In a hard-hitting response to the ruling National Democratic Party’s (NDP’s) recently-concluded sixth annual party congress, the opposition “Pensioners Defense Movement” issued a statement urging President Hosni Mubarak to reconsider the social and medical insurance draft laws discussed at the congress.
“It looks like the medical insurance bill aims to privatize this public service,” said movement leader Qutb Fayeq, warning of the “anger of the poor” when they found themselves unable to afford the additional medical-insurance fees stipulated in the draft law.
“As for the social insurance bill, this seems to have been devised so as to allow the government to get away with the LE362 billion that it took out of the pensions fund and never paid back — a move that the finance minister has admitted to,” said Fayeq.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
