Real Estate Workers Hold Vigil to Return to State
Dozens of workers of the Egyptian Real Estate Company for Land Reclamation, which employees about 1,700 workers, held a vigil in front of the Journalists’ Syndicate in Cairo in protest against the delay of salary disbursement for three months.
The workers called for activating the terms of the decree 106/2012 issued by the Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri. The decree provides for the establishment of a holding company to be called “the Holding Company for Land Reclamation and Groundwater Research” as an Egyptian joint stock company subject to the provisions of the law of public sector companies. According to the decree, the holding company shall include:
- The Egyptian Real Estate for Land Reclamation;
- Wadi Kom Ombo for Land Reclamation;
- Arab for land reclamation;
- Bohira Joint Stock for Land Reclamation;
- Public Company for Land Reclamation, Development and Reconstruction;
- Public Company for Research and Groundwater.
The company has already been established under the chairmanship of Said Taha, but these companies have not yet been included under it. Still worse, every time the workers go to the chairman of the Holding Company, he denies the affiliation of these companies to the holding company.
Workers also demanded the resignation of the real estate company’s board of directors headed by Ashraf Hadad, stressing that his administration has made the company a failed one and owed to banks after it was profitable when it was part of the public sector.
Although the state officials, before and after January 25, had made statements, saying that the state will pump money into these companies and will try to run them through the maintenance and operation of machinery. But so far these words have not been turned into actions.
The Real Estate Company workers also confirmed that they will organize a protest vigil next Wednesday in front of the headquarters of the Council of Ministers. The rest of the six companies’ workers, totaling about ten thousand workers, will join them for demanding an investigation into corporate corruption and mismanagement, in addition to assigning projects so that their salaries can be reimbursed and putting the decree 106 into force.
One of the workers, who works as an accountant for the Real Estate Company for 27 years, said, “I get a salary of 1200 pounds, which is the highest wage paid to workers in the company, and the vast majority of workers, all of whom are contracted workers, suffers from low salaries that reach 300 pounds a month.
