NDP's 2005 parliamentary polls' program
Dear citizens:
The NDP takes the necessary measures to improve the life of citizens. Egypt teeters on the verge of a new phase in its history. So, the party does its best make citizens' dreams come true.
The NDP has drawn up this program to solve citizens problems, such as: unemployment, housing, travel, transport, low pay, pensions, price hikes, medical care, education and culture. Hence, the NDP considers citizens' right to improve their lives a top priority of its parliamentary polls' program. The party does every endeavour to ensure that legislation is suits the best interests of citizens. The NDP has unshaken belief in citizens' right to freedom of expression and a secure home. Citizens needs in villages and towns top the party's reform agenda.
The program for parliamentary elections finds its roots in President Mubarak's presidential platform that millions of Egyptians voted for in the first competitive election last September.
This program represents a plan for developed as it addresses the needs of all classes; teachers, doctors, farmers, employees and working mothers. It also covers all activities: agriculture, industry, health, education and tourism. Both the President's program and the Parliamentary program underline the importance of legislative reform.
The NDP counts on its Government in putting its vision into action. At the same time, it counts on its MPs to sponsor the necessary legislative reform. This puts the MPs in the position of a supervisor over implementing the party's program in the legislature. The NDP here presents this paper which represents its vision for the future. Your votes should go for the new thinking and the clear vision of the future.
Here is the program in points:
1- Creating job opportunities
Small loans' program
This program will create 600,000 job opportunities within the coming six years through small-scale projects. Around LE3 billion are allocated for the fund of the program. Banks will have small-loan branches. These branches will ease loan procedures for citizens. The Government and the party will encourage this type of borrowing by reducing documents demanded for a loan. The following points will be made clear:
* To get a loan citizens do not have to suffer.
* New measures for rescheduling loan repayment will be devised.
* Offering citizens with technical aid after getting the loans.
* Offering about 60,000 loans each year ranging from LE5, 000 to LE10, 000.
* Creating around 100,000 jobs each year by encouraging small projects.
The labour market
This program will create about 900,000 jobs in small-scale projects with a total funding of LE60 billion. This project consists of the following:
* Banks will fund small-scale projects in industrial, agricultural and trade.
* Banks will deal directly with clients.
* Banks will found technical help and consultation departments.
* Drawing up rules to deal with bankruptcy cases.
* About 2,000 projects will be established annually with a fund between LE500,000 and LE5 million.
* Around LE 10 billion of new investments in small- and micro-scale projects.
* The program will create about 150,000 jobs either directly or indirectly.
The scheme for building 1,000 Factories
1- The construction of 1,000 new factories with an investment capital of LE 100 billion over six years will create 1.5 million jobs.
2- About 3,222 factories have been built already during the last years in new industrial cities, about 1778 factories are still under construction.
3- Some factories did not make the required success due to inaccurate feasibility studies stopping operation.
4- Egypt's industrial infrastructure witnessed great developments.
The program aims to establish 1,000 factories by:
1- Private sector participation to infuse latest technologies into the operation of the factories.
2- Factories have to get the ISO within the first 18 months of their operation.
3- Pouring around LE17 billion as new investments annually of which the private sector will provide LE8.5 billion.
4- Finding 250,000 new direct and indirect jobs annually.
5- Devising around 25 new industrial development programs to upgrade national industry.
Reclamation of the desert - New Village Program
The program will create new 420,000 jobs; an average of 70,000 jobs annually in 400 new villages.
* Around 2.6 million feddans have already been reclaimed.
* Signing international agricultural agreements to open new markets for Egyptian crops.
* Cultivating untraditional crops to increase exports.
The program aims to reclaim extra one million feddans in the next six years, restructure the Bank for Development & Agricultural Credit, encourage villagers to plant only one main crop and provide facilities for establishing agricultural cooperatives to help farmers manage their affairs.
The program will create 70,000 jobs in agriculture and provide farmers with fertilisers, seeds, new crops and pesticides and open new markets for Egyptian crops.
Helping to farmers
* Farmers' debts will be rescheduled with repayment delay fines abolished.
* Reviewing land rentals by founding land evaluation committees.
* Sketching out a new policy for the manufacture of fertilisers.
* Opening new markets for Egypt's crops.
