[Salon] The military tightens its grip on Egypt’s economy - ArabDigest.org Guest Post

The military tightens its grip on Egypt’s economy Summary: from statistics to bread to electricity and the Cairo Stadium President Sisi continues down the path of strengthening the generals’ hold on the economy whilst sharply escalating fines for avoiding mandatory conscription unless you happen to have US$5000. We thank Hossam el-Hamalawy for today’s newsletter, an edited version of his 3Arabawy Egypt Security Sector Report. Hossam is a journalist and scholar-activist, currently based in Germany. He was involved in the Egyptian labour movement and was one of the organisers of the 2011 revolution. Follow his writings on Substack and X. The military grip on statistics Last week’s appointment of Maj. Gen. Akram al-Gohary, as acting head of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), once again highlights how one of the state’s most politically sensitive civilian institutions remains firmly under military management. Founded in 1964, all CAPMAS directors have been army generals. The agency is not a neutral technical body. It produces inflation figures, labour statistics, census data, trade numbers and poverty indicators—the metrics shaping economic policy, IMF negotiations and public narratives. Control over CAPMAS, therefore, means control over how social and economic reality is officially measured. For instance, the agency simply stopped publishing its annual report on poverty rates in 2020 since the numbers contradicted the constructed reality of the regime’s propaganda. Gohary’s career reflects this logic. A 1991 Military Technical College graduate, before moving into CAPMAS leadership, he served as director of the Armed Forces’ Administration of Information Systems which, since 2021, fell under the umbrella of the upgraded Military Intelligence Authority structure. His predecessor, Maj. Gen. Khairat Barakat was a career infantry officer who previously headed the Armed Forces’ Administration of Officers Affairs and the Administration of Military Records. Equally telling is President Sisi’s reliance on “acting” appointments. Gohary was named for a one-year renewable term under a presidential decree published in the Official Gazette. Barakat himself was first appointed on 14 February 2018 and remained in place through seven consecutive annual renewals, a mechanism that keeps institutional heads permanently dependent on presidential favour. Air Force in Charge of Bread Now Bread subsidy costs surged despite falling global wheat prices after the state handed control of imports to the Air Force-run Future of Egypt Project for Sustainable Development, dismantling a decades-old civilian procurement system based on open tenders, reports Saheeh Masr. Under a November 2024 presidential directive, wheat purchasing shifted from competitive international auctions to direct contracts and intermediary deals. Within a year, bread subsidies jumped by more than LE26 billion (approx. US$540 million) in the 2025/2026 budget, even as global wheat prices fell by nearly 13.6 percent. Critics say the military body has been paying around US$30 per ton above world averages. Official figures show it sold wheat to the state for between US$225 and US$275 per ton, while global prices dropped to about US$177 by late 2025. Between March and December 2025, the agency imported roughly 3.5 million tons of wheat. Meanwhile, the regime has paired coordinated digital propaganda with on-the-ground political theatre to defend the agency from criticism. Networks of inauthentic accounts on X pushed synchronised hashtags praising the agency as Egypt’s “food basket,” a pattern consistent with managed influence operations rather than organic debate. Simultaneously the military organised tightly choreographed field tours for parliamentarians and regime-linked media figures showcasing curated “success stories.” Addressing his guests Air Force Col. Bahaa el-Ghannam, the Future of Egypt’s director, said that the agency is prepared to float its subsidiaries on the Egyptian Exchange, pursuing initial public offerings (IPOs), once they meet listing requirements. Established in 2022 under the Egyptian Air Force, the utterly untransparent Future of Egypt Authority for Sustainable Development (Mustaqbal Misr) is the new centerpiece of President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi’s national development strategy and has rapidly evolved from a land reclamation project into a massive conglomerate with a diverse business portfolio Youth and Sports Ministry Hands Cairo Stadium Project to Army Engineers In his very first move as Minister of Youth and Sports, the new appointee, Gohar Nabil, is already pressing ahead with Sisi’s favourite playbook: monetising public assets under military supervision. The ministry has announced a massive “investment project” at Cairo Stadium featuring a commercial mall and parking complex built inside the historic sports facility. The project will be managed by a private company but overseen by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority with promised total inflows over 25 years of more than LE25 billion according to the cabinet’s statement. Powering the Generals: SE and Egypt’s Military Business Empire Schneider Electric (SE) began operating in Egypt in 1987, later investing roughly €300 million over 35 years and building major assets, including its Badr factory, a distribution centre in 10th of Ramadan City, and engineering hubs. Before the military’s economic expansion after 2013 SE was already embedded in strategic state infrastructure. In 2016, the company announced it would build four control centres for Egypt’s national energy grid, a core sovereign system. It later participated in digitising electricity distribution infrastructure, including the South Sinai Control Center in Sharm el-Sheikh inaugurated under the Ministry of Electricity. These grid and control systems fall within sectors that, after 2013, increasingly came under the oversight of military and security institutions. The first clearly documented institutional partnership with Egypt’s military economic apparatus appears in September 2015, when SE signed cooperation protocols with factories under the Ministry of Military Production. In 2016, cooperation extended to the Arab Organization for Industrialization to localise renewable energy manufacturing. By the early 2020s, SE’s systems were integrated into mega project infrastructure, including the New Delta wastewater treatment plant administered by the Air Force. In 2022, the company supplied electrical equipment and automation systems for the El Hammam wastewater treatment plant within the New Delta agricultural expansion—which falls under the control of the Air Force-run Future of Egypt Project—and was officially carried out by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority. The same year, Schneider provided technology for desalination facilities in the El Galala development zone, a project also supervised by the Armed Forces’ Engineering Authority. SE, moreover, embedded itself inside Sisi’s New Administrative Capital. It delivered smart-building systems for major commercial developments such as PARAGON and infrastructure for Knowledge City. Recently, SE joined a strategic partnership for the IL Monte Galala Towers and Marina, a LE50 billion prime real estate development overseen by the military. The industrial partnership deepened further last week when SE signed a protocol to assemble data-centre units inside factories of the Arab Organization for Industrialization, one of the main pillars of the military-economic complex Conscription Is Mandatory Except for Those Who Can Pay Parliament last week approved sweeping amendments to the Military and National Service Law, sharply escalating penalties for draft evasion and skipping reserve duty. Under the new rules, those who evade compulsory service after the age of 30 now face prison and fines ranging from LE20,000 to LE100,000, up from the previous LE3,000 to LE10,000. Reservists who fail to report when summoned risk jail time and fines between LE10,000 and LE20,000, replacing the earlier LE1,000 to LE3,000 range. Lawmakers presented the measures as a defence of national duty and respect for military sacrifice. Curiously, this renewed love for patriotic obligation follows several government initiatives inviting Egyptians abroad to settle their conscription status with a convenient bank transfer of 5,000 US dollars or euros. Service to the nation remains sacred unless you can wire hard currency fast enough.