Minister of Social Solidarity, Ghada Waly, revealed that the total disbursed pensions for July in only two days amounted to EGP 2bn for 1.5 million citizens until Sunday evening for pensioners and beneficiaries, including the increases approved by the state by 15% with a minimum of EGP 150 and a maximum of EGP 551, at a cost of EGP21.3bn borne by the State Treasury in full and benefit about 9.4 million pensioners. The minister also pointed out that the disbursement operations are going seemingly. Waly has directed the leaders of the National Social Insurance Authority (NSIA) and inspectors to the need for field presence in all the outlets of the disbursement of pensions deployed among the republic to ensure the smooth operation and to identify any obstacles that may face the disbursement operations and work on solving them immediately. In addition, Waly stressed the need for constant and direct communication with post offices and different banks, as well as solving any problems that may face pensioners. She also urged the need to open all disbursement points starting the early hours of the morning and until the last beneficiary. The NSIA officials and senior conducted inspection tours to monitor the disbursement of pensions and reported back to the Central Operations Room, which was formed under the chairmanship of the minister Waly. Meanwhile, head of the Social Insurance for Public and Private Business Workers, Sami Abdel Hadi, stated that the threshold wage for insurance subscription fee has increased from EGP 400 to EGP 500 per month, according to amendments to the Social Insurance Law that aims to boost the minimum threshold by 25% starting July 2016 and for five years. Nasser Social Bank (NSB) continued to pay pensions to beneficiaries for the second day in a row through its branch offices in the governorates. The total pensions disbursement operations from branches outside—excluding ATMs—on Sunday amounted to EGP 160m. Senior Vice President of the bank, Sherif Farouk, said that ATM machines contributed to solve the problem of congestion and long lines at branches. He pointed out that customers' withdrawals from the bank's ATMs network amounted to EGP 18m, while withdrawals from other banks machines reached EGP 26m. Furthermore, he added the disbursement starts from 7.00am and continues until the last customer to ease procedures on beneficiaries. The government had decided to pay all pensions starting the first of July at all the outlets of the NSIA, post outlets, and all banks in the republic, instead of the tenth day of the month to help beneficiaries on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr.