* Increasing the quota specified for Egypt's crops in market, such as that of Japan, China, Australia and Korea.
* Urging the US Government to reduce subsidies it gives to American cotton farmers.
Development of tourism
The program contains a plan to promote the tourist industry in Egypt to increase the number of tourists to 14 million annually by 2011. Planned investments of LE 48 billion will go primarily towards building 750 hotels and increasing the number of hotel rooms to 240,000 over the coming six years.
Raising the salaries of low income employees
There are around 5.1 million civil servants in Egypt. Added to this are 500,000 employees in economic institutions. There are also around 500,000 in the private sector. Civil service salaries have doubled in the last seven years. The program would double the basic salaries of 3.5 million of small servants during the next six years. It would also increase the salaries of the remaining categories by 75%. Increasing the income of citizens is a top priority on the on the parliamentary electoral program.
Pensioners
This program aims to address pensions to provide security for the elderly. It will endeavour to draw up a new pension scheme. Emphasis on the social aspect of reform has constituted one of the pillars of our reform effort. It is even a central component of the program for the parliamentary polls.
The Program consists of a comprehensive plan to raise wages and restructure the pension system. It is specially geared to improve living standards of civil servants. It also aims to give care to workers in disorganised business sectors through flexible contracts and insurance that suits workers' incomes.
Social solidarity and security
The Program includes a strategy to develop the pension system in Egypt with plans to create 1,000 new social security and pension funds for uninsured senior citizens. It will also strive to double the number of families receiving social security benefits from 650,000 to 1.3 million.
The program targets workers in the informal sector drawing up new legislation that rings in more flexible employment contracts to make workers eligible for social security.
Education development
The program contains a plan to construct 3,500 new schools and train 400,000 teachers over the next six years. The private sector and the public sector will fund the construction of these schools.
The program will also develop vocational education by constructing 250 new schools for that end. The program will create a specialised Education Accreditation Authority to monitor the quality of education and improve it. A new program for training teachers and improving the standards of school headmasters will also be sketched out.
The plan for educational development means to train teachers of Arabic, mathematics and other subjects to create a generation that is up to its responsibilities.
Housing program
This program will do the following:
* Subsidise the construction of 500,000 housing units for youth
* Construct 3,500 schools
* Provide medical insurance for all citizens
The program intends to provide home ownership for a million citizens over six years. It will also construct 85,000 housing units on an annual basis. The program aims to improve conditions in shantytowns by securing property rights in those areas. Water and electricity services will be extended to these areas; schools, medical care centres would be built there as well. Transport is also top on the agenda. Important measures related to it like giving licenses for public transport companies in governorates, improving the quality of transport, constructing a third metro line in Cairo and establishing 12,000 kilometres of new roads are in the pipeline.
Delivering potable water to the remaining 200 villages (water has already been delivered to 96% of Egypt's villages) with an investment capital of $1.5 billion has also mulled.
The project seeks to upgrade water networks and connect villages with main water sanitation centres. Having a budget of LE25 billion allocated for sewage over the next six years, the projects also seeks to benefit different villages in the governorates of Upper and Lower Egypt.
An important item of the program is also a sanitation project that aims to conserve the environment and encourage cooperation between civil society and administrative bodies in this regard.
Better medical care
This program seeks to offer medical services to all Egyptians by 2010 regardless of their living standards depending on the following criteria:
* Medical insurance participants will pay for their insurance while the state will pay for the limited-income brackets
* The fees participants pay represent the main capital of the whole system
* All public and private hospitals will be part of the medical insurance system
* Citizens have the freedom to choose the hospital where they want to receive medical care
* A national body to monitor the performance of the hospitals will be created
* Hospitals will be subjected to upgrade in the light of a six-year term plan
* Hospital managers will attend training courses for a better work performance
* Formulating new programs to raise hygiene standards
Democracy and freedoms
Political participation is a right to which all citizens are entitled. The NDP's parliamentary election program seeks to broaden this right through strong local communities, a strong parliament, effective political parties and active professional syndicates. The participation of women is top on the agenda as well.
This program aims to bolster citizens' right to express themselves freely a civilised manner. It also seeks to adopt effective legislation to regulate life in such a democratic society.
Boosting local communities
Local communities are the first channel for communication with citizens. Hence, the NDP's plan to bolster them. These communities can deal with citizens' problems in a way that is not feasible for the central Government. This prgoram also tries to demonstrate that decentralisation can ring in good governance.
