There is a question on the lips of ordinary Egyptians: when will this government of disasters leave?

What most characterizes this administration is a frightening phenomenon — the increasing number of calamities in Egyptian society. What happened recently in the Dawawees accident in Ismailia, which left 48 children dead or injured — children working as porters — is an assassination of innocence. This catastrophe came about from small mistakes that turned into terrible sins and disasters. Whose hands are stained with these children’s blood?

I remembered the honorable, late transport minister Hisham Arafat, who resigned immediately after the Ramses Station locomotive accident. Will the prime minister resign after the Ismailia tragedy?

This scene repeats itself periodically: we wake to a grave human tragedy. Don’t these disasters deserve the government’s dismissal? They should be held accountable and tried before public opinion for the blood spilled on our roads. Instead, all we get are more payments to the families of the dead and injured — and then everything returns to the old routine.

It is as if Egyptian lives have no value. Who will hold anyone to account? Where is parliament? Where are civil society organizations in the face of these disasters? The problem is that these are not natural catastrophes like earthquakes; they are man-made — the result of corruption or negligence — and the end result is the bloodshed of children and adults.

The numbers from the Ismailia accident have reached a level that demands we take a stand against a government whose actions and mistakes now outnumber earthquakes, volcanoes, and forest fires — natural events from the sky. Our “smart” government has outdone those natural disasters with catastrophes of its own making, producing more casualties among children, women, and men. And who pays the price? The Egyptian people.

The greater disaster is the farce unfolding in education: the university admissions mess after the high school exam fiascos, the scandals in big committees in Sharqia, the drop in results that pushed some students to suicide after results were announced, the constant anxiety that grips Egyptian families throughout each school year, and the panic every time it’s time to apply for government or private universities.

There is no educational humiliation like this anywhere in the world. Is it conceivable that Egyptian families, already crushed by rising prices, have since last July been forced to enroll their children in private tutoring centers at all levels, from primary school through the high school exams?

Who is responsible for the collapse of Egypt’s educational process? Who is responsible for the terrifying specter of the high school exams that terrifies Egyptians year after year? How can we rid ourselves of this bogeyman that has become a national inheritance, like myths and superstitions, apparently destined to remain until Judgment Day?

All this happens while the bleeding of inflation and rising prices continues unabated month after month. The catastrophe that has put citizens under extreme pressure was the 12% increase in electricity tariff slabs. Skyrocketing electricity bills crushed citizens into silence; the people are in one place and the electricity minister in another. I fear fuel prices will rise in the near future.

This ministry seems oblivious to the electric shock that has hit Egyptians’ minds, leaving people asking each other, “How can we survive?” We belong to God and to Him we shall return.

The mother of all disasters by this humiliating government is its violation of the constitution — Article 17, which states that pension and insurance funds are private funds, not government funds. The unanswered question is: where did the four trillion pounds of pension money held in banks and seized by the government go? This is an inherent right of about ten million citizens who spend on families whose total numbers reach nearly forty million Egyptians — the true middle class that used to be the model of balance.

Why did the government resort to using pension funds so that pensioners now find their pensions insufficient to pay for medicine, rent, and food? These are their own monies, contributed over careers spanning 35 years or more; some earned salaries of 20,000 or 30,000 pounds, only to discover on retirement that their pensions do not exceed 4,000 pounds.

Is this justice, O tax-collecting government?

Pension and insurance funds remain shrouded in mystery — another secret of the government of disasters. When I was a member of parliament I demanded the prosecution of Ghada Waly under the parliamentary dome, and I remember with respect the late Bedri Farghali, who stood bravely and spoke up for pensioners. We must not forget the ambassador and brilliant national minister Mervat Tallawy, who exposed this issue.

The gravest crisis facing Egypt is the absence of truth, of open debate, and of a right-to-information law that we have loudly called for. This is the mother of all scandals, compounded by the absence of competence and honest public figures from the media and political scene.

It seems this government has become an inescapable fate, even though it claims to have done for the Egyptian people what no previous government did. I believe them — we have all witnessed the price increases and the government’s overall handling of the economy — while government statements at conferences and interviews make it sound as if they live in a different country than Egypt.

If this is the government’s best, I don’t understand why it remains in place.

Despite everything, I — and many fellow Egyptians — expect that this government will stay for a long time, a term known only to God, and that all these disasters and shocks that have struck the people so severely will continue. To those who expect an imminent cabinet change in September or October, I say: that has become an impossible dream, unless another political earthquake of magnitude 10 Richter strikes.

This government behaves as if it will live until the Day of Judgment, boasting of its deeds and tours that astonish enemies before friends.

But at the very least we must mobilize to stop the killing of children, women, and men on our roads — whether in Menoufia, Ismailia, or anywhere else in Egypt. Disasters continue while videos from the North Coast show scenes that make the face burn with shame, even though people there also complain about rising prices and the lack of rules or controls.

I tip my hat to Dr. Mostafa Madbouly’s government for achieving the impossible: it has made the Egyptian people silent and voiceless.

I urge Egyptians to pray for this government — that God lengthen its life, grant it a good end, enter it into His vast gardens, and forgive whatever sins it has committed against the Egyptian people.

May God reward your efforts.

We belong to God and to Him we shall return.

Al-Fatiha for the soul of the government of disasters.