Members of Parliament (MPs) with the Economic Affairs Committee accused the Cabinet of deliberately issuing decisions during the parliament's holidays, and heavily criticized their delay in submitting to the parliament for review, the IMF loan agreement and the decision of poultry exemption from customs duties.
Undersecretary of the Economic Affairs Committee Amr al-Gohary said Monday, during a committee meeting held to discuss the consumer protection bill, that the Cabinet has changed the timing of its weekly meeting to Thursday instead of Wednesday, because in this way the parliament would not be able to review Cabinet decisions over the weekend.
Gohary criticized the Cabinet as well for not submitting a clear reason for the cancellation of customs duties on some goods. "There are no such things as 'provocative' goods," he said, referring to an expression used for items such as pet food and luxury goods. "Everybody has the right to coexist," he added.
"There are people close to the decision-making circles who knew about those decisions, which raises suspicions of corruption. There are second and third row officials in the ministries who have links to former (Mubarak-era) officials who were not imprisoned," said MP Medhat al-Sherif.
The head of the Consumer Protection Agency, Atef Yacoub, said the government should have put a parallel plan to support some of the products, especially the basic ones, in light of its recent decision to support imports.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
