Page 9 - Issue17

issue 17
March 2020
ELITE
8

Prof.Dr. Gouda Abdelkhalek offers his readers new insights in his new book

"FROM THE SQUARE TO THE OFFICE"

Edited by : Israa Awwad, Revised by : Sarah Nasreldine

On Tuesday, February 18/2020, the Center for Economic and Financial Research and Studies at the Faculty of Economics and Political
Science held a symposium to present and discuss the book "From the Sq uare to the Office". Whereas, this symposium was under the
patronage of Prof. Dr. Mahmoud Al-Said - Dean of the Faculty - as a discussion of the book of P rofessor of Economics and former Minister
of Social Solidarity Prof. Dr. Gouda Abdel-Khalek, titled"From the Square to the Office". Prof. D r. Adla Rajab, the Professor of Economics
and Director of the Center, facilitated the symposium and presented it and Dr. Heba Nassar, Professor of Economics and former Vice
President of Cairo University for Community Service and Environmental Dev elopment, was the commentator.Numerous professors,
students, researchers, and journalists attended. The symposium was inaugurated by P rofessor Adla Rajab presenting Professor Dr.
Mahmoud Al-Said, who in turn welcomed Prof. Dr. Goda AbdelKhalek, Prof. Dr. Heba Na ssar, and the audience.

At the beginning, Prof. Dr. Gouda mentioned that he loves creative writing, be cause it is smoother than others. He emphasized that what he
mentioned in this book is what he thinks of the truth and that he did n ot cancel a wordexcept that he wiped the names of thieves of
thepublic money as a response to a request from the publisher in order no t to be subject to legal question. He added that the speech was
dedicated to the martyrs of January 25.
Then,he briefly explained excerpts from the notes (the book) and began separating them. He started with "From Al-sayeda to Sayyidina al-
Hussein" chapter where he stated that he was inspired by Abdul-Muttalib ’s song as he used to move daily from the Ministry of Affairs in
El-Agouza to the Ministry of Supply in Al-Qasr el-Eani when he was a ministe r. He also mentioned that Al-sayeda was a safe place for
him; because Al-sayedawas far away from Tahrir Square.

After that, he turned to a section called "The Ministerial Department and the K illing Bureaucracy ” because it worked to concentrate power
in the minister ’s hand alone, and this is one of the reasons of the government failure be cause of the waste of time and effort. Then he talked
about a part of the book titled "Isis Collecting the Remains of Osiris", where he referred to the Ministry of Supply as Osiris, and pointed
that he was Isis, who has come to collect the parts of the ministry. He referred that some of the thieves are wheat merchants as they were
importing wheat from Kazakhstan with profits up to usury, but he tried to turn the wheat market in E gypt into a buyers' market.
Additionally, Prof. Dr. Gouda talked about the crisis of Upper Egypt's mills, th e sugar cane crisis, the wheat crisis, and the reform of the
loaf system. He said that the first step to resolve a crisis is to know the time h orizon of it. Every crisis is a time bomb that will explode after
minutes or days, so this time and knowledge of the crisis must be studied carefully. It is also possible to communicate with public opinion
but calmly, so as not to riot. He narrated how he had dealt with the chaos of th e gas market and the sugar cane crisis. He concluded his
speech with his humanitarian stances in the ministry, where he showed a pictu re with an Egyptian farmer and stated that he was affected by
her Egyptian features and meanings in her face.

The word was passed on to Prof. Dr. Heba Nassar, and she started it with a word of praise on Dr. Gouda, and mentioned his exploits and
knowledge, and after that she directed to him some questions and criticisms about the book. T hen, he received questions from the attendees,
and he, in turn, answered Dr. Heba's questions and those of the attendees. At the end of the event, Dr. Adla highlighted this was an
interesting discussion and concluded it with thanks to the distinguished professors and all who attended this amazing discussion.

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