Via Zeinobia:
Without any introduction we found Mubarak today issuing a Presidential decree of a reshuffle in the Nazif Cabinet. Do not put too much hope all the corrupt ministers are still in their positions.
Tag: nazif
Press Syndicate discusses ‘historic verdict’ on health sector privatization
From the Daily News Egypt:
Prime Minister Ahmad Nazif’s plans to privatize Egypt’s health insurance system would have been “a complete waste of public money,” said Khaled Ali, chairman of the Hisham Mubarak Law Center.
Ali was speaking at a press conference held by the Journalists’ Syndicate to discuss the Administrative Court’s decision to halt initial plans of privatization.
The government’s claims that it wants to privatize the health insurance system to improve the quality of services are invalid, Ali argued, because privatizing it would only make it unavailable to the public.
“The constitution doesn’t give the prime minister the authority to issue such a decree. The president and the People’s Assembly are the only entities who can issue those kinds of decrees,” Ali added.
Earlier this month, the Administrative Court halted government plans to place Egypt’s health insurance system under the control of a profit-making company, in what a rights advocate called a “historic” verdict.
The Administrative Court ruled that “the money allocated for health insurance is public money, and the government is not at liberty to handle it.”
The case was raised by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR) in April 2007 and the verdict forces the government to suspend implementation of its plans until a final verdict is issued.
The current non-profitable health insurance system covers 40 hospitals, 600 polyclinics, 3,000 institute clinics, and 500 pharmacies.
‘6th of April: To be or not to be’
In the run up to the 6th of April, Ghazl el-Mahalla turned into a battleground of propaganda and agitation between the Textile Workers’ League activists on the one hand, and on the other were the management, security and the group of workers around Attar and Habib who were trying to sabotage the strike.
Each camp was distributing hundreds and thousands of statements in the week prior to the 6th of April. According to two labor organizers I spoke with, the militancy in the garments section, that is composed largely of women workers, was the highest. These were the same workers who started the 7th of December strike, as 3000 of them struck and started marching, chanting “Where are the men? Here we are the women!”
One of the strongest pro-strike statements, distributed in the factory, appeared a couple of days prior to the uprising, titled “The 6th of April: To be or not to be,” signed by “The Women Workers of Ghazl el-Mahalla,” who were close to the Textile Workers’ League.
The statement denounced PM Nazif, the National Democratic Party, the company security and the state-backed union officials, endorsing the call to strike:
