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Wednesday, 30 November 2016

Last Night’s Talk Shows: the NGO Law, Adib has chicken on the brain

Yahduth fi Masr’s Sherif Amer hopped on the domestic and global media bandwagon to dissect the controversial new NGO Act, which received its final approval from the House of Representatives on Tuesday (more on that in the Speed Round). MP Mohamed Anwar Al Sadat told the host that the bill was rushed through without sufficient time for meaningful debate.

MP Mohamed Abu Hamed, a member of the House committee that drafted the bill, disputed that, saying that the committee met with charity outfits including Resala and the Food Bank and took their comments into consideration. Abu Hamed also denied that the law cap donations by any one individual to a single NGO at EGP 10,000, saying gifts of that size would be subject to state oversight. National Council for Human Rights head Hafez Abu Seda also joined the discussion, with opinion that the law is “bad” for NGOs in Egypt and that it limits their freedom of work. You can watch the full episode here (runtime: 48:56).

Meanwhile, Kol Youm’s Amr Adib spent a full 40 minutes talking about chicken. Specifically, the government’s decision to lift custom tariffs on poultry imports. Adib spoke to four local poultry producers who expressed their discontent with the decision, saying that they would rather the government lift tariffs on their bird feed and other production inputs “so that we can compete.” (watch, runtime: 9:05).

Poultry importers themselves were surprised by the customs break, poultry importer Alaa Radwan said. As is typical with ungrateful importers, Radwan said: “The government should have sat down with us to know our demands before surprising us, though.” How about just counting your blessings before your chicken come to roost? (Watch, runtime: 4:05)

A little late to the pharma is catastrophe party was Al Qahera Wel Nas’ Ibrahim Eissa, who asked how the government can take the floatation decision without studying its impact on the health sector, “this is a proof that the government takes decisions without knowing their impacts,” he said. (Watch: runtime: 34:44).

Lamees Al Hadidy was off last night.

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