Dr. Samir Radwan, the Minister of Finance, said state budget was discussed four times in the cabinet until everyone was convinced that it meets the needs of all people. During an interview with the Egyptian broadcaster, Mona el-Shazly, Radwan denied rumors that the International Monetary Fund refused to loan Egypt money. He said that it was rather the Egyptians who refused the loan due to the potential consequences of being burdened to repay it. Radwan said that Egypt has a debt of a total of 1.3 trillion Egyptian pounds which represents 81% of its Gross National Product, reaching domestic debt of 70%. This indicates that the domestic market is suffering from a deficit of 134 billion EGP. There is an attempt to compensate for the deficit with grants from Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, which contributed to the current budget with $ 500 million. This is now under agreement with Kuwait, Bahrain and the UAE. Radwan said that Egypt was able to move safely away from the global financial crisis in 2008, and will also be able to overcome the current crisis by hard work. He pointed out that the grants represent 5% of the budget, a small percentage that cannot be relied upon. According to Radwan, the trend is to now increase financial gains by imposing new taxes and increasing the old ones. This includes increasing tax on cigarettes by 10% so that by 2017 it reaches 70%, as well as increasing the Value Added Tax from 20% to 25%. Radwan is attempting to activate real estate taxes and progressive taxation on profits resulting from the stock market in force in all countries, without affecting investment which faced major criticism from small traders in the stock market. Radwan said the budget must change in accordance with the new social conditions. He rejected the idea of restructuring the wages for public employees saying that this cannot be done now because of the chaos suffered by this structure. The basic wage under this structure represents 27% of that received by an individual, and the rest comes in the form of raises, especially since there are of 6.2 million employees in the state apparatus (an employee for every 12 citizens, although the global ratio is 1 to 50). He added that the concept of maximum wage is also necessary except for those with exceptional abilities who deserve rewarding.
