Egyptian Minister of Administrative Development Mohammed Zaki Abu Amer announced on Monday that the national administrative reform project would begin in August, and that the government was working hard to create job opportunities.
In a meeting with university students, the minister explained that the reform project was based on the establishment of a service system for the public to finalize their applications for government procedures by dialing a certain number.
The system will enable citizens to become familiarized with the documents, fees and period of time required for the execution of their procedures, he said.
“Should the procedures be halted, other telephone numbers at the administrative control, governors and the ministry of development offices have been designated to receive complaints from the public as per the instructions of the president to eliminate bureaucracy,” added the minister.
He also addressed the country’s unemployment problem.
“The treasury pays the wages and salaries of 6,700,000 employees who eat up 35 percent of the state’s budget,” Abu Amer said. “In view of the market economy, the private sector has to bear 75 percent of the employment volume needed.
“The government should bear 25 percent of the necessary workforce after the expiry of the era of central planning, which forced the government to employ all graduates, leading to inflation in the number of government employees and the emergence of the so-called hidden unemployment.”
“To confront the problem of unemployment, the ministry of development has to provide 150,000 jobs each year, with this number increasing to 170,000 this year, to be distributed fairly throughout the country,” continued the minister.
“The conditions regarding age have been eliminated from the employment applications. The ministry also is attempting to set up, at a later stage, a project to employ young men in villages and residential areas…to finalize the public transactions for a nominal charge,” added Abu Amer.
The minister said that President Hosni Mubarak and the government were giving all their attention to solving the problem of unemployment through creating job opportunities for young graduates.
Abu Amer also announced that the contracts of “all” experts and advisors throughout the government’s agencies had been terminated, cutting their number to 265 from thousands.
Experts, he said, could no longer be recruited without the approval of the prime minister and a demonstrated need.
The minister said that the number of handicapped placed in jobs last year reached 7,500, adding that and this number would be increased to 8,800. He reiterated the importance of unifying the employment market in the public and private sectors to create fairness and competition.
Responding to a question on the private sector’s lack of interest in employing the handicapped, the minister said this was a matter in which the government did not interfere – Albawaba.com
