Tag: tax collectors

Tax officers demonstrate in front of Ministerial Cabinet; Strike continues

Posted on By 3arabawy

More updates from Cairo on the 55,000 strong Real Estate Tax officers strike:

After demonstrating in front Ministry of Finance yesterday, the tax officers moved to the Ministerial Cabinet building to continue their protest from 5:30pm to around 7:3opm. No one from the cabinet’s office went out to talk to the strikers. Promises are floating around however by some govt mediators that “problems will be solved in a month,” according to an activist source in Cairo. “The strikers reply was ‘this is good. But until the problems are solved we are continuing the strike.'”

55,000 Tax officers on strike; 3,000 demonstrating in Nasr City

Posted on By 3arabawy

Around 3,000 tax officers are now assembling in front of HQ of the Finance Ministry (Imtidad Ramses St., which links Abbassiya with Nasr City). Elsewhere work stopped at virtually all Real Estate Tax offices, with around 55,000 tax officers taking part in the strike calling for improving their work conditions and their inclusion to the Finance Ministry.

The demonstrators in Nasr City have come from Cairo, Giza, Fayoum, Menoufiya, Bani swief, Minya, Daqahliya, Beheira, in buses, and are chanting against Finance Minister Youssef Boutross Ghali, and Ismail Abdel Rasoul, the head of the Real Estate Tax Administration.

More interestingly, according to a journalist who’s present at the protest, the tax officers are also chanting:

مش حنخاف.. مش حنخاف.. مش لاقيين العيش الحاف
We won’t be afraid.. We won’t be afraid.. We can’t find bread
هما مين وإحنا مين؟ هما بياكلوا حمام وفراخ وإحنا الفول دوخنا وداخ
Who are them, and who are we? They eat pigeons and chickens, while we get headaches from beans

The second chant is a popular line from one of Ahmad Fouad Negm’s poems, and both were chanted in last month’s victorious Ghazl el-Mahalla strike, which was widely covered by the local independent and opposition press. The domino effect is at work.

55,000 Tax officers will strike Sunday

Posted on By 3arabawy

It’s confirmed… 55,000 Real Estate Tax officers are striking tomorrow Sunday. Thousands, from the Cairo and Giza offices, are expected to demonstrate at 10am for an hour in front of the Mogamaa’ el-Massaleh in Giza (near Om el-Masreyeen), then move to join 2000 of their colleagues who are expected to arrive in buses from the Nile Delta provinces, to protest in front the Ministry of Finance’s Cairo HQ in Abbassiya.

The civil servants demands include, according to a socialist source in Cairo, their inclusion to the Ministry of Finance, and receiving equal status to the latter’s employees. The Real Estate Tax officers operate under the Local Councils, receiving a total monthly salary (basic salary+bonuses) of LE300 (US$54). Their colleagues at the Ministry of Finance receive an average of LE1200 (US$216).

My source also added the strike in effect already started after Eid, with 90% drop in real estate tax collection activity.

There are concerns the security may ban the Giza protesters from assembling or moving later to Abbassiya. It also remains possible that the police may block the provincial buses from entering Cairo. That’s why I hope there will be a good media presence tomorrow to act as a deterrent. I urge all my fellow bloggers and journalists in Egypt to keep a close eye on the situation.

I hope this strike action will also receive the proper international support it deserves. It will be great if labor activists and trade unionists issue statements of support, as well as send emails to the Egyptian Ministry of Finance (finance@mof.gov.eg) asking the government to submit to the strikers’ legitimate demands.