Egyptian Manpower Minister Mohamed Safan has said that the first EGP 500 ($32) monthly allowances for irregular workers will reach around 1.5 million workers from Sunday 12 April to Thursday 16 April through selected post offices across the country.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the minister said that workers will be given free-of-charge ATM cards in order to receive their second and third allowances, to avoid crowding at post offices.

The announcement comes a few hours after President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said that the government hadn’t disbursed the emergency payments yet because it was looking for a way to do it without having people gather en masse at banks or post offices.

There have already been crowds in front of some banks, with some workers expecting to receive their allowances at the beginning of this week.

The manpower ministry announced last month that the government has approved the allowance for irregular workers, and opened the program for registration on its website (www.manpower.gov.eg).

Workers can register until this Thursday.

The three months of payments aim to ameliorate the effects of the country's partial lockdown and curfew on irregular workers.

Egypt has so far registered 1,322 coronavirus cases, including 85 deaths.

It is expected it will soon extend a nightly curfew, implemented in March, to stem the spread of the virus.