Egypt's new ministers sworn in

Source:Xinhua Published: 2013-1-6 20:30:19

New ministers appointed in Egypt's recent cabinet reshuffle were sworn in on Sunday before President Mohamed Morsi.

The 10 new ministers include Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim, who was an assistant of his predecessor, and Finance Minister Al- Morsi al-Sayed Hegazi, an economics professor at the University of Alexandria, according to official news agency MENA.

Prime Minister Hesham Qandil's four-month-old cabinet consists of 35 ministers. Hatem Abdel-Latif is assigned as minister of transportation to succeed Mohamed Rashad el-Matini, who resigned following a train accident that killed more than 50 children in November.

The new lineup also includes Omar Mohamed Salem, as minister of state for legal and parliamentary affairs, and communication and information technology minister Atef Helmi.

In a speech late December, President Morsi said of an imminent reshuffle aimed to make the cabinet more capable of coping with political, social and economic challenges facing the country.

Both ministers of finance and transportation are members of the Muslim Brotherhood's (MB) Freedom and Justice Party.

Ahmed Imam is the new minister of electricity. As head of Cairo Electricity Production Company, he was tasked with tackling a serious power shortage last summer.

The fourth MB member in the new cabinet is Mohamed Ali Bishr, an engineering professor at the University of El-Monoufia. He replaces Ahmed Zaki Abdeen as minister of local development.

Wael al-Maaddawi serves as minister of civil aviation and Khaled Mohamed Fahmi as the minister of state for environmental affairs.

Morsi will meet the full cabinet soon to discuss tasks facing the country.

Posted in: Africa

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