Egypt cabinet change looming as Sisi censures ministers: Reports

Press reports in Egypt widely speculate a potential cabinet reshuffle by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi after the former army chief openly criticized the performance of his prime minister and several ministers.

The harshest criticism of Sisi, who completed his first year in office on Monday, came against Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab.

“You promised me you’ll be a bulldozer to pave the road. Where is this bulldozer?" Sisi told Mahlab.

The criticism, reported by state news agency MENA, came during an event inaugurating development projects being administered by the army, which Sisi led prior to running for president after staging a coup in July 2013 to oust Egypt’s first freely elected president, Mohammed Morsi.

Sisi further went on to censure his cabinet's slow pace in drilling wells to cultivate farmlands saying, "Why can't we build four thousand wells for the development and cultivation of four million acres?"

Also slamming his Petroleum Minister Sherif Ismail for alleged shortcomings in providing digging equipment for oil wells, the Egyptian president said, "Engineer Sherif, you said that you will supply the necessary equipment and finish the work within two years, but this is yet to happen."

While appearing to blame cabinet ministers for the country’s persisting economic troubles since he rose to power, Sisi further claimed that he interferes in the details of all projects for the "well-being of Egypt, and its sons who trusted him."

He made a limited cabinet reshuffle in March, replacing Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, who was widely criticized by political activists, and establishing two new portfolios - a ministry of state for population and another for technical education.

Meanwhile, US-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) harshly censured the Egyptian president for presiding over “the flagrant abuse of human rights since taking office a year ago.”

“Over the past year, Sisi and his cabinet, governing by decree in the absence of an elected parliament, have provided near total impunity for security force abuses and issued a raft of laws that severely curtailed civil and political rights, effectively erasing the human rights gains of the 2011 uprising that ousted the longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak,” HRW said in a press release on Monday.

The rights group further slammed the West for legitimizing human rights abuses in Egypt through their "continued silence".

“The United States and European governments should stop overlooking Egyptian government abuses, including a lack of accountability for many killings of protesters by security forces, mass detentions, military trials of civilians, hundreds of death sentences, and the forced eviction of thousands of families in the Sinai Peninsula,” HRW stated.

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