Egyptian MP says parliament gives priority

Egyptian parliamentarian Mustafa Salem praised the decisions taken by the Egyptian parliament to serve the interests of Egyptian citizens and low-income citizens. He extremely criticized the government and the performance of its ministers for the current challenges facing the Egyptian citizens.

He added, in an interview with “Arabs Today”, that the Egyptian government suffers from budget deficit during the coming period as a result of the lack of income available to cover expenses. He stressed, “We have taken several decisions included in the report approved by the Council to reduce the deficit, including the reduction of items of reserves and expenses of a character of nature, such as advertising expenses in addition to the proposal to impose a new fee on applicants for legalization of land abused in order to increase revenues for the state.”

He stressed that the Egyptian citizens face increasing problems on both social and economic levels, while the government and other executive officials focus on executing specific agendas that are not related to the life of the Egyptian people. He stressed that the government failed to achieve any progress regarding the economic position of the Egyptian people.

The Egyptian parliamentarian praised the performance of the government in dealing with the foreign relation with the other countries, saying that the Egyptian government managed to achieve notable success to restore relations with the U.S and to impose its vision in a number of international issues, including the Syrian crisis, Yemeni conflict and Iraqi developments.

However, he said, the government failed to achieve the same regarding the economic issue, blaming the government for the current economic problems facing the Egyptian citizens during the current period. He warned of the repercussions of the current situation, saying that the government should work seriously to find serious solutions for the current crisis.

He added that, re-running suspended factories and small workshops will be a great help in developing the industrial sector, establishing a high value and increasing exports’ rate. He said that the division is working to increase the local material in industries especially in cars, to reduce the dollar consumption, and there has been a great cooperation to achieve this idea.

He said that, the decision to increase fees on scrap paper and aluminum scrap is late but good in order to preserve the raw materials and use them in local industries instead of importing them, adding that this increase in fees came on requests from industrial chambers, but it was recently approved.

He added that, the decision didn’t indicate how long this increase will last or what is its impact, stressing that, the smuggling operations of these scraps need to be stopped. He stressed that the Industry Committee has held several meetings to prioritize the work in the next phase, stressing that they work to resolve the problems of suspended factories during the coming period and to ease the repercussions of the decision to liberate the exchange rate of the Egyptian currency on the Egyptian workers.

He praised the initiative adopted by President Sisi to allocate 200 billion EGP to finance small and medium projects, saying that the banks have not provided more than one billion EGP. He stressed the need for providing the money to ease the challenges facing the young Egyptians during the coming period.

He added that the country has not benefited from the agricultural crops that are exported as raw material, stressing that if the government turned to manufacturer them, it would achieve increasing gains. He revealed they plan to establish industrial communities near the agricultural areas to manufacture the agricultural crops.