Egypt’s Cabinet reshuffle

Egypt's Prime Minister Hisham Qandeel

On Saturday, 5 January 2013, Egypt’s Prime Minister Hisham Qandeel announced the readiness for the partial Cabinet of Ministers’ reshuffle which was earlier requested by Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsy.

10 out of 35 ministers have been changed due to the governmental reshuffle, and the new ministers appointed by President have been sworn in on Sunday, 6 January 2013, at the Presidential Palace in Heliopolis, Cairo.

Thus ten new ministers have taken oath on Sunday:

1. Minister of Interior – General Mohamed Ibrahim who will replace the previous Minister Ahmed Gamal and was his assistant. He has also occupied the post of head of prison service.
2. Minister of Finance – El-Morsy Hegazy who will replace Momtaz El-Sayeed. He is Professor of economics in University of Alexandria and his field of interests is Islamic banking. He is also author of several books and articles about the issue of Islamic banking.
3. Minister of Transportation – Hatem Abdel-Latif. He succeeded the former Minister of Transportation Rashad El-Metiny who has resigned after the deadly accident with the bus in Assiut. Hatem Abdel-Latif is an engineering professor at Cairo’s Ain Shams University and is a member of Muslim Brotherhood.
4. Minister of Supply and Interior Trade – Bassem Ouda. He is the head of the energy committee of Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing Freedom and Justice Party and he was also responsible for the energy file in Morsy’s 100-days plan for developing Egypt.
5. Minister of Local Development – Mohamed Ali Beshr, engineering professor at the University of El-Menoufia and member of Muslim Brotherhood. He will replace Ahmed Zaki Abdeen.
6. Minister of Electricity – Ahmed Imam. He was the head of Cairo Electricity Production Company in 2002-2011 and was appointed earlier as an assistant to the former Minister.
7. Minister of Communication and Information Technology – Atef Helmi. He was chief executive of technology company Oracle in Egypt.
8. Minister of State for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs – Omar Salem. He had this position in the previous government headed by Kamal El-Ganzoury.
9. Minister of Civil Aviation – Wael El-Maadawi.
10. Minister of State for Environmental Affairs – Khaled Fahmy Abdel-Aal.

Ten new ministers have been sworn in on Sunday 6 January. Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsy and Prime Minister Hisham Qandeel have attended the official ceremony.

After the ceremony held at the Presidential Palace Egypt’s President, Prime Minister and the renewed Cabinet’s members had the meeting where they have been discussing the current issues of Egypt’s economical development and changes, tourism and other key-issues.

Egypt’s Prime Minister Hisham Qandeel also declared that economy, stability, security and judicial independence are among the most important tasks and priorities of the government.