Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on Tuesday directed an increase in the minimum wage to 2,700 Egyptian pounds (approximately $175) and ordered the approval of bonuses and incentives for employees amounting to billions of pounds. This came during a meeting with Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait, and other officials. Presidential spokesperson Bassam Rady stated that the meeting discussed "the review of the draft budget for the upcoming financial year 2022-2023."
Sisi also directed the approval of two bonuses costing around 8 billion pounds. The first bonus is a periodic increase for employees covered by the Civil Service Law, set at 7 percent of the job salary, while the second is a special bonus for workers not covered by this law at 13 percent of the basic salary. Additionally, the president ordered an increase in the additional incentive for both groups, with a total cost of approximately 18 billion pounds, along with announcing the hiring of 30,000 teachers annually for five years to meet the needs for developing the education sector.
Furthermore, Sisi directed the establishment of a new additional incentive for the development of teachers in the education sector, totaling about 3.1 billion pounds, and allocated 1.5 billion pounds to fund the additional quality incentive for faculty members and their assistants at universities, centers, institutes, and research bodies, along with funding the implementation of the new law regarding the salaries of full-time professors. He also directed the inclusion of dentistry, physical therapy, and nursing specialties in the previous decision to increase the allowance for internship doctors during their training year.
Rady explained that the Finance Minister presented the key objectives of the draft budget for the financial year 2022-2023, which aims to reduce the overall deficit to about 6.3 percent of the GDP, maintain a primary surplus of 1.5 percent of the GDP, reduce the public budget debt ratio to the GDP, and increase the wage item to about 400 billion pounds. The spokesperson added that Sisi "was also briefed during the meeting on the developments of the tax system, directing the Ministry of Finance to finalize the projects related to automating the Tax Authority, the electronic invoicing system, and developing tax procedures before the end of the current financial year."
