Support Egypt Coalition, which represents the majority in parliament, headed by MP Mohamed Al-Suwaidi, agreed with Minister of Manpower Mohammed Saafan to grant a social allowance to the employees of the private sector at a minimum of EGP 165 with maximum EGP 330, depending on the circumstances of each facility.
Al-Suwaidi said in a TV talk show that a number of business owners agreed to pay the allowance due to the surge in prices and recent increases in the prices of all goods and services.
Al-Suwaidi added that the allowance will be paid starting from July to private sector employees, associations, non-governmental organizations, joint stock companies, private bodies, and private schools at 10% of the insurance pay, unless the internal system allows more.
“The worst message for any investor is that the government interferes in the private sector business, so that the Coalition put forward the private sector bonus initiative, which has received acceptance from employers who are responsible for their role,” Al-Suwaidi said.
The initiative came in support of the difficult conditions of the country, pointing out that there are several conditions for applying the private sector allowance, mainly, salaries not increasing during the current year. From his part, Ahmed Al-Wakil, Chairman of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce (FEDCOC)said that private sector employers are not obliged to respond to the initiative.
Al-Wakil added that, the other condition is that the financial structures of the company allows the allowance to be paid and not affected, and there should be no losses for the company. He noted that the Board of Directors of the F FEDCOC insisted that the allowance be paid without a minimum or maximum.
While, Minister of Manpower Mohammed Saafan noted that the collective agreement gathering business owners, employees, and syndicates for the granting of a social allowance for supporting the hike in prices will be conducted at the Ministry of Manpower on Sunday.
The Egyptian manpower estimated at 27 million people, out of them 3.6 million unemployment, so that the manpower in operation registered 23.4 million people, out of them 6.5 million are working in government agencies, thus the private sector manpower reached about 17 million, 8 million of them are paid less than EGP 3000.
