WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2004-05-19 Time: 11:20:28 Posted By: Jan
CAIRO – Egypt’s increasing budget deficit caused by its living above its means for years is now ringing alarm bells in the government, which is facing unpalatable measures to lower the national debt.
A number of parliamentary deputies, including members of the ruling National Democratic Party, have begun pressing the authorities in public speeches to take radical steps.
The minister responsible for parliamentary affairs, Kamal Esh-Shazli, for his part has denied rumours that the government was planning to raise taxes on fuel, cigarettes, tourism and mobile telephones in a bid to make ends meet.
But the deficit has been growing more swiftly than the gross domestic product, standing at an estimated 370 billion Egyptian pounds (59.6 billion dollars) this fiscal year.
Of this sum, 266 billion pounds is directly imputed to the government and the rest to state authorities.
Foreign debt meanwhile has hit 28.7 billion dollars, according to Finance Minister Medhat Hassanein, who insists however that
“the red line has not been reached.”
The 2004-5 budget currently being debated in parliament is expected to provide for a deficit of 52 billion pounds (8.1 billion dollars), up from 20 billion in 2002-3 and 40 billion in 2003-4.
Experts say revenue, including taxes, customs duties and profits of state-owned companies but not including income from investments, is well below expenditure on wages, subsidies on basic goods, and debt servicing.
Mohammed Abdelhalim, economics professor at Cairo’s Al-Azhar university, says this gap will reach 20 billion Egyptian pounds at the end of the current fiscal year.
This will oblige the state to borrow just to get by, he said.
“Egypt is living way above its means,” commented Ibrahim Issawi, a consultant at the National Planning Institute.
He said that far from contributing to national savings, the state was now borrowing from the contributions of individuals and companies to meet its own needs.
The government has managed to plug the hole in recent years by calling on the banks, to the detriment of private borrowers and investors.
Issawi said that supporters of a freer market system and those who backed more state intervention to help the underprivileged were both agreed on the fact that the budget deficit must be reduced, but not on how to do it.
The former want privatisation, deep cuts in subsidies on basic goods, the introduction of fees for secondary education and health care and increases in contributions by both wage-earners and the state to bring social security funds back into the black.
The latter want cutbacks in state spending on such items as luxury cars and offices for officials, an end to overstaffing and the cancellation of tax breaks for companies.
Issawi said the tax breaks had failed to prove effective in stimulating investment and reviving the economy.
AFP
Source: Business Day
URL: http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3…/p>