Officer reshuffle

Changes in the police ranks have been made following alleged interference by the Muslim Brotherhood in the process, reports Mohamed Abdel-Baky

Following a month of reportedly heated debate with the Muslim Brotherhood, Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim has approved a widespread reshuffle of the ministry, extending to promotions, transfers and dismissals of police generals and officers.

In a press conference held on Monday, Major General Magdi Ghanem, the assistant to the minister of interior, said 3,800 police officers had been transferred, with an additional 284 officers promoted to the rank of general.

According to Ghanem, 529 major generals and 1,715 brigadier generals were granted one year extensions, and 454 major generals retired. In addition 383 police colonels were promoted to the rank of major general.

Ghanem added that six ministerial aides were appointed, as well as six security directors for the Al-Wadi Al-Gadid, Fayoum, Aswan, Marsa Matrouh, Sharqiya and Damietta governorates. The reshuffle will take effect in the first week of August.

The number of police officers being reshuffled is only 10 per cent of the total number of officers in the ministry.

Major General Khaled Ghoraba, Alexandria Security director, is one of the few high-ranking officers who was not part of the reshuffle despite calls by political forces to appoint a new security chief for the coastal governorate.

Ghoraba was in charge of security in Alexandria when clashes between police and protesters erupted in November 2011, leaving two dead and some 760 injured.

At the time hundreds of protesters tried to break into the security directorate building in Alexandria. Police used force to disperse the protesters.

"The Ministry of Interior has an excellent system that evaluates the performance of its officers. We do not just transfer officers like Major General Ghoraba because some people oppose him without reason," Ghanem said.

The reshuffle was supposed to be announced one month ago, but media reports claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood and President Mohamed Mursi interfered in the process.

On Friday, Mursi asked Ibrahim to send him the details of the changes for review, a move that sparked anger among many police officers who considered it interference in the ministry's internal affairs.

"President Mursi reviewed the reshuffle and did not have any reservations," Ibrahim said, denying reports that the delay in the promotions was pending approval of the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

He added that the ministry had to take into account human, social and health considerations of the officers and their families "in order to ensure their comfort and good performance when they are transferred to other locations." Ibrahim also said that this year's reshuffle was one of the biggest in the ministry's history.

Last week a local daily reported that the Muslim Brotherhood's Guidance Bureau had asked its local offices in all governorates to submit evaluations about the performance of high-ranking officers who head the security directorate in each governorate.

The paper added that these reports were reviewed by a committee within the Muslim Brotherhood headed by former MP Abbas Mekhaimer, who headed the dissolved parliament Committee of Defence and National Security.

"It took months to prepare this annual reshuffle. It is a long bureaucratic process developed over the last four decades to improve the performance of the police officers," a major general told Al-Ahram Weekly.

He added it was not easy for parties to understand the process or interfere in the evaluation process of low and high-ranking officers.

Nasser Amin, a political expert, said he believes that the Muslim Brotherhood did not interfere in the recent reshuffle.

"It is clear that nobody interfered in the process because the reshuffle did not include radical changes or the removal of police officers who were involved in crimes during and after the 25 January Revolution," Amin said.

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