EGYPT’S government resigned on Saturday amid mounting unrest and a corruption scandal involving the agriculture minister.

President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi asked Oil Minister Sherif Ismail to form a new cabinet within a week.

The office of the president said he had accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb and his ministers, but they would continue to serve until a new government has been appointed.

Before handing in his resignation, Mr Mehleb provided a report detailing the performance of the government, which, according to two officials from the president’s office, Mr Sissi found “unsatisfying.”

The resignation came less than a week after agriculture minister Salah El Din Mahmoud Helal quit over allegations that he had taken bribes in exchange for granting land titles.

He was arrested shortly after handing in his resignation and leaving the cabinet building.

Egypt has also been battling an increasingly fierce Islamic State (Isis) insurgency in the Sinai peninsula and a number of other issues have fuelled  rising discontent with the
government.

Last week, the higher education minister reportedly attempted to exempt the children of judges and army and police officers from unpopular regulations which restrict where Egyptians can attend university.

In May, the justice minister suggested that the children of sanitation workers could never aspire to be judges.

The prime minister, a former construction magnate and prominent member of ex-dictator Hosni Mubarak’s now-defunct National Democratic Party, angered many in July when he suggested that the country’s youth consider driving auto-rickshaws, known as tok-toks, instead of counting on government employment.

In addition, Mr Sissi has approved a new civil service law that many believe will dramatically reduce the country’s six million-strong public-sector workforce.

The former army general was installed in power by the 2013 military coup that toppled the Muslim Brotherhood government, after it was accused of ordering the shooting of protesters.

The Muslim Brotherhood government, headed by president Mohamed Morsi, had been elected following the 2011 overthrow of the US-backed Mubarak regime. Since his overthrow, Mr Morsi has been convicted on a raft of charges and sentenced to death in May.

Egypt will hold parliamentary elections next month, as promised by the government following the coup.

international@peoples-press.com