At meeting of parliament’s manpower committee on Sunday, Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali agreed to raise pensions from 15 to 22 percent of employees’ basic yearly salaries, despite calls by some committee members for a 25-percent increase.
“A 25-percent increase would have represented too large a burden on the state budget,” Boutros-Ghali said. “The 22-percent increase will apply to one million subscribers whose pensions currently amount to less than LE586 per month.”
“Those who currently receive pensions of LE100 or less will be entitled to a 350-percent increase, ” he added.
“It took us five and a half years to come up with the new social security bill,” the minister said. “”But it will serve us for another 75 years–unlike the current law, which we had to change after only ten years.”
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
