After the Corona crisis, Egyptians are preparing for an emergency decline towards poverty

Mohamed Abdullah - Cairo

The emerging Corona virus (Covid-19) hit the poor in Egypt severely, and the epidemic left millions of Egyptians who are free daily business or temporary business without any coverage by the authority, as a result of the interruption of the economy and the loss of job opportunities.

Despite President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi’s repeated statements over the past years that Egypt is moving in the right way and that it takes into account the interests of the lower classes, economic experts and international institutions expect that the poor will be the most affected category of the emerging Corona Virus pandemic, especially in developing countries, and that the cycle of poverty in those Countries are attracting more to the upper classes as the middle classes.

The Corona crisis came before the poor in Egypt recovered from the effects of the economic reform program that it implemented three years ago with the assistance of the International Monetary Fund in November 2016, after borrowing $ 12 billion, and included: floating the pound and lifting subsidies on fuel and energy, resulting in a doubling Prices and savings value halved.

In the first census of the number of poor people in Egypt, one year after the implementation of the International Monetary Fund program, the Central Statistical Organization (government) revealed that poverty in Egypt increased by 4.7% to 32.5%, compared to 27.8% in 2015, in the largest increase of its kind.

However, the World Bank's estimates of the poverty rate were twice that of the announced government figure, as it issued a statement in May 2019, in which it said that about 60% of Egypt's population are either poor or vulnerable to poverty, as a result of the influence of the middle classes (the most important in Egypt) with economic reform measures .

Since July 2014, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has called on Egyptians on more than one occasion to endure economic reform measures, describing them as a bitter medicine that is inevitable to drink, following a series of decisions related to raising energy and fuel prices.

But what is exciting is that Sisi does not, however, stop spending on controversial projects, including the creation of a new branch of the Suez Canal and an administrative capital in the desert east of Cairo, as well as unnecessary presidential palaces in a country whose people live this level of poverty.

Global concerns
The United Nations said - in a recent study - that "the new Corona virus threatens the livelihood of about 1.25 billion workers," warning of the worst global crisis since World War II.

The UK-based charity Oxfam also warned that the Corona virus crisis could plunge half a billion people worldwide into poverty.

The organization expected an increase of between 6% and 8% in poverty rates, compared to levels in 2018, in light of the economic closure by governments to reduce the spread of the Corona epidemic.

In a new study, the International Labor Organization warned that the outbreak of the new Corona virus, in the second quarter of 2020, will reduce working hours globally by 6.7%, equivalent to 195 million full-time workers.

Forced decline in poverty
"at a time when the Egyptians were supposed to reap the fruits of the economic reform program promised by their government, including attracting investment, the Corona crisis surprised everyone, and investment escaped, and only bitter medicine and Corona were left," said the head of the Development and Value Added Forum, Ahmed Feverishness.

Speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, Khazim explained that a large percentage of workers in the informal economy - more than 40% of the Egyptian economy - will be affected severely between the loss and the loss of savings, and therefore about half of the employment contained in that informal economy will automatically fall to a class the poor.

"Whatever precautionary measures each country will take according to its economic ability to alleviate the fall in poverty, it will not be able to lend a helping hand to this abyss class," he said, stressing that despite the importance of the measures taken by the Egyptian government and the central bank To support some sectors, it is not enough.

Khazim called for preserving the presence of small and medium industries, because their exit from the market will be a disaster, and it should not be explained that their support will affect the state treasury because this will lead to the expansion of the poverty class in the short, medium and long term.

In turn, the economist Ahmed Zekrallah said, "We are facing a new wave of poverty of about 60%, according to many international studies and reports, and it is subject to increase, especially as government measures to contain the affected people are weak, and therefore we need to join hands to reduce the negative impact of the pandemic."

And he pledged in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that the economic impact of the spread of the Corona virus on the Egyptian economy has stopped, over the length of time related to controlling the spread of the disease.

And the remembrance of God went on to say that "the repercussions of the epidemic will reveal the truth of the allegations of the economic reform program that was designed to raise subsidies in the first place, reduce expenditures, and raise taxes, rather than pay attention to raising the standard of living of the Egyptians. And its repercussions, whoever did not fall into poverty due to the IMF program and stayed on the brink, will fall because of Corona. "