CAIRO: Information Centers for Local Development (ICLD) workers are threatening to resume sit-ins after the Eid holiday following the government's failure to uphold pay promises. ICLD worker Abdel-Meneim Sharaf Eddin wrote on his blog that workers will not collect their July and August salaries because they have not been increased to the figures agreed on in May following a protest ICLD workers led outside the People's Assembly. Some 200 ICLD employees took part in the sit-in which started in April and which was the second in less than a month. Workers demanded that they be given permanent status in order to benefit from health insurance and a pension, as well as pay increases from the LE 99-L E 150 per month they had been receiving since their appointment in 2002. Following negotiations with the Ministries of Local Development, Finance and Manpower, it was agreed that workers would be paid between LE 320 and LE 381 per month according to their qualifications, and that they would receive health insurance and a pension. On Aug. 18, Sharaf Eddin wrote on his blog that August salaries had still not been paid which he said “presaged another crisis between ICLD workers and the local development ministry; numerous sources say that the ministry of finances has not allocated the funds agreed on”. Mohamed Al-Saqqa, an official at the media office of the Ministry of Finance, said, "The Ministry of Finance has nothing to do with the decision of raising the salaries of the employees of the Ministry of Local Development. Each ministry is responsible for deciding upon its financial credits, and including them in the annual general budget. Therefore, even if the Ministry of Local Development decided to give its employees a raise in their salaries, it can't be applied before the new fiscal year, which starts in July." "This isn't a matter that can be solved by a protest and chanting against the ministry. Any decision the Ministry makes should be agreed upon by the People's Assembly as well as the Ministerial Council, so it isn't as easy as it is thought to be," he added. ICLD workers began another sit-in — the third this year — at the end of August and, according to the Center for Socialist Studies, will resume it after the Eid holiday. –Additional reporting by Shorouk El Hariry.
