Egyptian chambers of tourism

[pimbo]

according to the national newspaper http://www.youm7.com/News.asp?NewsID...=244&IssueID=0
the first part translated, by google,

Agreed Mounir Fakhry Abdel Nour, Minister of Tourism, to implement the ruling of the Administrative Court to dissolve the Egyptian Federation of Chambers of Tourism and all the rooms of her, the error legal, which occurred when the former minister Zuhair Garana and issued a decision to reduce the number of members of the Board of Directors of rooms from 15 members to 12 members without returning to the Council of the Federation of Chambers of Tourism which is a clear violation of the law of the Federation of Chambers of Tourism, which stipulates the necessity of taking the opinion of the Governing Council of Chambers of Tourism with regard to the tourism sector as well as the issuance of another resolution to amend the Board of Directors of the various categories of different hotels without taking the opinion of the Chamber of Hotels or the Union, as it has applied these decisions and the holding of elections before the publication of ministerial decrees in the Official Gazette, which resulted in the election declared invalid and solve the rooms.

there i make out they dissolved all the chambers from tourism..

(they where already considered operating illegal last year by the egyptian court, only they continued with there corruption)

 

[Crowley]

Am trying to get confirmation - I know somebody who is an advisory member of the chamber.

Sorry - let's not start an argument about the rights and wrongs of the chamber and their exams and get back to whether or not the news is accurate, and what it means for the folks who - rightly or wrongly - needed the CDWS to function in order to be able to work here.

A friend has had an e-mail on the 23rd saying that the story is male cow poop - BUT - the minister of tourism (forget his name) was, I think, part of the cabinet that Mubarak sacked on his first wave of "trying to placate the demonstrators" - so I am quite prepared to believe the story at face value, given the circumstances at the moment.

Since corruption is (or was, hopefully) endemic in pretty much every authoritative body in Egypt, it may well be that the right thing to do is shut it all down and start again. I suspect that there are a number of people who have been quietly lining their pockets that are now quietly pooping their pants.... my landlady, who is indirectly involved with one dive centre here, has left the country. Interesting.

I'm not going to miss the Chamber, but at least we (as in diving staff) knew roughly where we stood (most of the time). I know there are other, more important things going on in Egpyt, but the uncertainty of "what will happen next" is really taking its toll on the staff here - all of us - from the boat crews to the dive shop owners.

Expanding the discussion, as I am wont to do, whatever happens, it needs to happen relatively quickly. Everybody is unemployed, be they Egyptians or foreigners. One major problem from the foreign perspective is the work permits - a lot of these will be expiring soon - and we have no idea what mechanism will be put in place to resolve this. I don't want to make out that we are somehow worse off than Egyptian staff but the permits cost a lot of money, and with all due respect to some of the fantastic local staff that work here, at the present time and for the immediate future, the dive industry needs foreign staff to work here, and if it's not resolved soon, there won't be any.

I wanna stay!!!!

C.

 

[macrobubble]

OK, here´s the situation as just explained to me by a board member:

The minister has dissolved the board of the federation of tourism chambers because of a legal issue concerning the reduction of 15 to 12 members some time ago.This should only have been done upon request by the federation, which can not be produced in writing, though, as I was told, it was requested verbally. A technical f... up!
Now the minister will, during the next days, appoint new board members to all the tourism chambers. If this will be the same names, part of them or completely new heads - nobody knows that yet. It would be reasonable, IMHO though, to not appoint totally new people to the board, since they don´t know us or the needs of the industry and we don´t know them!
The CDWS is still in charge, only with a new board! A new board will then be elected by the members latest by November, though the CDWS will push for an earlier date. There was no decission made to dissolve the CDWS or revoke their regulatory duties. For us, that means business as usual. Basically nothing has changed in terms of rules and regulations. At least not until a new board would make any changes.

 

[Red Sea Shadow]

That's just to confirm the OP:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/red-sea/375058-cdws-closed-my-minstry-tourism.html