The report shows that Ministe of Electricity Decree 312/2017 increased bills by 27 percent on average for the current fiscal year of 2017–18, following last year’s 33-percent increase. The hikes ranged from 15.4 percent for the first bracket (the lowest electricity usage bracket) to 43.3 percent for the seventh bracket (the highest). This shows some improvement on last year, when the biggest hikes fell on the brackets using the least electricity, but the third and fourth brackets, where most low- and middle-income users fall, did absorb major increases this year of 22.4 percent and 27.9 percent respectively.
Programs: Economic and Social Justice
This report examines the effects that these increases have had on low- and middle-income households, questioning the justifications given for these price hikes, and concluding with a number of recommendations which would limit the burden on these households, introduce transparency and restructure financial management within the electricity sector.
The report, issued by the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, aims to monitor the measures imposed by the loan program and their impact on the economy, both positive and negative. It also identifies the measures the government failed to carry out and attempts to offer alternatives that are less onerous for the public, especially low-income groups.
This is the first report on the implementation of the economic adjustment program, agreed upon by the Egyptian government and the International Monetary Fund as a condition for Egypt’s receipt of $12-billion loan under the Extended Fund Facility, to be disbursed in six tranches. Egypt will receive each tranche of the loan after a team of IMF experts confirm that the Egyptian government has complied with the terms of the agreement within the specified timetable.
Following the Arab Spring, the Swiss Authorities blocked 700 million Swiss francs held by Mubarak’s clan. Despite the opening of criminal investigations in Switzerland and Egypt, it appears that the confiscation of this money is increasingly unlikely. One quarter of the money frozen on Swiss bank accounts was already released in December 2016. Last August, the Federal Prosecutor discontinued the cooperation with Egypt – explaining that it had led to no result.
Following the Arab Spring, the Swiss Authorities blocked 700 million Swiss francs held by Mubarak’s clan. Despite the opening of criminal investigations in Switzerland and Egypt, it appears that the confiscation of this money is increasingly unlikely. One quarter of the money frozen on Swiss bank accounts was already released in December 2016.
For many years, the residents practiced many forms of peaceful protests against the factory. They wrote petitions, filed complaints, held negotiations with factory officials, talked about their cause in the media, used social media, produced documentary films, and even conducted researches and proposed alternatives.
Residents of Wadi al-Qamar have recently posted a video, dated 18 May 2017, on Facebook, which depicts very large emissions coming out of a chimney of the Alexandria Portland Cement’s plant (APCC), which is adjacent to their homes. APCC is a subsidiary of TITAN Cement Group, a multinational cement and building materials producing company, based in Greece. Residents of the area have been complaining for years about the environmental pollution caused by the plant and the harmful effects it has had on their health and the health of their children.
An international network of leading investigative journalists is today contacting 7,000 politicians in 20 countries, including about 600 politicians in Egypt, to request they publish details of their own tax records as part of a new global drive f
When the IMF agrees to extend a loan to a country, there is a number of documents the IMF team is obligated to publish and several more the government in question must release.