CAIRO: Newly elected Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi yesterday said he would not interfere with judicial verdicts, following an international outcry over lengthy prison sentences given to three Al Jazeera journalists a day earlier.
“We will not interfere in judicial rulings,” Sisi said in a televised speech at a military graduation ceremony in Cairo. “We must respect judicial rulings and not criticize them even if others do not understand this.”
In his impromptu speech, Sisi also pledged to give up half his salary and property and called on the Egyptian people to make similar sacrifices, in a bid to prepare the public for a period of painful economic austerity.
Sisi said he had refused to sign off on a 2014/15 budget proposal following lengthy discussions this week because it was too dependent on ballooning borrowing.
“We said we would revise this budget because I cannot bear to accept it when it contains this level of deficit,” he said.
“I want to think of the children that are coming and to leave them something good, but this way we will leave them nothing. If the debt keeps accumulating like this, we won’t leave them anything good.”
Speaking in the local dialect of Arabic used by ordinary Egyptians, Sisi proposed to lead by example, giving up some of his own pay and vowing to apply a salary cap for higher earners in the public sector.
“There must be real sacrifices from every Egyptian man and woman. I take the maximum salary of 42,000 pounds ($5,900) and no one will take more than the maximum,” he said.
“I am going to do two things: I am not going to take half of this sum and my property, even what I inherited from my father, I will give up half for the sake of our country.”
It was not clear what would happen to Sisi’s properties.
The president called on Egyptians inside and outside the country to make personal sacrifices for the greater good and said the demands of vested interests or individual factions would no longer be pandered to.
A news flash on state television hours after the speech said an account had been opened at the central bank to collect donations in support of Egypt’s economy.
REUTERS
