A heavy legacy that the Egyptian state agencies and successive governments have inherited for more than 60 years is the main reason why the Egyptian state has not yet advanced, according to repeated statements by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.
Al-Sisi has been reporting to others the results of the failure of his government's political and economic policies, and the accompanying rise in the Egyptian internal and external debts and their reaching unprecedented rates. Egypt inherited it from successive governments since 1952.
But these arguments reveal the contradiction in Sisi's speech, as he criticizes the previous regimes for not building a strong state and institutions, and at the same time he blames the January 25, 2011 revolution, saying that it caused the collapse of the state and its institutions.
Debt and the curve of the economy
Two days ago, a World Bank report showed that Egypt was the largest borrower in the Middle East and North Africa region during 2019, accounting for nearly 34% of the region's total debt.
According to the World Bank's report on international debt statistics, the accumulation of debt in Egypt increased the debt burden in the region by 5.3%, which is the largest jump since 2009.
The total external debt of the Middle East and North Africa region last year was $ 340 billion, compared to $ 323 billion in 2018.
Egypt's external debt increased by 14.9% in 2019 to record $ 115.1 billion, compared to $ 100.1 billion in 2018.
The huge increase in the size of the external debt, he was also referred to a study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which showed that the economic policies of the Egyptian system led to continuous increases in poverty rates, which exacerbated the social vulnerability of Egyptians.
The study, published two weeks ago, indicated that the main reason is the financial and economic policy that aims to accelerate the transfer of wealth from the lower and middle classes to the business elites.
The study confirmed that the increase in poverty rates led to an increase in levels of social deprivation, evidenced by a 9.7% decline in general consumption of goods and services, with a decrease in spending on services such as education, health care and culture.
Debt-burdened era
In this context, Mustafa Shaheen, an economics professor at the University of Oakland in the US, confirms that Sisi is not operating according to a clear plan.
Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Shaheen added that Sisi has been in power in Egypt for 8 years, and he is the first president in the history of Egypt to be hit by all these deposits and loans, but what the people see is an increase in indebtedness, a very large weakness in the standard of living, and a rise in the general level of prices Lower incomes of individuals.
During a television interview at the beginning of last September, the governor of the Central Bank of Egypt, Tarek Amer, said that the total dollar cash flows that came to Egypt within 6 years, which is the term of Sisi's presidency, amounted to $ 431 billion in financing, exports, transfers and income from tourism and other sources of foreign currency. .
Economic expert Mustafa Shaheen explains that it has not happened in the history of Egypt that the external debt increases within a short period of time from 44 billion dollars to 123 billion dollars, at the rate of an increase of 79 billion dollars during the reign of Sisi, which did not happen during the era of any previous president of Egypt to reach this level From external and internal debt.
Shaheen believes that Sisi is coming with a specific plan, which is to dump Egypt in debt, adding, "Even the projects that he undertakes are consumer projects, while industrial and agricultural production suffers, in addition to the flabby service sector."
Last June, the Executive Director of Egypt's Sovereign Fund, Ayman Soliman, said that the Egyptian government intends to get rid of some of its debts by selling state-owned assets to Arab and foreign investors in partnership with Egypt's sovereign fund, and he also made clear that the value of the assets expected to be transferred amounts to about $ 3.5 billion. It is a down payment.
The legacy of the presidents, not the revolution
Former presidential candidate Ayman Nour said that the heavy legacy Sisi talks about was the real motive for which the January 25 revolution emerged to confront poverty, hunger, tyranny and devastation that spread in the country from 1952 until 2010.
Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Nour added that the report presented by Sisi at his last meeting should with him apologize in the name of the military rule of Egypt and the Egyptians for this fallout that took place in economic and political conditions, and what this report revealed is known in advance to everyone that civil Egypt was much better than Egypt. After the military rule.
Regarding Sisi's repeated talk about the heavy legacy that he inherited, Nour pointed out that this is the habit of despotic rulers, and in the absence of transparency and popular accountability, every tyrannical ruler resorts to placing the burden on his predecessors.
Nour stressed that the economic and social indicators and indicators related to the exchange rate and the size of the debt reveal the extent of the destruction that Sisi and his successive governments have wrought on people's lives.
The Egyptian politician stressed that the January 25 revolution was carried out in order to cleanse the country of corruption, considering that Sisi is one of the most important symbols of corruption that played a suspicious role before and during the revolution, and after the coup that he led against the revolution and not against the person of the late President Mohamed Morsi.
Wrong practices
In turn, the lecturer at the Middle East Institute at the Turkish University of Sakarya, Muhammad Suleiman al-Zawawi, confirms that the heavy legacy that Egypt inherited is the product of wrong practices of military rule.
Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Al-Zawawi added that the military political system is the reason for what Egypt is suffering now, especially from the wrong administrative division and the overlapping of major cities, which led to a failure to bring about development in Upper Egypt and small cities, and there have been widespread migrations from the countryside to urban areas, which caused problems Economical and social.
He stressed that Sisi reproduces failure once again by bringing back the military dictatorship, to repeat the failures committed by previous military regimes that squandered Egypt's wealth.
He explained that Al-Sisi is rebuilding the military dictatorship again, which means absolute power, that is, absolute corruption, due to the lack of real control over his actions and the waste of public funds on unnecessary projects, such as the Suez Canal branch, which cost the country more than 6 billion dollars.
The professor of political science stressed that the January 25, 2011 revolution is a symptom of a disease in the Egyptian political system, the accumulation of years of failure and lack of progress in the economic aspect and social justice, which is the result of the military rule over 60 years.
other reasons
On the other hand, the coordinator of the "Egypt Above All Coalition" Mahmoud Attia stressed that Sisi did not mean by talking about the heavy legacy inherited by the reduction of his predecessors from the presidents of Egypt.
Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Attia explained that Egypt after 1952 was preparing a great renaissance, and the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser sought to build a modern state, but entering into wars and international crises, especially the Yemen war, led to the deterioration of the value of the Egyptian pound.
Attia refused to consider the regimes that ruled Egypt after 1952 as military systems, and said, "This is an injustice to these regimes. The head of the regime was only from the armed forces or had a military background, but the rest of its aides and the ministers were mostly from outside the military establishment."
He added, perhaps, the reason was the lack of success in planning, as well as the large population increase, adding, "We do not throw the burden on the military establishment, which is supposed to be an institution of control and linkage.
And on holding Sisi and his prime minister responsible for the January 25 revolution, 2011, Attia said that Sisi means by his speech what happened after January 25 of chaos, thuggery and thefts, adding that "Young people dreaming of a better country is not the cause, but chaos, thefts, illegal construction and stopping factories." And the threat of their owners, and the strike from work, are what brought us to where we are now. "