CAIRO: Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi swore in new ministers Wednesday in a limited cabinet reshuffle that included a last-minute switch of the defense minister.
The cabinet, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly’s latest in his eight-year tenure, was approved the day before by parliament.
But at the Wednesday morning swearing in ceremony, El-Sisi named a new defense minister, Ashraf Salem Zaher, the former head of the Egyptian Military Academy.
He succeeds Abdelmeguid Saqr, and will lead a merged ministry for defense and military production — the latter previously its own entity governing Egypt’s sizable military economy.
The shake-up mainly targeted economic and service portfolios, as the country seeks to chart a way out of years of economic crisis.
