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The bomb that was detonated by the contractor and the artist Mohamed Ali on the platforms of communication about the extent of corruption in the commercial and economic dealings of the Egyptian army and its relationship with the presidency of the Republic is only the crust that tells the depth of the mud in which the Egyptian military establishment has long drowned, from a shift in its role in society from Security to the economy. The report tells the story of this involvement at its roots and details how the Egyptian army has become a giant company.

After the end of World War II in 1945 with the defeat of the Nazi project, a small army of German scientists was surprised by the specter of unemployment overwhelming them after they were prevented by the victorious Allied forces in the war from completing their scientific research on their territory, especially in military fields.

In the first few months, it turned into people with vast and unprecedented scientific expertise at the time - a few months ago, the brains of the German Reich's military invasion of Europe - in a hectic search for what looked like professional contracts to continue their career. The first and most ingenious class was, of course, more fortunate than others, falling between the competitiveness of the United States and the Soviet Union's polarization of these competencies, which were far superior to many of their victorious counterparts.

So, Nazi scientists and engineers quickly received offers to complete their projects, with full citizenship in the Soviet Union, Britain, France and the United States, most notably the scientist von Braun, who chose to move to the United States and work at NASA, where he later developed Rockets launched Apollo manned space missions to the moon. [1] The back lines of the less fortunate Reich scientists were forced eastward in search of an environment that could accommodate them and continue their work, especially as some of them were involved in Nazi crimes, and their journey in the post-war years coincided with a fatal opportunity for a group of junior officers to rise to power in a country. Historic monarchy, a state that later became the Arab Republic of Egypt.

The first of these was the Egyptian Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), which had just forced Farouk to relinquish power in 1952 - the army of great importance, and by virtue of its military members, most of whom suffered during the 1948 war with a significant defeat by the Zionist gangs, Their ambition was to have a degree of armaments autonomy through the experience of local military industries. Therefore, Bakbashy grabbed the opportunity of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who won the battle for control of power in Egypt quickly, and then in the fifties invited some fleeing Reich scientists to contribute to strengthening the manufacturing capabilities of weapons in Egypt, after the Egyptians succeeded on October 23, 1954 in the production of the first Egyptian shot inside the factory ۲۷ al-Harbi [2], taking from that date a starting point for military production in Egypt, and the establishment of a special ministry for this purpose, which was then canceled by Nasser and annexed to the Ministry of Defense.

After that, it seemed that German scientists had succeeded in 1962 after Nasser announced an Egyptian missile program that was considered an unintelligible move for the political circles in the Israeli entity, so they tried to get the password of this alleged Egyptian missile program, and the usual Israeli pattern based on intelligence. The Mossad quickly sent a group of its agents to Europe in order to build an information network where they could access the source of the development of the Egyptian missiles, taking into account the priority of examining the files of retired German scientists to become targets of the Mossad, with the tasks of forcing them to talk at all costs even Bach Tafhm and torture as described in one of the Mossad messages to its customers in Europe. [3]

Mossad agents penetrated the premises of Egyptian diplomatic missions and consulates in a number of European capitals, recruited employees of Egyptian intelligence companies, and obtained information about two of the most famous German missile scientists who are handling the Egyptian missile program. For the Israelis, the Egyptian program was not a show as usual from Nasser, so the Mossad immediately began targeting the actors in the missile program in one of the few times that saw one of the true attempts to produce Egyptian war according to the Israeli version, not just the Egyptian one.

The attempts of the Egyptian military industrialization did not last long after the return of the Ministry of Military Production in 1971, as the last wars of Egypt ended with the Israeli occupation in 1973, and the Arab Industrialization Organization project established in 1975 with a capital exceeding one billion dollars to build joint Arab military industries failed. Political wrangling failed the project, and she wrote his death certificate in 1993 after the UAE and Saudi Arabia withdrew from the commission.

The Ministry of Military Production, which brought together the majority of the Egyptian military factories under its management, continued in light and medium military industrialization, but after the end of the war era with the signing of the peace agreement with Israel, it also began to shift away from its objectives for which it was established. With the economic openness programs initiated by the Egyptian President "Mohamed Anwar Sadat" and completed by the deposed President "Mohamed Hosni Mubarak", the Egyptian army entered the field of competition in the civil economy officially through the decision No. 32 of 1979 on the establishment of the National Service Projects.

