CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Saturday surprised an official by publicly asking about his monthly income, in a sign that officials in charge of large projects are not being paid too much.
Sisi asked the chairman of the National Company for Protected Agriculture, General Mohamed Abdel-Hay, saying, "O Mohamed, Abdel-Hay, are you in charge of how much?"
For his part, Abdel-Hay responded to the question by saying: "14200 pounds, you fendom" (about 850 dollars), during the opening of greenhouse projects at Mohammed Najib base, in the north of the country, on Saturday morning. Sisi then inquired whether the amount was enough to meet the needs of the president of the National Company for Protected Agriculture, who certainly answered.
The Egyptian president then asked for any additional bonuses or benefits.
Al-Sisi said that the leaders working in all development projects are paid normal salaries, not comparable to those of their counterparts in private companies.
On one occasion, Sisi asked Abdel-Hay about his place of residence, only to discover that he was living 40 kilometers from his workplace. “I asked him to change his place of residence,” Sisi said.
"It does not mean that people are doing billions of projects," he said.
Al-Sisi said: «In people with aspirations, but God is not a place between us nor legally or illegally, the interviewer is not money, but the dignity of Egypt between the countries.
President Abdel Fattah El Sisi will open 1,300 greenhouses on 10,000 acres as part of the second phase of the Mohamed Naguib Protected Agriculture Sector in the North Coast.
Ambassador Bassam Radi, spokesman for the Presidency of the Republic, said that the production of the project is equivalent to about one million acres of traditional crops, and is the largest project in the field of greenhouses in the Middle East.
The project aims at contributing to food security and bridging the gap between production and consumption, as well as optimizing the use of available land for agricultural activities while rationalizing the use of irrigation water.