CAIRO: Most of the new ministers of Kamal El-Ganzoury’s Cabinet, sworn in on Wednesday, have experience in the respective portfolio of each ministry, but lack significant political background.
Twelve ministers remained from the previous Cabinet — two of them held the same portfolio under the Mubarak regime.
The new ministers, the majority of whom are over 60, failed to satisfy demands of protesters that have been camped outside Cabinet headquarters since late November.
The biggest challenge for El-Ganzoury, who served as prime minister from 1996-1999, was finding an interior minister.
A deadly crackdown on protesters from Nov. 19 – 24 led many to slam the lack of change in the police force since Jan. 25. The uprising earlier this year left over 840 dead across the country. The November crackdown left over 40 dead and thousands injured.
Kept as a secret until just hours before being sworn in, Major-General Mohamed Ibrahim was declared the new interior minister amid much controversy over his background.
Ibrahim was in charge of prison affairs in 2002. The following year, he was promoted to position of Chief of the Giza Security Directorate. Under his reign, police cleared a sit-in of Sudanese refugees outside Mostafa Mahmoud Mosque in December 2005 in an infamous crackdown that left 27 dead.
In 2006 he was promoted to minister’s aide for the economic security sector. He retired the following year.
Ibrahim refuted Wednesday in a phone-in to a local TV channel, claims that the ministry houses loyalists to former minister Habib El-Adly, now on trial on charges of killing protesters during the January uprising. Ibrahim said there is no tension between the people and the police.
Meanwhile, the finance ministry saw its fourth leader this year: Mumtaz El-Saeid. A veteran of the ministry, he was first called from retirement to serve as deputy to the last finance minister Hazem El-Beblawi.
In his first statements to the press, El-Saeid was cautious about a possible loan from the International Monetary Fund. He said it was too soon to determine whether Egypt will accept a $3.2 billion loan on offer by the IMF to cover its budget deficit.
Ashraf El-Sharkawy, now the former head of Egypt’s Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) where he had been for only a few months, was appointed minister of investment. The ministry had been frozen since October 2010 when its last minister, Mahmoud Moheiddin, resigned to join the World Bank.
The widely-criticized minister of information Osama Heikal was replaced by a retired army general. Major General Ahmed Anis was formerly head of the Egyptian Satellite Company (Nilesat). He also led the Egyptian Radio and Television Union under previous minister Anas El-Fiqi.
Upon his nomination, Al-Dostor newspaper issued a statement stating that given his post as head of Nilesat, he was responsible for silencing opposition under the Mubarak regime by shutting down channels.
Former head of the Appeals Court, Justice Adel Abdel Hamid was named minister of justice. With no known political ties with the former regime, he’s famous for taking two high profile cases recently, namely the double homicide of Heba El-Akkad, daughter of Moroccan signer Laila Ghofran, and Nadine Khaled.
While he affirmed the death penalty in this case, he repealed it for business tycoon Hesham Talaat Moustafa, giving him 15 years for inciting the murder of singer Suzanne Tamim.
Former CEO and chairman of EgyptAir Hussein Massoud, commended for improving the state-owned carrier, was named civil aviation minister. He was also on the board of directors and then chairman of Smart Aviation, and the CEO of Mitrage company.
Gamal Al-Araby, who was responsible for the thanaweya amma (national high school certificate) exams, was named minister of education. His nomination was rejected by the Independent Teachers’ Syndicate.
Abdel Hafez Tayel, one of the founders of the syndicate, told DNE that Al-Araby was a bureaucratic employee in the ministry who lacked both a revolutionary mentality and a vision for reform.
Tayel claimed that Al-Araby is used to obeying orders without opposition and was a member of the dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP), in addition to having connections with the dissolved state security apparatus.
The Ministry of Education is separate from the Ministry of Scientific Research which is now led by Nadia Zakhary, a biochemistry professor at the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Fouad El-Nawawy, a professor of internal medicine at Cairo University and the former director of the Qasr Al-Aini hospital, now serves as the minister of health. He barely made any media appearances.
Fathi Fekri, who headed the general law department at the Faculty of Law at Cairo University, was named manpower and migration minister.
In recent statements to state-run Al-Ahram daily, Fekri stressed the importance of protecting workers’ rights. Any such mechanism should involve businessmen in order to improve working conditions and increase job opportunities, he said.
Shaker Abdel Hamid, professor at the Academy of Arts and author of several arts and psychology books, was named culture minister. In August 2011, he was appointed the new secretary general of the Supreme Council of Culture. Prior to that he taught at Bahrain’s Arab Gulf University.
Mohamed Ibrahim Ali, professor of antiquities at Ain Shams University, was named minister of state for antiquities.
As for the environment, long serving minister Maged George was replaced by professor Mostafa Hussein Kamel, who was the chairman of the geophysics department at Cairo University and director of both the university’s Center for Environmental Hazard Mitigation and the Basel Convention’s Regional Center for Training and Technology Transfer for the Arab States.
Saad Nassar, the new minister of agriculture, was the senior advisor to former agriculture minister Amin Abaza, who is awaiting trial. The appointment of Nassar enraged ministry employees who declared an open sit-in to prevent him from reaching his office.
Nagwa Khalil took on the social insurance and social affairs portfolio, a ministry which was scrapped six years ago. She was head of the National Center for Criminal and Social Research.
Upon accepting her post, she announced that she will work on a timeline through scientific research to improve the standard of living. Forty percent of Egyptians live under the poverty line.
Khalil was one of the members of the fact-finding committee assigned to investigate the killing of protesters during the Jan. 25 uprising.