The decree was issued for the official purpose of achieving self-sufficiency for the armed forces from food and civilian goods. During Mubarak's reign, the Authority and the Ministry of Military Production, whose own companies and factories gradually acquired everything, except for the military industries, mostly started after the wave of privatization of public companies began to affect the majority. While the new military production empire, which owns more than 20 companies and factories, according to the official website of the ministry, survived a completely different story, witnessed the transition of a whole sector of advanced military industries such as rocket manufacturing to a level that appears to be low and possibly Veterans of the Egyptian military industries had never dreamed of it.

From rockets to "cooking utensils"

The post-coup period of July 3, 2013 was considered a golden period in the history of companies working in the field of civil production belonging to the Egyptian army in general and the Ministry of Military Production in particular, which companies suffered from low revenues in previous periods, especially with the strength of the civil sector. After the military coup, the ministry expanded in an unprecedented way to reach the expectations of operating revenues of its companies to about 15 billion Egyptian pounds in the current year 2018, which is five times what it was in 2013 before the rise of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power.

When Sisi took office, he began a comprehensive policy of reliance on the Ministry of Military Production as one of the most important pillars of the Egyptian military economic empire, along with the Arab Organization for Industrialization, the National Service Projects Authority of the Ministry of Defense, and the projects managed by the Engineering Authority of the Armed Forces. Moreover, El-Sisi issued Resolution No. 244 of 2018, considering the ministry as “a private entity”, and does not apply to its leadership and management functions under the provisions of Articles 17 and 20 of the Civil Service Law [4].

As for the two articles excluded from the Ministry of Production, they are generally concerned with appointing posts through competitions and through neutral committees, and that a certain period for holding any government position shall be fixed. In accordance with the decision published in the Official Gazette, the Prime Minister shall be authorized to exercise the competence of the President of the Republic stipulated in Article 2. Article 21 of the same law also concerns the appointment of senior and high-level posts in the ministry, and authorizes the Minister of State for Military Production to exercise the competence of the President of the Republic with respect to appointment to the posts of Director General and Supervisory Department of the Ministry. [5] These legal and administrative fortifications of the ministry, which have not been out of the hands of the military since its inception, reflected the nature of the coup that took place in its roles from its inception until now [6], a reversal in the nature of manufacturing supervised by its factories from ammunition and weapons to civilian products in its largest part.

During the Sisi era, the ministry not only minimized the structure of the historical military industries to a minimum in exchange for a huge expansion in the production of consumer goods, but also established new companies of a purely civilian nature, which happened with a small engineering office that had only five employees inside the ministry's corridors in 2012. In 2015, the Military Production Company for projects, engineering consultancy and public supplies, and the fledgling company won major deals with the Ministry of Education, where it established more than 60 schools, and with the Ministry of Youth, where it established a swimming pool for a sports club, and signed a final agreement with Smouha Sports Club to establish two playgrounds. Football with artificial grass, in coordination with the Minister of Youth, in addition to participating in projects for sanitation, irrigation, railways and others belonging to Al-Azhar.


With the multitude of sectors in which the military production empire operates in Egypt, the civil economy complains about the lack of fair competition with the army-owned companies, until foreign investment began to move away from the areas where the armed forces companies are located, as expressed by the volume of foreign investment in non-oil sectors. That fell last year to $ 3 billion from $ 4.7 billion in 2016.

