Background
Abdul Aziz HEGAZY was born on January 3, 1923, at Cairo
Abdul Aziz HEGAZY was born on January 3, 1923, at Cairo
Educated in the capital, graduating in 1944 with a degree in accountancy from Fuad University.
Academic authority on accountancy and commerce, brought straight from his professor’s chair at university to a seat in the cabinet. Five years later he was promoted Deputy Prime Minister with sweeping powers as an economic troubleshooter to clamp down on the black market, control spiralling food prices and put a tight rein on import licences.
When he returned to Cairo he stayed in academic life, becoming a lecturer in commerce and rising in 1966 to be Dean of the Faculty of Commerce at Ein Shams University. He entered the cabinet as Minister of Finance in March 1968 and was elected a member of the central committee of the Arab Socialist Union in September 1968. He became a member of the National Assembly in January 1969. He played an important Part in economic negotiations with Libya after Colonel Qadafi came to power and he had a significant influence upon the arrangements worked out for the merger of Libya and Egypt which "'as proclaimed in the Tripoli Agreement of September 18, 1972.
All cabinet upheavals left him undisturbed for five years until his promotion in March 1973 to be one of four Deputy Prime Ministers. Taking complete charge of the economy, he had to find answers to the challenges of serious inflation and corruption at the same time as coping with the financial millstone of defense costs running at about 30% of the gross national product. His priorities for consumers were set at imposing tight government control over meat, fish and vegetable prices and cleaning up the racketeering m distribution. On March 29, 1973, he was appointed chairman of the Production and Economic Affairs Committee~one of six special committees set up by Sadat.
In 2011, he was chairman of the commission for national dialogue.
He was elected a member of many scientific and business councils and associations.
As a technocrat bubbling over with ideas for financial reforms, he was empowered to work out what President Sadat called “a more equal distribution of the burdens of the battle”—which meant a higher tax scale for the wealthy. A good talker but an impatient listener, he is impressively fluent in explaining financial measures but apt to be intolerant of interventions with politically-based arguments. An advocate of economic liberalism, he is enthusiastic on expanding trade with Western Europe.