CAIRO(RAHNUMA): Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi swore in new ministers Wednesday in a limited cabinet reshuffle that included a last-minute switch of the defense minister.
The cabinet, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly’s latest in his eight-year tenure, was approved the day before by parliament.
But at the Wednesday morning swearing in ceremony, El-Sisi named a new defense minister, Ashraf Salem Zaher, the former head of the Egyptian Military Academy.
He succeeds Abdelmeguid Saqr, and will lead a merged ministry for defense and military production — the latter previously its own entity governing Egypt’s sizable military economy.
The shake-up mainly targeted economic and service portfolios, as the country seeks to chart a way out of years of economic crisis.
A long-delayed state privatization plan, urged by the International Monetary Fund as part of an $8 billion loan, seeks to limit the military’s hold on the economy.
El-Sisi has scrapped the ministry of planning, economic development and international cooperation, which was helmed by Rania Al-Mashat — an economist who has been a fixture of El-Sisi’s administration, in different roles, since 2018.
Former World Bank specialist Ahmed Rostom has been named minister of planning, while Mahmoud Helmy Al-Sherif has been appointed to the justice ministry.
The reshuffle also appointed Diaa Rashwan, head of the State Information Service, as state minister for information, the first in five years.
Former handball champion and three-time Olympian Gohar Nabil has been named Egypt’s new minister for youth and sport.
The Arab world’s most populous nation has struggled under the weight of successive economic shocks, including five currency devaluations in a decade.
