Back to the complete issue
Sunday, 8 January 2017

Women won’t be conscripted, five-year plan for sermons

Talk show hosts had religion on the brain last night. Lamees El Hadidy started off last night’s episode of Hona Al Assema with President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s announcement last Friday that the new Administrative Capital will be home to the largest church and mosque in the country around this time next year. Members of the House of Representatives launched a campaign to collect funds for the project after the announcement, according to El Hadidy. “But this isn’t only about building churches and mosques. We have a much larger issue here… we have to pay special attention to education, culture, and religious rhetoric,” she said (watch, runtime 4:02), setting up a discussion with Culture Minister Helmy El Namnam about his ministry’s role in eliminating extremism (watch, runtime 7:19).

El Hadidy also dove into the controversy surrounding the new Egyptian film Mawlana (title used to address sheikhs and clerics), which surveys the lives of Muslim preachers in Egypt. MP Shoukry El Gendy, a member of the House of Representatives’ religious affairs committee, told El Hadidy that the film should have been approved by Al Azhar prior to its release. Director Magdy Ahmed Ali told the host during a phone-in though that the movie did in fact obtain all the necessary approvals from all relevant entities (watch, runtime 14:13).

The Endowments Ministry has a five-year plan for Friday sermons? Over on ONTV, Amr Adib lambasted the Endowments Ministry for saying it would be presenting the presidency with a list containing the topics and themes for Friday prayer sermons for the next five years. “That’s excessive… We don’t have five-year visibility on anything at all in this country,” he scoffed. “And do they really think the president is going to sit down and read five years’ worth of sermons?” (watch, runtime 2:22).

Women won’t be conscripted: Social Solidarity Minister Ghada Wali told Lamees last night that there are no plans to conscript female university graduates. Wali explained that the rumors arose from a misunderstanding over a procedural announcement calling on graduates looking for government jobs to apply. “It’s a standard procedure that happens every year,” Wali said.

Child abuse at orphanage? El Hadidy also spoke to Wali about an alleged child abuse case at a Dar Al Orman orphanage in New Cairo, after a video emerged of a screaming child being forced into a freezing cold bath circulated the internet on Saturday. Wali said that the woman seemingly responsible was being investigated and that some of the children were transferred to other facilities (watch, runtime 9:33).

Reconciliation for building on agricultural land gets nod: Amr Adib commended the House of Representatives for giving the initial nod to a bill that would allow reconciliation in cases in which agricultural land had been illegally built-on (watch, runtime 3:09).

The vast number of unclaimed junked cars littering Cairo’s streets seems set to become Adib’s new hobbyhorse. He suggested that “someone should start a company, rally a few young people, give them a winch and tell them that their job is to collect all of the junked cars in Egypt and sell them and make a few pounds.” He said that many factories would be happy to buy the hulls and recycle them (watch, runtime 2:07).

The host also aired a report on the Egyptian pension system (watch, runtime 2:40) and then spoke to MP Mohamed Abu Hamed about a new law proposal the government is preparing to amend the social security and pensions systems. The law will oblige the private sector to cover employees’ social security and “will also impose sanctions on companies that fail to comply,” Abu Hamed said (watch, runtime 1:03).

Sherif Amer was off last night.

Enterprise is a daily publication of Enterprise Ventures LLC, an Egyptian limited liability company (commercial register 83594), and a subsidiary of Inktank Communications. Summaries are intended for guidance only and are provided on an as-is basis; kindly refer to the source article in its original language prior to undertaking any action. Neither Enterprise Ventures nor its staff assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, whether in the form of summaries or analysis. © 2022 Enterprise Ventures LLC.

Enterprise is available without charge thanks to the generous support of HSBC Egypt (tax ID: 204-901-715), the leading corporate and retail lender in Egypt; EFG Hermes (tax ID: 200-178-385), the leading financial services corporation in frontier emerging markets; SODIC (tax ID: 212-168-002), a leading Egyptian real estate developer; SomaBay (tax ID: 204-903-300), our Red Sea holiday partner; Infinity (tax ID: 474-939-359), the ultimate way to power cities, industries, and homes directly from nature right here in Egypt; CIRA (tax ID: 200-069-608), the leading providers of K-12 and higher level education in Egypt; Orascom Construction (tax ID: 229-988-806), the leading construction and engineering company building infrastructure in Egypt and abroad; Moharram & Partners (tax ID: 616-112-459), the leading public policy and government affairs partner; Palm Hills Developments (tax ID: 432-737-014), a leading developer of commercial and residential properties; Mashreq (tax ID: 204-898-862), the MENA region’s leading homegrown personal and digital bank; Industrial Development Group (IDG) (tax ID:266-965-253), the leading builder of industrial parks in Egypt; Hassan Allam Properties (tax ID:  553-096-567), one of Egypt’s most prominent and leading builders; and Saleh, Barsoum & Abdel Aziz (tax ID: 220-002-827), the leading audit, tax and accounting firm in Egypt.