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Sunday, 21 June 2020

Egypt’s budget passes House, health and education spending slightly changed

BUDGET WATCH- FY2020-2021 budget passes House with bigger earmarks for health and education spending: The House of Representatives approved in a plenary session on Wednesday the state’s budget for FY2020-2021 after leaving it largely unchanged from a draft released by the Finance Ministry in April, the ministry said in a statement. Members of parliament requested at least EGP 4 bn to be added to the spending bill for education and academic research, Rep. Mervat Alexan was quoted as saying by Al Mal. The House Education and Scientific Research Committee had recommended last week adding EGP 22 bn to the Education Ministry’s share of the budget.

Health + education spending meet constitutional requirements: The ministry had previously allocated c. EGP 255 bn for health (now EGP 258.5 bn, according to final figures) and EGP EGP 423 bn for education, higher education, and scientific research (now EGP 424 bn). This means the total amount allocated to health and education has increased by 43% y-o-y from EGP 545 bn in FY 2019-2020. The final allocation fulfills a quota mandated by the constitution, which requires an allocation equal to 10% of GDP for health- and education-related spending, the ministry said in its statement.

The budget is due to be revised once 1Q2020-2021 wraps on 30 September, the ministry said. The ministry had made it clear last month that it plans to further tweak key assumptions of the budget as it gets more clarity on the road ahead.

What’s next? President Abdel Fattah El Sisi is due to ratify the budget before the start of the fiscal year on 1 July.

You can find all you need to know about key figures in our previous coverage here, here, here, here, and here.

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