The new social protection package announced by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly is the first executive decision for the outcomes of the Egypt Economic Conference, Nader Saad, spokesperson for the Cabinet, said explaining the details of the new social protection package.
Saad added, during a phone call to the “Al-Hayat Al-Youm” program, which is shown on Al-Hayat channel, on Wednesday evening, that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi instructed postponing the increase in electricity prices – which has been postponed from July 2022 until January 2023- to June 2023.
Applying a minimum wage of LE3,000 and all the decisions that came in the new package will take place in early November, he said, stressing that these increases are permanent and not temporary.
Regarding the implementation of the minimum wage decision, Saad said: The decisions of the cabinet pertain to the government sector only, pointing out that the private sector has its own work systems.
Egypt is the only country that has provided a social protection package twice after the global crisis related to the repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian war, he pointed out.
Saad added that the Egyptian government launched the first social protection package in March, about 25 days after the Russian-Ukrainian war, to provide for the increase in salaries and pensions from July to April.
He explained that the second package was the package announced by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly.
The second social protection package will cost the state budget LE67 billion, he added.
Sisi instructed in March, a few days after the crisis, the Ministry of Finance to set aside LE130 billion when preparing the new budget, to cover social protection packages, Saad said.
Saad said that the cabinet has already started working on implementing the recommendations of the economic conference, through working groups from all concerned ministries in coordination with the business community.
