Egypt Sisi .. Achievements on the face of currencies

Doaa Abdel Latif - Cairo

The young man withdraws two pounds from his pants pocket to pay for the minibus. He sees two new coins on the two metal coins, one for the natural gas field and the other for El Alamein El Jadida, which are presented by the Egyptian Authority as economic achievements.

The young man offers coins to the driver, while he remembers that the short distance he took for half a pound has increased to two pounds in four years. He also remembers the government's announcement that fuel subsidies will be lifted in June.

The minting department presented eight new forms of the Egyptian currency "the pound and half-yen" category, worth 20 million pounds, which includes documentation of eight projects described by the major national projects.

These projects are the gas field, the new administrative capital, the Aswan solar power plant, the national road network, the new Assiut barricades, the power plants, the new El Alamein city, and the new Egyptian countryside.

The head of the currency exchange, Abdul Raouf al-Ahmadi, said in media statements that this step aims to document what he called the achievements of the modern Egyptian state for future generations.

Documenting achievements

In its book "Egypt, the march of achievements", prepared by the National Council for the Documentation of National Projects during the reign of President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi, the Council of Ministers considered that the Suez canal was the most prominent achievement of the Egyptian state during the period from June 2014 to December 2018.

The Egyptian government promoted the new Suez canal - 34 kilometers long - as a parallel channel to the 192 km long main canal. The cost of the project was covered by public subscription certificates and 64 billion Egyptian pounds were collected.

According to official figures, revenues from the Suez Canal in the previous financial years were about 5.25 billion dollars in the fiscal year 2013/2014, and reached 5.37 billion dollars in fiscal year 2014/2015.

It did not rise but fell
After the inauguration, the surprise was that revenues did not rise; they fell to $ 5.13 billion in 2015-2016, then fell again to $ 5.01 billion in FY2016 / 2017 before rising to $ 5.585 billion for fiscal year 2017/2018 .

The recent rise in Suez Canal revenues is in no way equivalent to the promises made by the Authority. Suez Canal Authority Chairman General Mehab Mmeish said the channel's revenues would rise to $ 100 billion annually.

Since the float of the Egyptian pound in November 2016 to reach the dollar to about 18 pounds, the government deliberately announce revenues of the channel in Egyptian pounds and not the dollar as usual, which helps in announcing the increase in revenues depending on the large difference between the price of the pound before and after the flotation.

On the same line, the field of natural gas, photographed by the Egyptian government two years ago, has been a giant leap forward for the Egyptian economy, similar to the discovery of oil-producing Gulf states decades ago.

Inflation and debt indices
It is possible to understand the fact that Egypt has done all the national projects initiated by Sisi since he took office in 2014 by following the indicators of rising inflation and internal and external debt.

The Central Bank of Egypt announced that Egypt's external debt rose to about 88.1 billion dollars in March 2018 compared to 43 billion dollars in March 2013, that is, the Egyptian state borrowed from abroad in five years the same amount owed for decades.

In its latest review of the Egyptian economy a few days ago, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) expected debt to rise to about $ 104 billion at the end of June.

Useless
Commenting on the achievements of the Egyptian government, University of Auckland economist Mustafa Shahin says successful projects are improving the economy, which is reflected in the increase in job opportunities, the stability of prices and the high growth rate of production. "This is not true in Egypt."

"The gas field was hoped to reduce the volume of borrowing from abroad, and this did not happen, as well as reducing the price of the dollar as a result of the export of gas and provide a surplus of dollars, but this also did not happen."

The new administrative capital is another example of what Shaheen describes as "delusional achievements," explaining that they do not represent any economic benefit from his point of view, but are of great political benefit to the Authority.

The economist pointed out that the Authority is building a new capital in the desert, where businessmen and elite are gathered, and that they are trying to secure themselves once the revolution of the Egyptians is over.

As for the new city of Alamein, Shaheen described it as a residential project that targets a certain layer, pointing out that the price of the meter reached 35 thousand pounds.

The legitimacy node
As for the former parliamentarian Ezzeddin al-Koumi, he explained his explanation of the state's tendency to document these projects, saying that the current system suffers from "two decades of lack of legitimacy and failure".

He added in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that the lack of legitimacy complicates the regime to buy weapons that do not need billions of dollars from major countries in exchange for recognition of these legitimacy and turn a blind eye to "criminal practices against the people," as he put it.

Al-Koumi continued, "The failure complex is the product of the deterioration of the economic situation, which prompted the regime to launch Fankush projects (an Egyptian description of imaginary things) such as the Suez Canal crossing."

The series of failures led to the increase in public debt, he said, pointing to the statement by the finance minister, who affirmed that the country's national income is estimated at 900 billion pounds, of which more than 800 billion pounds are interest and debt service.

But Al-Koumi presents a cynical view of the achievements of the current system: the construction of 17 new prisons, the exit from the World Education Classification, the increase in poverty and unemployment rates, high crime rates and access to advanced positions among drug-consuming countries.

Despite criticism from the opposition and social networking activists of these projects, the government insists it is necessary to jumpstart the economy and reduce unemployment through labor-intensive projects, and that the fruits of its results will soon be harvested by Egyptians.

On the other hand, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stressed that these projects have an important political dimension, which is to raise the morale of the Egyptian people and restore confidence in the ability of Egyptians to achieve, he said.