The General Syndicate for Finance and Tax Workers sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb on Monday, urging the cabinet not to apply the new Civil Service Law on administrative institutions. The syndicate director, Magdy Shaaban, was quoted in the memorandum as saying: "The new law abandons most of custom and tax workers' rights by depriving them from promotion, incentives, freedom of expressing their opinions on the working system." "This will have a negative income on the revenues earned by the state treasury," he added. The memorandum also added that the syndicate has previously requested to meet Minister of Planning Ashraf El-Arabi to discuss new amendments on the civil service law. No response, however, was received, which is considered a violation of Article 14 of the currently valid workers syndicates law. A new version of the 2003 Civil Service Law was first discussed in December 2014, modified by March and approved by the cabinet early July. The new law sparked doubts among civil servants, while officials claim it will not affect any workers. The General Syndicate for Finance and Tax Workers called on all tax workers to rally in front of the cabinet headquarters in Cairo on 10 August. The move was to protest the new law, according to an official statement earlier in July, and occurred a few days after the cabinet approved the new law. The syndicate said the protest aims at hindering the ratification of the new law due to its purported major financial and administrative harm on workers. The protest also aims at improving the standards of living for workers in the syndicate and tax institution, in addition to calling on the president to assign the cabinet to daft a bill that turns the Egyptian Tax Authority to an independent institution. "No one will be harmed by the new law," said Finance Minister Hany Kadry Dimian in an official statement last Monday. "The new law will include the incentive amount as a part of the main salary." According to Dimian, the unlimited increase in incentives over the past years went from EGP 83bn per year during fiscal year (FY) 2009/2010 to EGP 218bn in the new FY 2015/2016 budget. The new law has presented a new system for salaries, and stated that the incentives should be approved by the Prime Minister as a fixed percentage of the total salary every year, according to the different positions. The new law has also cancelled the financial compensation for vacation days, except if the vacation request is not approved by the administration. Moreover, it has cancelled the promotion of any employee on an unpaid vacation.
