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 Putting to use a manufacturing portfolio that stretches from pasta
and refrigerators to tablet computers, the military announced to
great fanfare in April that it was offering vocational training to
jobseekers in a new joint venture with the civilian government.
It was part of a push to tackle joblessness, and evidence of a more
prominent role for the army's economic muscle, with its former
chief, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the runaway favorite to become
president in May 26-7 elections.
Egypt's unemployment crisis could make or break his presidency. The
2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak was largely fuelled by anger at
the grim prospects facing young Egyptians unable to find work,
afford their own home and get married.
Since then, as foreign investors and tourists shied away from the
country of 85 million, the job crisis has only got worse.
"The problem is a time bomb," said Mahmoud El-Sherbiny. He heads a
government industrial training scheme tapping for the first time the
Ministry of Military Production.
"If it does not work it will blow up in front of everyone's faces,"
he said. "They don't want to be faced by another revolution within
the next year."
"RESPONSIBILITIES TOWARDS SOCIETY"
Though it may appear to be a drop in the ocean - the scheme aims to
train 100,000 youths in skills needed by industry - it shows the
army's readiness to back government and its evolving role in shaping
domestic policy.
The beneficiaries include those at a heavily guarded complex run by
the Ministry of Military Production on the outskirts of Cairo -
young men and women in blue coats receiving training to be
mechanics, industrial machine operators or to build circuit boards.
Accompanying journalists during a visit there in April, the State
Minister for Military Production, Major General Ibrahim Younis
Ismail Ragab, described the project as part of his ministry's
"responsibilities towards society".
The ministry sits at the heart of an army-controlled sector of the
economy likened by critics to a state within a state.
Some analysts estimate its financial empire could amount to as much
as 40 percent of the economy. Sisi told Reuters in a May 15
interview it was no more than 2 percent.
GULF MONEY
Since Sisi toppled Islamist President Mohamed Mursi last July,
following mass protests against his rule, the army's economic role
has become even more apparent.
The military has positioned itself as the channel for some of the
billions of dollars flowing into Egypt from the Gulf, for example.
Sherbiny said the Ministry of Military Production had never before
agreed to open its facilities to a civilian-run training program.
But it is not doing it for free. The United Arab Emirates is
bankrolling the scheme, part of billions of dollars in aid sent to
Egypt by Gulf states hostile to the Brotherhood, and the civilian
authorities pay Military Production for their services.
"The (project) adds to the image of the military as Egypt's
guardians - not just in terms of politics and security, but
social-economically as well - the only institution capable of
addressing Egypt's multiple problems," said Oliver Coleman, senior
analyst at Maplecroft risk research company.
"The military may have the economic clout to improve youth
employment in some sectors - manufacturing primarily. But in terms
of the overall economy, the impact will be extremely modest."
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According to official rates, more than 13 percent of the Egyptian
workforce are unemployed. This figure, higher than the 8.9 percent
on the eve of the 2011 revolt, masks the wider problem of
underemployment in a low-wage economy. Official figures rarely tell
the full story in a country where much business activity goes under
the radar.
A SPARK FOR REVOLT?
Sisi has listed unemployment as a priority, but has given little
detail on how he will tackle it. He is eyed with suspicion by some
young Egyptians who see him as a return to the army-backed order
against which they rebelled in 2011.
"Now another military man will rule," said Abdelrahman, a scowling
20-year-old at a street cafe in Cairo. "If he makes one mistake as
president, the entire people will revolt against him."
Like many young Egyptians idling in the coffee shops, Abdelrahman is
unemployed and lives at home. He had a job at a clothing store that
paid him 800 Egyptian pounds ($110) a month but was sacked for
folding a shirt the wrong way. "Of course I'm angry," he said.
The government's new training scheme aims to address a skills
mismatch partly rooted in a state policy that has for decades
offered free tertiary education to those with adequate grades,
producing a surplus of accountants and engineers who often end up
driving taxis.
The Industrial Training Council (ITC), which belongs to the Industry
Ministry, held a job fair earlier this year offering 20,000 jobs in
the industrial sector, but only 7,000 people came, an ITC official
said.
Some believe the Ministry of Military Production may be harnessed
even more widely to help address the mismatch.
"The best welders in Egypt are known to have come from those
(military production) centers," said Sameh Seif Elyazal, a former
army general who now heads a political research center and says he
is often in contact with Sisi.
"Military production is part of the entire solution."
With perhaps a fifth of graduates unemployed, changing mindsets
could be a harder nut to crack.
Many youths, such as 22-year old engineering student Mohamed Abdel
Kader, refuse to take up blue-collar jobs like those in the military
scheme, because they are holding out for something to match their
education.
"There's no way - I study for five years and then do something else?
I must have an appropriate job," he said.
($1 = 7.1126 Egyptian Pounds)
(Editing by Tom Perry and Will Waterman)
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