A still photo of Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly during a press conference on Wednesday
In a press conference, Madbouly also announced an exceptional bonus to public employees and pensioners of the state administrative apparatus and state-affiliated companies at a value of EGP 300 to meet the cost of living.
Minister of Finance Mohamed Maait said more than 10.5 million pensioners will benefit from the decision at a total cost of EGP 32 billion.
The minimum wage for public employees, who numbered more than five million according to 2017 figures, was last raised in July 2022 to EGP 2,700 up from 2,400.
The minimum wage for workers in the private sector was raised to EGP 2,400 earlier this year.
In March of this year, President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi ordered raising the minimum wage for public employees from EGP 2,000 to EGP 2,400 as well as raising pensions by 13 percent.
Madbouly explained on Wednesday that the decision to raise the minimum wage for public employees comes as part of the government's new EGP 67 billion social protection package, as per President El-Sisi directives during the recent Economic Conference.
The prime minister also announced raising the tax exemption limit from EGP 24,000 to EGP 30,000 annually, explaining that a citizen whose income reaches EGP 2,500 will no longer be required to pay taxes.
He pointed out that some of these decisions will be issued as an immediate decision by the cabinet. However, he added, the EGP 300 bonus will be referred to parliament with a draft law and it will be issued as soon as possible, where citizens will start benefiting from it as of next November
The government will also maintain current electricity prices until 30 June 2023, Madbouly said.
In addition, the Ministry of Manpower will pay compensations to companies unable to pay their workers due to the current circumstances. These compensations will come from the ministry’s emergency fund and will be paid until June 2023, Maait said.
The current social package, which covers 10.5 million families with ration cards, will be extended until 30 June 2023, Maait said. He added that the package includes additional funds of EGP 100 to 300 at a total cost of EGP 8.5 billion.
Allocations for both the compensations and the social package will come from money, about EGP 135 billion, that the state has kept in reserve to use to withstand the impact of the current global crisis, Madbouly said, noting that the social protection package aims to support citizens during the crisis.
In June of this year, the government postponed a scheduled hike in household electricity prices for the third time in a row to ease burdens on low-income citizens.
In June 2020, the government announced that it would phase out electricity price subsidies by the end of FY 2024-2025 gradually, a decision it had postponed twice since 2018.
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