In addition, there is an arsenal of laws that make this competition virtually impossible, including laws exempting the armed forces companies from VAT, and tourist facilities from real estate taxes, in addition to exemption from income tax and customs exemptions and other import duties, and this situation led to lack of competitiveness In September 2017, he sounded the alarm on the future of the private sector and job creation in Egypt, which could be hampered by competition from military-controlled entities. [7]

Under the eagles cloak

All these privileges and sectors in which the Ministry of Military Production operates are placed high among the other ribs of the military empire operating in the civilian economy, which is estimated to have reached more than 40% of the total Egyptian economy [8]. It did not exceed 2% [9]. The Ministry of Military Production succeeded in bringing the number of its companies closer to those of the National Service Projects Authority, which is the main engine of the Egyptian army's economic empire, indicating Sisi's increasing dependence on the ministry as a prime rib in this network. One of the most prominent and former members of the military junta is Major General Mohamed Said al-Assar, one of the difficult figures in the Egyptian armament equation, and he has great relations and influence in Washington because of his contact with the file of US military aid to Egypt when he was assistant secretary of defense for armaments affairs, which may mean adopting a pattern of contradiction. C between these economic arms of the army.

Al-Asar came up with a different agenda to put the ministry in the Egyptian economic scene after setting a plan and presenting it to Sisi to develop its roles and contributions in the flood of mysterious national projects announced by the president periodically, through the adaptation of the accumulated possibilities of the ministry and manufacturing technology, with the entry of the same door and justification The Ministry of Defense and its projects that cite the "support of the national economy". Al-Asar started his era by signing a number of cooperation protocols with other ministries and international companies, and within one year of assuming his post, his ministry penetrated many economic and social civil projects with a total value of approximately one billion pounds, according to figures announced by a ministry spokesman, projects in the fields of health, housing, education, youth and sports. Supply, transportation, environment, security, local development, agriculture, land reclamation, irrigation, electricity and information technology, in addition to SFD projects, drinking water and sanitation projects, and the needs of the armed forces Ammunition, weapons and equipment were produced in the same year for a total of approximately two billion pounds. [11]

The "baby milk" crisis was a reflection of how the Ministry of Military Production infiltrated and competed with other military companies. The crisis began with popular anger from the Ministry of Health after reducing the subsidized outlets for baby milk, which many Egyptians rely on to feed their children, and after the ministry has more than doubled the price of the packs. Sovereigns, a private company run by the sister of General Mohab Mamish, Chairman of the current Suez Canal Authority.

The crisis was engineered at best to divide the dairy cake, and the beginning of the army's intervention was through a military statement criticizing the high price of the packagings, paving the way for its later intervention in the importation of milk packets. [12] The Ministry of Military Production waited to break the field by establishing a local factory, when Major General Al-Assar announced four months after the end of the crisis that a milk production plant would be established in cooperation with the Ministry of Health as a “national security issue”, within a number of protocols with the Ministry to establish a number of factories. , of between it Making for the production of medical syringes as well. [13]

This situation was not the only success of the arm of military production used by Sisi to further penetrate the areas of the civil economy, after the ministry began to pave the way through partnerships with institutions and institutions, such as the "Long live Egypt", which is supervised by Sisi, to develop 13 informal areas in Cairo, and raise Efficiency of 35 villages of the most needy desert villages, as well as cooperation with Kafr El-Sheikh and the Ministry of Awqaf and Investment to develop a number of 10 thousand and 600 acres on the northern coast of the province to establish an investment zone. [14]

The recent presidential decree issued by al-Sisi as the Ministry of Military Production of the private actors, which joins the ministry along with the presidency and the Council of Ministers and at the same level, likely predict the nature of the important roles that will play in the coming period, where Sisi seems to be completed It was given more economic roles under the mantle of military industrialization, which is its supposed primary role, in favor of other more profitable roles.

Sisi is not only satisfied with this, but may also create a strong equation with other economic wings of the army, such as the Arab Organization for Industrialization [15], which already includes several ministries such as defense, foreign affairs, industry, finance and international cooperation, as opposed to the National Organization for Military Production headed by the Minister of State for Production. Deputy Prime Minister, Managing Director, Air Force Commander, Air Force Commander, Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Head of Administrative Development Sector, Ministry of Military Production, Chairman of Maadi Engineering Industries, Chairman Military Production of Engineering Projects, Commander of the Navy, Chairman of the Armed Forces Financial Affairs Authority, and Head of the State Budget Sector, Ministry of Finance. [16] From this formation, which was formed in November 2016, it can be concluded that the preparation of the Ministry of Military Production to be the new economic nucleus of the army in the civilian economy, through semi-monopolistic practices of some of the ministry's companies and factories in various sectors. [17]