Opinion writers not happy with gov’t decision making process: Government decisions geared to resolve specific problems end up creating a host of other issues because the decisions are not thoroughly thought out to begin with, Safwat Kabel writes for Al Shorouk. Kabel takes issue with the recently implemented rice policy that saw the government reducing the country’s rice cultivation and President Abdel Fattah El Sisi approving the import of rice as a way to reduce retail prices. While these policies are understandable when looking through the water conservation lens, Kabel argues that the government did not assess the situation holistically and failed to anticipate the decisions’ side effects — or, at the very least, communicate how it plans to address these side effects. Among the issues he points to are the fact that farmers were not given guidelines on which crops to cultivate instead of rice, that reducing rice cultivation will reduce the fertility of the soil, and that relying on imported rice means that the retail price will likely increase for domestic consumers.