 July.

Members of the 28-strong cabinet were summoned to the committee led by House Deputy Speaker Ahmed Saadeddin to review the written policy statement and outline strategies to implement the programmes and respond to the concerns of citizens.

At the end of discussions on Monday, the committee unanimously approved the government’s policy statement. As a result, it recommended that MPs give a vote of confidence to the new government during the House’s plenary session on Thursday 18 July.

In a press conference on 9 July, Madbouli said that once it gains the confidence of parliament, the government will embark upon implementing its policy statement, which primarily focuses on cutting inflation rates, controlling high prices, boosting development rates, and doubling foreign-exchange inflows.

In the meantime, Madbouli said the government will implement its policies in close coordination with the House of Representatives and the National Dialogue administration to ensure that the public are satisfied with the government’s performance.

He stressed that the performance of cabinet ministers will be under regular review to guarantee that they are in line with the policy statement’s objectives and targets.

“We will not wait one hundred days to see how the policies of the new government will impact the lives of citizens. We will wait for just one month to see how cabinet ministers will translate policies into facts on the ground,” he said.

Madbouli announced that the government will be divided into two groups: one for human development and another for industrial development. The human development group will be headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health and Population Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar and include the ministers of planning, economic development, international cooperation, youth and sports, higher education, local development, social solidarity, waqf and religious affairs, labour, culture, and education.

As for the industrial development group, it will be headed by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Industry Kamel Al-Wazir and include the ministers of the environment, military production, electricity, local development, housing, public enterprise, petroleum, investment, and foreign trade, and representatives from the ministries of defence and the interior and the Arab Organisation for Industrialisation.

Madbouli also issued a directive forming the Economic Ministerial Group to implement the government’s economic and financial policies.

The group will be headed by Madbouli and includes Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) Governor Hassan Abdallah, Planning and Economic Development Minister Rania Al-Mashat, Finance Minister Ahmed Kochouk, who will serve as the group’s spokesperson, Supply Minister Sherif Farouk, and Investment and Foreign Trade Minister Hassan Al-Khatib.

The group is tasked with formulating the overall framework for economic and financial policies, promoting growth and employment, and ensuring financial sustainability and economic stability. It will meet weekly or as needed and can invite experts to its meetings to make use of their expertise.

MPs affiliated with the majority Mostaqbal Watan (Nation’s Future) Party announced that they will give the new government a vote of confidence. This comes after party members listened to cabinet ministers over six days and saw that they intend to work in harmony to achieve concrete results on the ground in the coming stage.

The Homat Watan (Protectors of the Nation) and People’s Republican parties also announced their approval of the policy statement and their intention to grant the government a vote of confidence.

Four other parties — the leftist Tagammu, the Egyptian Socialist Democratic Party, Ghad, and the Reform and Development Party — announced their rejection of the policy statement and said they were not in favour of giving the government a vote of confidence.

MP Atef Al-Maghawri from the Tagammu and Ihab Mansour from the Egyptian Socialist Democratic Party described Madbouli’s policy statement as rhetorical and lacking in substance. “It is just implementing the policies dictated by the International Monetary Fund [IMF] such as phasing out subsidies, raising fuel and electricity prices and selling public assets,” Al-Maghawri said.

Mansour said the government’s policy statement is not much different from the one delivered in 2018. “The first Madbouli government failed to achieve its 2018 policy statement entitled ‘Egypt Kicks Off,’ putting the blame on external factors like the wars in Ukraine and Gaza,” Mansour said, insisting that it was important for the House to review the government’s achievement of its 2018 policies before discussing the new ones in order to know where it had failed.

Madbouli told journalists on 9 July that the policy statement includes clear commitments and outlines the newly sworn-in government’s agenda for the next three years in specific figures and timetables.

“The government will be closely coordinating with the House and the National Dialogue on implementing this agenda and Minister of Parliamentary and Political Communication Mahmoud Fawzi will be responsible for this coordination,” Madbouli said, indicating that “Fawzi will submit a report on progress every three months and this report will indicate how each cabinet minister has been able to achieve his objectives.”

At the same time, periodical meetings including the prime minister and the National Dialogue’s Board of Trustees will be held to follow up on implementation of the dialogue’s recommendations.

The policy statement states that the government will focus on achieving four goals in the next three years — protecting national security and Egypt’s foreign policy; building the Egyptian citizen; building a competitive economy that attracts investment; and achieving political stability.

In political terms, the document says that the government will coordinate with the National Dialogue administration on drafting new legislation for parliamentary elections, political parties, the exercise of political rights, pretrial detention, anti-discrimination, and local councils.

In economic terms, it states the government will work to achieve an economic growth rate of 4.2 per cent in the first year and then an average of 5.5 per cent by the end of 2026-27. Private investments will make up 51 per cent of total investments in Egypt by fiscal year 2026-27 and 70 per cent by 2030.

The new government will be offering incentives and tax breaks aimed at boosting investment in industry and other priority sectors.

The government will also work to collect LE20-25 billion in proceeds from the privatisation programme and cut debt-servicing costs to 30 per cent of public expenditure by 2028.

In the area of human development, the government aims to reduce the unemployment rate to 6.5 per cent by 2026-27 and to 6.1 per cent by 2030. The government will also move to expand health insurance coverage to reach 85 per cent of the population by 2026-27 and have local pharmaceutical production meet 94 per cent of local market needs.

As for tourism, the government wants to increase tourist numbers to 17.8 million during 2026-27 and 30 million by 2028.

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* A version of this article appears in print in the 18 July, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly