The Minister of Manpower Mohamad Saafan has revealed that 500,000 people were excluded from the grant stipulated for informal workers affected by the coronavirus crisis. Saafan said that five categories of people were excluded including the deceased, children, those who own agricultural property, those who receive a pension, and those who obtain social insurance. Saafan stressed that the citizens who were chosen to receive the grant were the ones who were affected by the corona crisis as a result of their work in non-permanent jobs and those not included in the insurance system.

According to the Ministry of Manpower, 2 million citizens registered their data for the grant and 1.5 million were selected. According to World Bank statistics, 39 per cent of the working age population in Egypt is unemployed, and about 64 per cent of the Egyptian population are either poor or vulnerable to poverty due to the government’s economic reform policy under the supervision of the International Monetary Fund.