EGYPT
Legislation that could lead to pay increases for Egypt’s Public Servants is expected to be priority business when Parliament returns from its summer break next month.
Minister of Finance, Mohamed Maait (pictured) said a committee to reform the wages of Public Servants had started collecting data from Ministries and other Government Agencies.
He said the committee would address problems arising from legislation in 2016 that turned incentives, allowances, bonuses and other non-fixed remuneration items that had been calculated as percentages of the basic wage into fixed sums.
A source at the Ministry for Finance said that as a result of the change, some employees received just slightly less than they would under the old plan, but a large segment noticed a bigger reduction, especially those who had received much higher percentages — with incentives, allowances and bonuses in some cases of up to 75 per cent or 100 per cent of the basic wage.
“The committee will try to compensate Civil Servants for the loss incurred since the Civil Service Law of 2016 took effect, to this date” the source said.
“It will also develop a strategy to increase wages as of the current fiscal year until the fiscal year of 2021-22.”
However, head of the Egyptian Economic Research Forum, Rashad Abdu said the 2016 legislation was designed to curb Government employment through attrition.
“It aims to create a discouraging environment for employees by reducing wages, to encourage them to shift to the private sector,” Mr Abdu said.
“The amount the State could have saved from its budgets, which ought to be allocated to health, education, development of infrastructure and services, will once again be spent on higher wages for a fewer number of staff,” he said.
‘This will make Government employees stick to their jobs.”
Cairo, 23 September, 2018
