Egyptian Citizen GDP Per Capita Retreats to Only 6%: Egyptian Parliamentary Report

A parliamentary report demanded protecting and supporting the low- income, marginalized and poor people against the continuous price hikes and improving and raising salaries of the fixed-income people, including public sector workers and pensioners.

The report, issued by the committee responding to government statement discussed by the Egyptian People’s Assembly (lower chamber of parliament), demanded restructuring the administrative body of the country, improving the status of workers financially and vocationally, facilitating people’s dealings with the administrative institution, fighting corruption, backing decentralism and developing the local government.

The report stressed that there should be a national comprehensive program to support the poor against the challenges imposed by the economic reform programs; it also observed with great concern a phenomenon of continuous and random price hikes in all commodities and the main facilities for citizens, in a way that surpassed abilities not only of low-income consumers but also others in upper social classes.

The report demanded improving and raising incomes of fixed income categories, pointing out that although financial allocations for wages and salaries increased, but the rate of spending on this item out of the state general budget’s overall spending decreased from 24.4 % in the new fiscal year 2005/ 2006 to 24 % is in the new fiscal year 2006 / 2007 .

While the report revealed a number of surprises belying government allegations around the unprecedented rise of wages, it (the report) confirmed that the citizen’s GDP’s per capita income was up to 60 % in 1984, and it retreated to only 6 % in 2004, according to the human development report released by the national planning institute for the year 2005.

The report saw that this rate is extremely low as compared to most countries all over the world in which the GDP per capita reaches about 25 %. Also, it confirmed that the minimum average of wages after adding grants, incentives and allowances is less than the minimum level of wages prescribed by law.

The report stressed that the country should keep the 60 % it owns in pharmaceutical companies to guarantee a full control on its products and to protect them from the pressures that may foreign companies may exercise on them to guarantee the Egyptian market of drugs.

On the other hand, the report criticized the government’s weak performance and the few apartments that have been finished, no more than 21 thousand apartments ( only 5 % of the total target until 2011), although the government declared last year that it would build 83 thousand apartments every year.

The report revealed that the official bodies have released conflicting estimations about the real number of unemployment, pointing out that the central bank’s figures claimed that unemployment retreated from 10.3 % in 2004 / 2005 to 10 % in 2005 / 2006, while the figures of the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics show that unemployment rose to 11.7 %.

It warned at the same time of the dangers of the increasing state budget deficit, up to 62.2 billion pounds, confirming that it requires quick and effective measures to reduce  this deficit to avoid bad economic consequences.

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