In previous episodes of this field study on the conditions of journalism and the wages of journalists in Egypt, we have drawn a harsh map of the status of the profession; we have seen how the entry of thousands of journalists fell below the poverty line, and how what the American journalist receives in about one month is equal to what his Egyptian counterpart receives in several full years.
In the last episode we went to the experiences of developed countries, we found that these countries do not see the media as a burden on the budget, but an investment in «Knowledge Security» The community has hundreds of millions of dollars in direct financial support, tax and customs exemptions, an incubating legislative and investment environment, and special programs to protect local journalism, journalistic jobs, and professional development.
Today’s episode raises the most pressing question in the Egyptian context: Does the Egyptian government support the press and media sector?
The real answer: Yes, the Egyptian government supports the media sector, and there are billions injected annually into this sector. «Yeah.» The way this support is designed, distributed and spent does not express a developmental or investment vision as much as it reflects management. «Chronic crisis.» Repeated attempts to keep a ship burdened with debts and losses afloat.
The official figures allocated to the support process clearly reveal the structural imbalance, as the direct support allocated to the National Press Authority in the state budget ranges in recent years between about 331 and 482 million pounds annually, while the door of «Support, grants and social benefits» Only in the budget of 2023/2024 to about 552.5 million pounds after it was 442.4 million in 2022/2023, while the allocation of direct wages for employees of the same authority does not exceed 24.36 million pounds only.
In the fiscal year 2022/2023 the Ministry of Finance «Addressing the Problems of Press Institutions» With an additional amount of 724 million pounds above the original budget, then came the draft budget 2023/2024 to allocate only 150 million pounds for this item, before the discussions of the Plan and Budget Committee ended to raise it to 910 million pounds so that national institutions can pay their basic obligations.
These figures clearly reveal that a large part of the support goes to two tracks, either operational expenses to ensure the continuation of the daily work cycle, or the payment of accumulated obligations and fill urgent gaps, not to fund a real reform plan or structural modernization of institutions or directly improve the wages and conditions of journalists, or inject new blood into the veins of national institutions that have aged and weakened after the suspension of appointments for more than a decade.
We're in for an infertile support. «Creative.»support extinguishes fires and does not build a new house; support «Analgesic.» Not. «Cure.» For a chronic disease that is crushed in the body of a profession, the deterioration of its health affects the health of the national security of the country, support stands in front of mountains of debt and losses; where the debts of national press institutions amounted to about 13.9 billion pounds until August 2020, according to the data of the National Press Authority, while the report of the Ministry of Information in 2020 about 22 billion pounds, while the National Media Authority recorded accumulated losses of about 71.5 billion pounds until the end of the fiscal year 2020/2021.
That means billions of subsidies aren't being poured into arteries. «Growth and development» Rather, they are spent primarily on servicing historic debts and filling a revenue-expenditure deficit in institutions that have not yet undergone comprehensive structural, management, and business model reform.
In addition, there is a clear imbalance in the distribution map of support; the visual government media, represented by the Maspero building and the National Media Authority, devours the largest share of the cake of public funding, while the national newspapers share the rest, and the partisan and independent newspapers are completely deprived of all forms of support, whether in the form of direct financial allocations, clear tax exemptions, or fair and transparent government advertising campaigns.
Does the Egyptian government support journalists?
The answer is clear and decisive: «Yeah.»Oh, no. But!!
Yes, there is government support for journalists under «Training and technology allowance» It was originally born as a noble tool to develop the profession, update the skills of journalists, link them to the digital age, and protect them from the fragility of the labor market, and its foundation and philosophy was to be independent of the wages of journalists, and away from the hands of officials in national, partisan and independent newspapers, and not to supplement the salaries of journalists, and be a grant from the state to train and develop journalists.
However, this allowance, absent the application of the labor law and the press law, and the state’s slow hand in monitoring the commitment of press institutions to the wages of journalists and the minimum wage, turned from a means to promote the profession to a tool to destroy it; and a backdoor to gain. Pat. «Allowance» A sword on the necks of professional journalists, a way to extort them and force them to work without a salary in exchange for continued payment «Allowance»In return, he turned into a booty for traders and brokers. «Allowance»Hey!
وتحت مظلة هذا الغياب الرقابي، ابتكرت مؤسساتٌ صحفية حِيَلًا فَجّة للاستيلاء على البدل كليًا أو جزئيًا؛ فبعض المؤسسات القومية قامت بإدراج البدل ضمن هيكل الأجور لتضخيم «شكل» مرتب الصحفي على الورق، والالتفاف على الحدّ الأدنى للأجور، وجعلت البدل «مُكمّلًا» للحدّ الأدنى بدلًا من أن يكون إضافةً مستقلةً للتطوير.
وليس هذا فحسب، بل إن بعض المؤسسات فرضت على «البدل» رسومًا تُستقطع بكل «بجاحة» من قوت الصحفيين لصالح المؤسسة؛ وهي ممارسة لا يمكن وصفها إلا بأنها خطأ مالي وإداري وقانوني جسيم، لأن البدل منحةٌ خارج نطاق الأجور، ولا يجوز تحميله على بند المرتبات أو احتسابه جزءًا من الراتب المستحق.
وفي بعض الصحف المستقلة والحزبية، بلغ العبث ذروته بتحويل «البدل» إلى راتبٍ بديلٍ كامل؛ فحجبت الأجور بشكل كامل أو فُرِّغته من مضمونها، واكتفت تلك المؤسسات بصرف مرتباتٍ شكليةٍ تتراوح بين 1000 و3000 جنيه.
والأسوأ أن مؤسساتٍ أخرى دفعت صحفيين للعمل بلا رواتب ولا تأمينات ولا مكافآت، مقابل استمرار صرف «البدل»؛ وكأن الصحفي مطلوبٌ منه أن يكتب ويُحقّق ويُخاطر، ثم يُكافأ على ذلك بالحدّ الأدنى من البقاء لا بالحدّ الأدنى من العدالة.
