Real Estate Tax Workers Sit-in in 2nd Week, Falls in Egyptian Gov’t Deaf Ear

Real Estate Tax Workers Sit-in in 2nd Week, Falls in Egyptian Gov’t Deaf Ear

More than 10000 Egyptian real-estate taxmen have continued their sit-in front of the building of the Egyptian Cabinet for the second week in a row, while the Egyptian government did not show any indication or readiness to meet their demands of making them equal their colleagues in the Tax Department in the Ministry of Finance and including to the Ministry of Finance and giving them similar salaries.
 
On Monday, Dec, 10th, 2007, a big number of families of strikers flocked to the place of the sit-in to live with their loved ones, creating some kind of a complete life in streets surrounding the building of the Egyptian Cabinet .
 
Also flocked to the sit-in headquarters were hundreds of taxmen from all Egyptian governorates. They insisted on closing their tax directorates and bringing their keys to build up pressure on the Egyptian government to meet their legitimate demands .
 
The strikers even called on security services officials to widen the security cordon imposed on them to contain the continuously increasing number of strikers.
 
For his part, Makram Labib, a member of the strike”s higher committee, told Ikhwanweb that there are negotiations on being paid incentives from their tax collection work but the strikers rejected these talks and demanded that they become equal to their colleagues in the Tax Authority. He said that the government carries out these attempts to cover the strikers dues usurped throughout the past years.
 
He added that they are currently forming delegation to go to the presidential palace to submit a new complaint from the tax workers to president Mubarak, before organizing a march that they plan to start from the place of their sit-in to the presidential place in case negotiations of Hussein Mogawer, the Labour Union chief, with Dr. Yousef Botros Ghaly the Minister of Finance failed.
 
For his part, Egyptian Minister of Finance, Yousef Botros Ghaly, declared that he is ready to meet the strikers demands but not in such a way which he called “a twisting of his arm”. He called on the strikers to break the sit-in and return to their jobs a goodwill gesture so that their demands are discussed. Otherwise, their demands will not be discussed.
 
In a related context, the strikers held a poll among themselves on whether they continue or stop the sit-in. After the vote count of the poll, the results backed continuing the sit-in. To show that they will continue the sit-in until their demands are met, the strikers hanged signs calling for participating in marches that they will organize during the feast days in streets surrounding the Egyptian Cabinet building.