In a plenary session on Sunday, the Egyptian Parliament headed by its Speaker Dr. Ali Abdel Aal approved a cabinet reshuffle.
The reshuffle saw the replacement of a number of ministers, in addition to merging other some ministerial portfolios.
The newly-approved reshuffle will keep Moustafa Madbouli in office as prime minister and assign him responsible for the investment and administrative reform affairs, in addition to changing 10 ministerial portfolios, including, investment, trade and industry, justice, agriculture, tourism, social solidarity, and parliamentary affairs.
The full list of the new ministers as follows:
Counselor Omar Marwan appointed as Minister of Justice
Khaled El-Anani, Minister of Tourism and Antiquities
Rania Al-Mashat, Minister of International Cooperation
Nevin Jameh, Minister of Trade, Industry
Alaa Fouad, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs
Osama Heikal, Minister of Information
Dr. Hala Al-Saeed, Minister of Planning, and Economic Development
Muhammad Manar, Minister of Civil Aviation
Nevin El-Kabbaj, Minister of Social Solidarity
Mohammed Al Qusair, Minister of Agriculture
A number of ministerial portfolios have been merged together in the coming cabinet reshuffle. The tourism and antiquities ministries are merged under one portfolio, meanwhile, the ministry of investment and international cooperation is separated into two portfolios.
In previous statements, MP Mohamed Abdel Ghani said that the reshuffle comes, at this specific time, in response to people’s sense of dissatisfaction with the performance of the government, and the lack of a clear improvement in the living standards of most citizens.
The government previously received a vote of confidence from parliament in July 2018.
It is noteworthy that the ministerial reshuffle comes in pursuance of Article 174 of the constitution that stipulates that the “President shall hold the cabinet reshuffle in consultation with the Prime Minister and with the approval of the House of Representatives by an absolute majority of the attendees of the house and no less than one-third of its total members.”