Minister of Finance Hany Kadry Dimian said that the Civil Service Law ensures periodic increases in the wages of state administrative agencies' employees. Dimian added that the bonus will be in the range of 5% of the job wage, which is equivalent to 75% of the total current wage of administrative agencies' employees. This will reach an actual increase in wages of up to 10% or 15%. Dimian noted that no one will be harmed by the application of the civil service law, as the public treasury will cover any differences resulting from the increased value of the payroll tax. The increase is due to the amendment of the basic and variable wages, and converting these wages to job wages and other complementary wages under the new law. "The Civil Service Law has many advantages, such as holding public office through a centralised advertisement on the Egyptian government portal and increasing the career ladder levels to become 16 levels instead of six," Dimian said. "In addition, the law will reduce the periods interfaces to upgrade, increase the duration of holiday routines to 45 days per year for people with special needs, and emphasise transparency and the fight against corruption." Dimian added that the public treasury is not able to bear the burden of the old system of rewards and incentives for six million employees any more, noting that the state employees' wages have become higher than the private sector's employees. He pointed out that the annual increase rate in the wages largely exceeds the tax revenues rate, which threatens to increase the gap between public revenues and expenditure to the extent that tax revenues may not be sufficient to cover the wages within a few years. Dimian said that allowances, incentives and bonuses set by previous laws will be modified in the calculations of the new law, to mitigate the increases in the rising rates of wages in the budget, which amounted EGP 218bn in current budget, compared to EGP 83bn in fiscal year (FY) 2009/2010. Source: Daily News Egypt
