Page 5 - Issue-16

ELITE ISSUE 16, FEBRUARY 2020 PAGE 4

Without • You always call for the importance of Freedom of Information Access, how can
opinion polls this freedom be maintained with a governmental comp mobile network market? market,
the
in
any
landline
the internet market and a strong competitor in the
no adequate - If we look at the constitution, we will find that it guarantees the right to citizen
decision ownership of information, so we must view the owner ship of information as a principal
making can more than it is a tool.

occur • We are celebrating the ninth anniversary of the r evolution this month, how do you
evaluate the January revolution and its outcomes?
- At the beginning, the revolution was very inspira tional and fascinating both inside and
outside of Egypt, but after a while other agendas s tarted to override the revolution and so
we can learn from this experience, is that any revo lution should have a solid thought to
abide by so that other factions wouldn't take over it.
Nevertheless, the revolution had many positive outc omes, where it proved that there is no
one who can get through his wrongful deeds regardle ss of his history like what happened
to former president Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, it also encouraged the freedom of
expression for individuals and also was a reason to our current constitution, but it is also
important to note that people should understand tha t there are other ways to reach change
other than protests, as revolutions have high costs .

• What is your evaluation for the population crisis after the recent decrease in the
degree of population growth?
- The Egyptian Population increased by 40% from 200 6 to 2012, and to state that the
population growth had decreased should could be val id when on growth rate returns to be
equal to the rate before 2006, other than the that, the decrease in the population growth
rate is small, because the growth in the population this year reached 2 and a half million
people and this rate can be managed to be only 2 mi llion people, then it would be
considered to be a breakthrough in itself, I've wri tten many articles in this regard titled,
"Collective Suicide," as I think that the issue is not dealt with seriously where each
ministry blames the other for the proliferation of the problem.

• Building on the previous point, there has been ta lks about the negative social side
effects of the reform program regarding the middle class and poverty rates, what is
your opinion about this?
- The economic reform program is an important step, and it should've been pursued many
years ago, that is why the costs are this high, whi ch we see in the short term, but its
benefits will be visible in the long and medium ter ms, the costs of the economic reform
program was faced in the whole world, with the lowe r class suffering the most of these
costs, especially with policies of lifting subsidie s from the petrol prices, that mostly
benefited the rich, where the government had benefi ted a lot of money that was spent on
the rich class, and tries to reallocate the subsidi es in order tobenefit the poor, but this
process needs more focus on treating other aspects, and so although poverty rates are
expected to rise in the short term but it will have fruits in the medium and long terms.

• You have developed a new social justice index in which Egypt has scored 2.28 out
of 10; tell us more about this index.
- The social justice index measures to what extent are their equal opportunities available
for all citizens especially those with disabilities , the ratios also show that most of the
beneficiaries of the free university education syst em are from the top class, and so there
should be other systems that are targeted to suppor t the poorer families in order to
achieve real social justice these systems will be m ost effective in the education field, and
also in the internet infrastructure, where providin g fast internet access to Egyptian
villages will make it possible for the locals to be tter advertise for their products online,
which will raise their status, also we should work more on the health sector that is mainly
used by higher classes in the society.

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