Local communities must play a greater role in supervising the implementation of Government directives. They must also have the right to monitor the performance Government officials. An amendment of the law regulating the performance of local communities is of greater urgency here.
Bolstering Parliament authority
The legislature is the voice on the people. MPs are the representatives of the people expressing their ambitions, problems and opinions. They at the same time supervise the performance of Government officials. The NDP adopts legislation that aims to bolster Parliament. It also adopts measures to empower the Cabinet of ministers giving it the chance to have a share in the President's executive power.
Empowering political parties and professional syndicates
Political parties are the pillars of any political system. They are tools for citizens' political participation. The participation of these parties in election infuses competitiveness into it and also guarantees the process of putting legislation into effect.
Encouraging women's political participation
Women are main partners in development. They must be given the chance to be part of all political, social and economic activities of society. The party adopts a special legislation to secure women participation.
A strong and safe Egypt
There are many measures to do this as far as Egypt's foreign policy is concerned including the following:
First, supporting the establishment of a Palestinian State
* Backing the establishment of the Palestinian State
* Training Palestinian police to boost security within the borders of the newly established state.
* Offering the Palestinians with technical and professional aid for them to manage the legislative and technical structure of their country.
* Rebuilding the Palestinian economy through:
1- Founding an Egyptian-Palestinian joint committee to bolster economic ties between the two countries
2- Ensuring that Palestinian products are able to enter Egypt
3- Establishing an industrial zone on the Egyptian side of Rafah for contracting companies to have the chance to do reconstruction work in Gaza
4- Increasing educational grants given to the Palestinians in Egyptian higher education institutes
5- Making for a more facile crossing between Egypt and to Palestine
6- Increasing financial aid to the Palestinian Authority
7- Increasing Egypt's share in the Alquds and Al-Aqsa funds to LE 11 million
Second, full integration with Sudan
The program seeks to bolster Egypt's political role in Sudan through:
1- Encouraging efforts aiming at forging a peace deal between the north and the south of Sudan
2- Backing the mission of the Egyptian monitors in Darfur
3- Mediating to solve Sudan's problems in all fields
4- Cooperating with the Sudanese government to put the four freedoms agreement into action
Supporting integration projects with Sudan through:
1- Completing the road network between the two countries
2- Implementing bilateral trade pacts signed with the Government of Sudan
3- Increase trade exchange between Egypt and Sudan
4- Getting more involved in the reconstruction of southern Sudan
5- Establishing projects in southern Sudan that would advance reconstruction efforts
6- Opening an Egyptian consulate in Juba the capital of the south for it to be a channel of communication between the southerners and Egypt
7- Increasing Egyptian peacekeepers in Darfur
Solidarity to secure Iraq's stability and unity
The program seeks to increase dialogue with Iraq's factions to preserve Iraq's unity in the light of UN Security Council Resolution 1546. The program also seeks to offer Egyptian expertise in the reconstruction of post war Iraq, train Iraqi police and invigorate the Egyptian-Iraqi joint committee to foster trade exchange.
Fourth, bolstering inter Arab relations
A free trade zone will herald full trade cooperation among Arab countries. At the same time, some steps must be taken to found a customs' union, invigorate the Arab League (AL) and upgrade the mechanisms regulating Arab work through sketching out new vote systems. A committee that monitors the implementation of the recommendations of Arab summits is not less important however. The program also seeks to foster the role AL plays in social and cultural fields.
Fifth, boosting relations between Egypt's economy and big power economies
This includes accelerating the signing of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US, negotiating the quotas of Egyptian products in European markets and broadening the Qualified Industrial Zones (Qiz) agreement to include more industrial cities in the years to come.
Sixth, fostering Egypt's role in Africa
This can happen through the following:
1- Getting involved in peacekeeping in Africa.
2- Devising strategic dialogue mechanisms with African countries.
3- Broadening the COMESA free trade agreement to form a customs' union by the end of 2008.
4- Bolstering cooperation with Nile Basin countries.
5- Increasing military grants to Africans as well as university grants.
Egypt's security is strongly linked to neighbouring countries overcoming their problems. Egyptians have done a lot, in fact, to help Africans in this regard.