Of privatisation and succession

Cairo: Egypt's "corrupt" privatisation of public-owned enterprises is accelerated by President Hosni Mubarak's plan to hand over power to his son, alleges a group of politicians and economists.

"No to Selling Egypt", an anti-privatisation movement, was recently launched in Cairo with the declared aim of keeping the remaining public assets from privatisation.

"Allowing foreigners to buy state assets is an attempt to win acceptance from the world powers for hereditary succession in Egypt," Jalal Ameen, an economics professor, told the induction ceremony.

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Mubarak, in power for 26 years, has never named a vice-president. He has vehemently denied he is grooming his son Jamal to succeed him. Jamal, 43, heads the ruling party's influential Policies Committee and keeps a high profile on Egypt's political scene. Since the 1990s, Egypt has been implementing a programme of economic reform based on privatisation and deregulation.

"The aim of our campaign is to convey the public's dissatisfaction with the sale of state-owned assets and to compile a blacklist of all those involved in these sell-offs," said Yahya Hussain, the movement's coordinator. He added that the list would include government officials who took part in "unduly evaluating" public assets for privatisation.

"We will, meanwhile, announce a list of honour naming for all those who make sincere efforts to work out solutions to the problems of the state-owned companies," added Hussain.

Aziz Sedqi, an ex-prime minister, demands that a public referendum be called on any privatisation deal.

"Had it not been for support from the public sector, Egypt would not have scored victory in the 1973 war [against Israel]," said Sedqi, an outspoken critic of Mubarak's rule.

Referendum

"All public enterprises set up in the era of [late president Jamal Abdul Nasser] have been sold off under Mubarak," added Sedqi.

According to Egyptian officials, the government sells off loss-incurring public companies and channels their revenues into creating new jobs.

"Privatisation has helped reduce government debts from 32 billion Egyptian pounds (about Dh20.6 billion) to less than 10 billion Egyptian pounds (about Dh6.4 billion)," said Minister of Investment Mahmoud Mohieddin in recent press remarks.

He added that a recent report, released by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), ranked Egypt the 66th in a list of best investment destinations in 2006 compared with the 126th place in 2003.

"Even the most vehement opponents to privatisation and the staunchest advocates of socialism admit that overstaffing in the public sector companies bears the blame for the losses incurred by these firms," he added.