Egyptians despair as duty increases cancel out pay rises

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

CAIRO (AFP) — Already stunned by skyrocketing prices, Egyptians voiced despair on Tuesday after the government raised duties on fuel and cigarettes in a bid to pay for a promised public sector wage increase.

"Cigarettes don't matter -- you can live without them. But, for the rest, it's impossible," shoe polisher Gamal Ahmed, 42, told AFP in central Cairo.

"We don't eat meat any more and, if the cost of public transport goes up any more, I don't know what I'll do."

The ruling National Democratic Party on Monday pushed through the hikes that Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif described as "taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor" and which included raising the price of diesel -- used by most public transport -- by almost 50 percent.

The duty...