CAIRO — Two and a half years after the Jan. 25 revolution deposed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the name of social justice, the state has faced many challenges to realize the hopes of Egypt’s poor, who have become more numerous as a result of continued political turmoil.

The Egyptian transitional government, which took office after the June 30 demonstrations and the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, has announced a package of urgent economic measures as part of it reform program to support the poor and bring about structural changes to achieve social justice and economic growth. Public-school students have been exempted from paying tuition. The prices of subsidized commodities have been reduced from 10% to 15%, and 15,000 job opportunities have been proposed.

“We know that we cannot resort to quick remedies to address the problems of the poor. The government is working under great challenges to fund new programs to achieve social justice. The government’s internal debt has reached 1.7 trillion Egyptian pounds [$246.6 billion]. About 27% of the state’s annual budget is allocated to servicing the public debt. Only 73% of the budget is available for government spending. We are currently considering programs designed to help the poor as a matter of priority,” Deputy Prime Minister for Social Justice Hussam Issa told Al-Monitor in an interview.

“We are currently not considering allocating money to subsidize unemployment. That’s almost impossible, given the burdens on the state budget. Also, we are definitely not considering eliminating subsidies because it would be tantamount to political suicide for us. We believe that the solution lies in revitalizing the economy, stimulating the private sector to undertake projects that would benefit the citizens in the governorates of Upper Egypt and the Sinai, and in implementing a series of short- and medium-term measures that improve the Egyptian citizens' situation,” Issa added.