Category: Blog

Tax officers demonstrate

Posted on By 3arabawy

I received the following report from journalist and friend Jano Charbel…

The real estate tax employees remain steadfast in their demands of affiliation to the ministry of finance, or at least equity with their co-workers – the general tax, customs tax, and sales tax employees – who are affiliated to the ministry, and on average, earn 5x as much as these real estate tax employees.
Over 1000 real estate tax employees demonstrated outside the headquarters of the Egyptian Trade Union Federation on downtown Cairo’s Gala’ Street. They came from a number of Governorates across Egypt – Daqahlia, Bani Suef, Port Said, Demietta, Giza, etc. Hundreds of CSF troops cordoned the demonstrating tax employees on the sidewalk outside the ETUF headquarters . They are sleeping in there and are expected to continue with their demo until their grievances are addressed.
Chants at this demo on Tuesday (Nov. 13) called upon Egypt’s 55,000 real estate tax workers to resume strike action by not collecting taxes – until their demands are met. The ETUF’s Hussein Megawer is said to have conducted some sort of negotiations with the strike leaders/worker delegates.

Some photos of the protest, below, taken by Jano…

NDP favors patronage over politics

Posted on By 3arabawy

From AFP:

Despite a highly marketed effort at modernization, Egypt’s ruling party is still centered on one man and draws much of its loyalty from its function as a patronage machine, analysts say.
A stylish image revamp and the emergence of a reform-minded camp in the last five years have done little more than add gloss to the National Democratic Party whose founding members still call the shots.
“At the leadership level there really isn’t much of an internal debate,” Issandr El Amrani, an analyst with the International Crisis Group, told AFP.
During its ninth general congress which wrapped up on Tuesday, 5,310 members elected President Hosni Mubarak chairman of the party in an uncontested vote that was cast and counted in less than two hours. Party Secretary General Safwat Al-Sherif was re-elected to his post at Mubarak’s suggestion.
The party has maintained its pyramid structure since its establishment in 1978. The NDP, a re-incarnation of the Arab Socialist Union, the ruling state party created by President Gamal Abdel Nasser in 1962, has never strayed too far from the one-party model, Amrani said.
“It isn’t as old-fashioned as the ASU but provides the same services, it’s a patronage machine,” Amrani said.