Economic reforms would meet less resistance if the gov’t seemed more cautious in its spending

Tough economic reforms would meet less popular resistance if the government seemed to be more cautious in its spending, Emad El Din Hussein says in a column for Al Shorouk. Hussein argues that people who are faced with prices hikes are wont to nitpick at the government’s expenditures, and are likely to feel like they’ve been given the short end of the stick if they see that the government is spending on unnecessary items such as official motorcades or issuing bonuses to employees of indebted public companies. He suggests that the government should make it clear to the public that its belt-tightening measures do not only apply to the citizenry and that austerity measures are being implemented on all levels. Al Masry Al Youm’s Dina Abdel Fattah also urges the government to focus on improving basic services such as health, education, and transportation in parallel with raising prices as a means of selling the benefits of reforms.