New Egyptian Government Sworn In, Pledges to Fight Corruption

Egypt - Sunday, September 20, 2015

The new Egyptian Government headed by Sharif Ismail was sworn in before the President of the Republic on 19 September 2015, a week after the acceptance of the resignation of the outgoing Government headed by Ibrahim Mahlab. The governmental change comes against the backdrop of a number of security and development challenges that the country is facing, and after the Minister of Agriculture, and a number of senior ministry officials have been sacked and arrested in a major corruption case leading to the illegal takeover of state-owned lands.

The new government consists of 33 ministers compared to 37 ministers in its predecessor, including 16 new ministers, most of whom have been assigned with service ministries. In the meantime, the Ministry of Planning, Follow-up and Administrative Reform is left unchanged, along with the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior, Justice, Defense, Finance, Investment and Supply. Furthermore, a number of ministerial portfolios have also been merged such as the case of Higher Education and Scientific Research; Health and Population; and Education and Technical Education. The Ministry of Transitional Justice have also been replaced with the Ministry of Legal Affairs and the House of Representatives, and a new Ministry of State was instated for migration and Egyptian affairs abroad.

The new government is expected to oversee the upcoming parliamentary election, after which it will be terminated with the formation of the new parliament. In his first statement, the new prime minister said that "corruption has no place because we stand strongly against this phenomenon. We will work decisively on solving the existing problems," and added that "the government will work on two axes, the first is for the short-term focusing on finding urgent solutions to existing problems, while the second is for long-term focusing on the implementation of national projects that are underway,"  stressing that "education, health and transportation services are among the most important priorities for the Government.”