Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has called for every Egyptian employee to donate one Egyptian pound ($0.05) as a contribution to fight poverty in Egypt, Safa news agency reported yesterday.
During a telephone interview with local TV he said:
If we took one pound from every Egyptian employee for the sake of this programme, this means that we would collect seven million pounds ($386,000) every month.
He added: “This sum may be simple, but when it is added to other contributions from businessmen, banks and the state, we would be able to get rid of poverty. The houses of the poor are so dirty.”
Read: IMF lowers economic forecasts for Egypt and Saudi Arabia
Previously, Al-Sisi suggested similar ideas such as calling for the Egyptians to donate their spare change.
He also called for the Egyptians to send a text message worth one pound every day to help fund development projects.
*This piece was corrected at 11:02 BST, to change “seven billion pounds” to “seven million pounds”