Tony Blair to Advise Egypt President Sisi on ‘Economic Reform’

Local Editor

Former British prime minister Tony Blair is to give Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who came to power in a military coup last year, advice on "economic reform" in collaboration with a UAE-financed taskforce in Cairo, the Guardian has learned on Wednesday.

Blair has agreed to advise Sisi as part of a program funded by the United Arab Emirates that has promised to deliver huge "business opportunities" to those involved.

The former prime minister, now Middle East peace envoy, who supported the coup against Egypt's elected president Mohamed Morsi, is to give Sisi advice on "economic reform" in collaboration with a UAE-financed taskforce in Cairo.

Blair's decision to become involved in support of the Sisi regime, which is estimated to have killed more than 2,500 protesters and jailed more than 20,000 over the past year, has been deeply criticized.

A former close political associate argued that Blair's role in advising the Egyptian regime would cause "terrible damage...," adding that a bargain had been struck. "Tony Blair has become Sisi's éminence grise and is working on the "economic plan" that the UAE is paying for. For him, it combines both an existential battle against "Islamism" and mouth-watering business opportunities in return for the kind of persuasive advocacy he provided George Bush over Iraq."

The UAE taskforce is being run by the management consultancy Strategy&, formerly Booz and Co, now part of PricewaterhouseCoopers, to attract investment into Egypt's crisis-ridden economy at a forthcoming Egypt donors' conference sponsored by the oil-rich UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Moreover, some observers argue that the UAE-funded Egyptian taskforce in Cairo now forms a shadow government within the government.

Sources: News Agencies, Edited by website team