CAIRO: Dozens of public servants in many sectors and political activists have called for a million-man protest against the new controversial Civil Service Law Sept. 12; the Ministry of Interior has announced it will deal with protests with “firmness.”
Some 26 state representatives of various governmental institutions have urged for the protest, calling for President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi to cancel the law he passed in March.
The new law stipulates that a public servant shall be subjected to a work evaluation after two years and be given other opportunities to develop himself, but at the end if the final evaluation result was weak, he could be fired.
Per the law, the employee’s basic salary package will be annually increased by 5 percent while the allowances, bounces and incentives, which could reach ten-times the worth of their basic salary, will be cut to “get rid of bureaucracy and conflict of interests, and to improve efficiency among the workers.”
The protesters voiced their concerns over their annual incentives that could be affected by the cut of monthly allowances, accusing the government of passing this law to “shrink the state budget deficit on their expenses,” particularly among the high rate of inflation.
A number of workers of Egyptian Taxation Authority and 6th of April Movement announced their participation in the Sept. 12 protests against the law that the government has rejected to cancel or amend.
According to the Central Banks of Egypt, core annual inflation rate shrank to 6.49 percent in July, down from 8.07 percent in June.
The Ministry of Interior was on alert for the anti-law demonstration, adding that all security measures have been taken.
According to the Minister of Finance Hani Qadri, the total number of state employees whom are subjected to the civil service reached 45 percent of all state workers, al-Watan newspaper reported Sunday.
“We will not allow breaching the protest law, and deal decisively and strongly with any law breaches, banditry, or distributing the citizens’ interests,” a police general told Youm7 Monday.
Since November 2013, it has been illegal to protest in Egypt without prior approval by security forces.
On Aug. 10, dozens of tax and custom authorities’ employees have gathered outside the Journalists Syndicate in protest of the new law, Al-Ahram reported. They said that the “unfair” law was issued without prior study or consultation and that “it should has been put up for a community dialogue before being certified, given that it is to apply to 75 percent of public sector employees.”
Other political parties, including Free Egyptians, the Conservatives, and Salafist al-Nour, announced their rejections to the protests, although they voiced their conservations to the law, saying that the laws should be amended via dialogue with the concerned bodies as it will also be discussed in the upcoming House of Representatives.
The Egyptian Trade Union Federation renewed its rejection to the protest, said the Federation chairperson Gebaly al-Maraghy in a statement Tuesday, noting that the government “will not allow” to disturb working in any entity.