Cairo calls for austerity while ministers make money grab
The Egyptian government has made more calls for austerity measures, but simultaneous proposals to raise government salaries have left citizens unmoved.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has called for austerity measures on several occasions. He made one of his key statements about the issue during a television interview in November 2015: “We are ready to go hungry to build our country.” It seems that though Sisi’s words resounded among millions of Egyptians whether they liked him or not, they fell on deaf ears in the government.
Government spending has long suffered from bloat in Egypt. A well-informed government source told Al-Bawaba News on Aug. 20 that the International Monetary Fund, in one of its reports on Egypt’s ministries and institutions prior to approving a $12 billion loan for Egypt, had lamented the excessive number of advisers in each ministry. This statement came alongside reports by the Egyptian monitoring authorities stating that there are a large number of highly paid advisers in ministries including international cooperation, supply, health, investment, health, education and industry. The reports also noted that the names of these advisers are listed on the ministries' payment statements all the time, although they work for short periods without offering the ministries any real services.
Al-Masri Al-Youm reported on July 28 that the Cabinet submitted a draft law to increase the salaries of the prime minister, his deputies, ministers, members of parliament and governors, and that the new legislation is currently under study by the state council’s legislative department to be re-drafted legally, as per the constitution. The suggested amendments to Law No. 100 of 1987, which sets the salaries of these officials, are the following:
First: The prime minister receives a salary of 42,000 Egyptian pounds ($4,730) per month, which is the legal wage cap on the public sector. Yearly, his salary amounts to 504,000 pounds ($57,000), 42 times that determined by the old law, which set the salary at 6,000 pounds ($670) yearly and another 6,000 pounds in other allowances, equivalent to 12,000 pounds ($1,350) per year in total.
