#egypttoeatchickenfeet
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Egypt Is Asking Its Citizen to Eat Chicken Feet
The food in Egypt has become so expensive that most of the citizens of Egypt are no longer in the situation to afford a chicken. By this, you can imagine what the situation of the country probably is.
Egypt is going through a record currency crisis and also the highest inflation in the last five years. That is why the National Institute for Nutrition of Egypt is asking its people to eat chicken feet instead of chicken.
The situation is so dire that the National Institute for Nutrition had to post on Facebook last month where it listed a number of protein-rich food items starting from chicken feet to cattle hooves. In the post, it wrote: “Are you looking for protein-rich food alternatives that will save your budget?”
To give you an idea of how expensive food has become, see the data provided by local state media. It said that poultry costs were only 30 Egyptian pounds($1.01) per kilogram in 2021 and now it has soared to 70 Egyptian pounds($2.36) as of Monday.
In Egypt, chicken feet are seen as consumable by the poor and many people don’t even consider it food. For them, it is animal waste. With such kind of post, many people were furious but they knew the harsh reality.
Mohamed Al-Hashimi, a media personality, to his 400,000 followers tweeted, “(We have entered) the age of chicken feet, the collapse of the Egyptian pound… and drowning in debt.”
The post was itself so shameful that what it brought to the locals was like adding salt to the wound. After the post, the price of one kg of chicken doubled to 20 Egyptian pounds($0.67).
You must be wondering how the situation turned out to be like this. Because still now if anyone has to imagine Egypt, no one would imagine it anywhere closer to the current situation. Let’s learn how it led to this.
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How did Egypt end up in such a financial crisis?
There is an International organization named International Monetary Fund(IMF) that lends money to countries. Whenever a country needs financial support, it can borrow from it and repay over the course of time. Other than IMF, there are also other international creditors.
Egypt has suffered financial crises numerous times which led to borrowing money from IMF and Gulf Arab Allies each time. As we all know borrowing is a two-way thing. You can’t just keep borrowing and never repay.
Soon Egypt got trapped in the process of borrowing and it became unsustainable. According to IMF, Egypt’s debt this year is equivalent to 85.6% of the total size of its GDP. This is a huge number and also the worst.
Over the past year, the Egyptian pound has lost over half of its value. Last week, it briefly reached its all-time low exchange rate of 32 pounds to the US dollar.
According to analysts, there are numerous factors that caused this crisis other than begging behavior.
In the last two years, due to the Covid-19 outbreak, Egypt, its people, and especially the economy suffered a lot which set the economy way too back. Adding salt to the wound, Ukraine War diminished its foreign exchange reserve, and the increased price of fuel increased inflation.
According to Reuters, during the pandemic, the investors also did not help the cause. They pulled out 20 billion dollars from Egypt in 2020. The Ukraine War also made Egypt lose almost the same amount as investors last year.
These made the economy fall all of a sudden. Timothy Kaldas, a non-resident policy fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington, DC said that 20 billion dollars were equivalent to the total amount Egypt received since 2016 and it all vanished in a matter of few weeks last year.
The excessive participation of the military in Egypt's economy, which critics claim hinders the private sector, as well as the allocation of large quantities of money to megaprojects, are some of the other contributing causes.
The IMF provided Egypt with a $3 billion loan as part of its most recent bailout in December. Egypt also received an additional 14 billion dollars from its regional and international allies, especially oil-rich Gulf countries.
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How exactly Military contributed to the financial crisis?
In Egypt, the most number of companies are owned as well as operated by the military. Military-owned businesses account for a major percentage of Egypt's economy, producing everything from pharmacies and petrol stations to livestock and dairy. Hence private company owners find it very difficult to compete with military companies.
Military companies get a lot of privileges. They do not have to disclose their financial data to the public.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s vast national projects are also led by the military and critics say that they gobble up a huge amount of funds from these projects.
Now in order to include the private sector in their administration, authorities have pledged to put state-owned businesses on the stock exchange, including those controlled by the military.
Analysts are dubious about the strategy since it hasn't been completely implemented yet and because these firms often operate in secret.
Also Read: How the world’s richest black man transformed a $3000 loan into a $19 billion empire- Aliko Dangote
So why should others be concerned about Egypt’s condition?
These kinds of situations can often convert into strong protests. More than a decade ago, Egypt and other middle eastern states protested which resulted in the overthrow of governments, the slowing of economies, and even the start of civil conflicts. After that, the emigration of millions of people from the area was seen.
The US embassy in Cairo issued a "demonstration alert" in October, warning of probable violence after Egypt depreciated its currency.
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