Ziad Bahaa El-Din, former deputy prime minister of Egypt, said in an article in the Financial Times that the Egyptian government is required to adopt a comprehensive reform program. Fitch downgraded Egypt's credit rating for the first time in a decade, partly because the government did not pass radical reforms, the country's high external debt requirements, restrictions on access to finance, and deteriorating public debt "measures"Bahauddin said that the justifications cited by the government to explain the economic crisis are no longer acceptable to most analysts and independent observers.