Waly to MENA: Insurance money reached LE755B in Dec.

CAIRO - 15 January 2018: The Social Solidarity Ministry is working on a unified insurance bill under which pensions should be calculated based on the average wage earned during years of service.

Social insurance money amounted to some 755 billion pounds in December, Social Solidarity Minister Ghada Waly said.

She was speaking in an interview run by MENA board chairman and editor-in-chief Aly Hassan Sunday.

A committee of independent Egyptian experts is working to invest this money to yield the highest revenues, Waly said.

Less than two percent of the insurance money is invested at the EGX and has made highest gains, she noted.

The minister also touched upon a takaful program that addresses needs of more than two million families in 5,630 villages across Egypt.

Waly said her Ministry was able to reach out to those families in only three years and has since spent 14 billion pounds as part of the program.

The program provides cash subsidy for those families to help them meet their pressing needs or start micro-sized projects to ensure a fixed income, Waly explained, noting this will lead to improving their living condition before they eventually exit the program.

Indeed, the Social Solidarity Ministry has received a loan from the World Bank to bankroll the program, but it constitutes less than 20 percent of the total funds allocated for the purpose, Waly said, stressing that Egypt is keen on covering expenses of the program from the public budget.

Egypt's takaful program can very well be used as an important reference by neighboring countries, said a proud Waly.

The Social Solidarity Ministry has also established a detailed electronic database of beneficiaries - the biggest ever in Egypt - the minister said, adding that it is being updated on a monthly basis.

Appliers are asked to answer 92 questions in the subsidy application before they are included in the program, she made it clear.

Social Solidarity Minister Ghada Waly said a survey will be conducted next year to pinpoint the exact number of street children and compare them with figures of the last survey held by the National Center for Social and Criminal Researches in December of 2014.

She said the ministry took several measures to address the problem of street children, including contributing 164 million pounds to boosting the NGOs operating in this field and providing an attractive atmosphere for those children to keep them away from streets.

She stressed that the ministry does not forcibly keep any child inside a foster care home because such a move contradicts with the Egyptian law that stipulates that no one can be held unless he or she has committed a crime.

Refuting allegations that the government is restricting the freedom of NGOs in Egypt, the minister stressed that the government has never blocked any funds to any civil society organization unless they were in violation of Egyptian laws.

She said the ministry made a database for all NGOs operating in Egypt to be able to follow up their activities, funds channeled to them and the way they spend them.

She said the ministry is on good terms with all NGOs in Egypt and cooperating with many of them to carry out development programs in Egypt.

She made clear that a new law regulating the work of the NGOs will be issued within weeks.

About the application of financial inclusion in social care programs, she said financial inclusion is no more a tool to protect the poor but it is a main tool for developing banking and financial sectors.

She referred to the ministry's cooperation with e-Finance company and social insurance offices to enable the pensioner to pay his electricity and natural gas consumption bills through his pension card.

She also cited the ministry's successful experiment with Nasser Social Bank (NSB) and the four mobile operators to allow divorced women to get their alimony payments through mobile devices.

This experiment has been in place since October 29.

Alimony beneficiaries have to enroll their personal data in the Ministry of Social Solidarity to be eligible for obtaining the new mobile service.

The 2017 Egyptian census carried out by Egypt’s official statistics agency CAPMAS showed that the number of divorced people in Egypt reached 710,850 persons.