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Special
Board Chairman: Coverge for the
Staff and
Prof. Dr. Mahmoud El Said Students’
Editor in Chief: Iftar(s)
Ramy Magdy Ahmed Elite

Issued by the Faculty of FEPS, where elites are made..
Economics and Political
Science, Cairo University Volume 1 Issue 8 June 2019
Designed By: Ramy Magdy Ahmed

Our Alumnus The Former Minister of Planning Prof. Dr. Othman Mohamed Othman in a Special Interview with ELITE:

“When January protests erupted, we couldn’t see

what’s wrong with our flourishing economic

indicators back then”

During his last We don’t
years in power, suffer income
Mubarak was
not a desirable distribution
figure for the problems but
Americans due poverty
to his avoiding problem
any engagement resulting
with the from rising
American-
Iranian Conflict expectations
since the
Our editors (from left): Farah Ezzeldin, Ramy Magdy (beside Dr. Othman) and Abdelrahman Elhadidi 1952
Revolution
Cairo : Ramy Magdy, Farah Ezzeldin, Some of his colleagues were AbdelkaderShoaib FEPS when Othman was at the bachelor's
Abdelrahman ElHadidi and Nermine and Osama GhazaliHarb and Dr. Ahmed Yousef. level. He asked Moheiddin to see him and
Tawfik Othman thought it was a good decision and met him at his home. And actually he told
Dr. Othman Mohamed Othman is one of graduated in the Class of 1969 then he was him that Muhammad HassaneinHeikal and
the most prominent Egyptian economists. He is appointed as a teaching assistant, and remained in HatemSadiq were founding the Center for
one of the graduates of the first batches/ the academic work till getting his Phd. He stressed Palestinian and Zionist Political Studies in
squads of the Faculty of Economics and that the first years of his studies were the best Al-Ahram asked Othman to join the
Political Science. He combined the work in the years in his life as he received economics and economic unit in the new center. This job
academic field with the administrative politics by senior professors and pioneers such as helped him persuade his wife‟s family; Ms.
positions until he became Minister of Planning
and Economic Development.So we went to his Boutros Ghali, Ra'at al-Mahjoub and KhairiIssa, Huda to accept him as a husband to their
current headquarters in the Planning Institute, and he condemns the great virtue of these daughter. Also his life style was like the
professors. For example, he learnt economic 1960s generation who were fond of the
and «Elite» made this dialogue with him.
development from the work of Dr. activities of the university; he did not leave
At the beginning, Dr. Othman talked about ZakiShafi'iwhich considered to be the backbone the faculty before 8 pm and spent his time
the reasons for joining the Faculty of of economics during the 1960s. between seminars and activities of the
Economics and Political Science. He said that university hostels. At that time the
until his last high school studies, he was One of the hard situations that he faced in the participation of students in political life was
thinking about being an engineer. While he faculty was in one ofDr. Abdel Fattah very high. During his undergraduate studies,
was in the middle of the third grade, there was Qandil‟slectures who was teaching economic he joined one of the socialist organizations
an economic summit on Africa and the theory or planning in the third year as there was a
continent and actually he was very passionate misunderstanding of his speech. The number of where his teachers considered him one of
about the activity and charisma of the students at the Department of Economics at the their colleagues.
President Gamal Abdel Nasser, he followed Then he talked about his ministerial career;
the news of that summit carefully. In the time was only 70 students. He talked with Othman he took three ministerial portfolios which
Arabic high school exam, Othman wrote a with a harsh tone twice and expelled him from the are planning and international cooperation,
good essay about the economic development. lecture and repeated it in the office of the dean. then planning and local development, and
At that time he started to be interested in Nevertheless, he remains grateful to him.He then the Ministry of State for Economic
praised Dr. AmrMohieldin, may he rest in peace,
economics and presented his desire to join the Development. He clarified that there are
Faculty of Economics and Political Science that had come from, the Foreign Mission to necessary political changes taking place in

instead of engineering, and he did.

ELITE Issue 8, June 2019 | P a g e 1