Day 6 - My Little License Plate

So here I am in post-revolution Cairo having already gotten quite the impression without even having left the confines of my home. The garbage tip in front of our apartment building remains. The mosques are still keeping timely prayers. The street vendors are still abound at 2am. The only massive difference I have seen so far is that my neighbour has gone from selling kittens to selling handbag dogs. I suppose I found this to be quite disturbing. What has really changed?

During Ramadan, Egypt has a tendency to hike up the food prices instead of start a wide scale sale and allow people of all walks of life to afford basic sustenance. This year Egypt has no choice in the matter and prices have increased on account of limited agro-production and increased reliance on food imports. I kept asking about the prices of different basic goods until the shop owners and my neighbours suspected me of hunger as opposed to curiosity. From last year Ramadan the prices of basic foods have seen an increase of at least 10% all round. A kilo of meat went from being between LE 40 and 60 to now ranging from LE 70 to120 - all in the span of 11 months. There are butchers who offer a meat variable for LE 25 per kilo – however, these are generally meat by products and rather inedible even by the lowest standards. In addition, the minimum wage in Egypt has gone down post-revolution from LE 700 to LE 684. A lot of people working in the tourism industry were laid off and across the board mass unemployment ensued the revolution. In previous years Egypt was the one exporting cotton, fruit and vegetables; however, now it is importing wheat from Russia, cotton from the US and dried/canned foods from China and Brazil. To make matters worse specific food-testing labs in the ports in Egypt were recently closed down by the SCAF on account of high maintenance costs. Increased food imports coupled with minimum pre-release safety testing leave the country somewhat open to importing not just food but also new bacteria and virus that the current public health surveillance and relief systems would not be able to handle.

However, this could either become a short-term or long-term problem depending on how the political situation unfolds. This of course goes hand in hand with the uprooting of corruption. The complete eradication of corruption in Egypt is somewhat similar to the eradication of disease. It takes time, persistence, funds and the tiresome seemingly endless siphoning of old blood. Example - the former government has marginalized cotton growers to the point where only a handful of the once abundant cotton farms remain. They were continuously underpaid whilst government officials creamed the crops for the government to export the produce at prices that have made Egyptian Cotton a sought after luxury abroad. Now it has become a rarity to find decent cotton worthy of selling locally. The continuous marginalisation of farmers, lack of subsidies and increased cost of fertiliser have pushed the agricultural sector to react by closing down or finding unorthodox means to survive. Think midnight fertiliser and selling rocks for apples. And feeding your cattle? I don’t even want to know.

So there you have it, a reduced minimum wage and a large majority unemployed living on the USD 1 per day quota. The middle class have tightened their purse strings and the upper echelons of Egyptian society still have their yachts, except now they are moored along the red sea coast until further notice (or release from prison). Is Egypt a poor country? Far from. Egypt suffers from the African problem. A lot of potential and too much corruption. Post-revolution a viable clean entrepreneur can become a yacht owner over a decent amount of time now that the there are buxom gaps in the market waiting to be filled. Especially during Ramadan with the increased collateral spending. If I were only half an entrepreneur I would primarily re-instate the safety testing labs in the main ports and subsequently plug the gaps in mass food and fertiliser imports. In turn, with the profit from that, I would round up the farmers into co-operatives and offer them compounded subsidies by means of interest free macro-credit loans. Interest free you say? Yes, their yield can be bought at fair trade prices with the majority exported and select portion sold locally at affordable rates until the fine balance of supply and demand can be locally met whereby food imports can be scaled back again. Of course, I am not an entrepreneur and rather economically challenged. Not what Egypt needs.

Egypt needs trust. They need to trust their new political system. They need to know that their government will not squander LE 92 million in public funds by granting the license plate contract to a foreign company through direct order at above market prices, in violation of the tenders and auctions law they themselves set. They need to know they will receive a pension after their 67 years of service to the public. They need to know they will no longer have to fork out endless amounts on private lessons because the teachers in public schools are too disillusioned with their wage packages to teach during school hours. They need to know their hospitals can cater to their needs without having to embark on endless charity runs. They need to trust they can live and let live.

Who out there is brave enough to take on this level of responsibility and accountability?