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Egypt Conditions of Service
Between 1981 and 1989, commander in chief Abu Ghazala
established his popularity with the armed forces by substantially
improving the living conditions of military careerists. The cabinet
approved periodic pay increases, but salaries were not as high as
in the private sector. Still, the combination of salaries and
benefits provided officers with a comfortable living. As of 1989,
it was less common for officers to hold second jobs. Many retired
officers, however, were employed in the state-owned defense
production sector. Officers' special privileges included the
opportunity to purchase cars at reduced prices, access to superior
health care and hospitals, visits to specially designated resort
areas, and club memberships. Officers shopped at clean,
well-stocked commissaries that carried duty-free or subsidized
foods, which were often unavailable on the local market. Children
of career personnel received preferential treatment when they
applied for admission to institutions of higher learning. Under Abu
Ghazala, ordinary soldiers received a narrower range of benefits,
but their housing, rations, and uniforms improved. Soldiers seemed
well-fed and neatly turned out. NCOs earned salaries that were high
enough for them to afford adequate accommodations for their
families. Draftees' living conditions remained far less favorable.
Their monthly earnings amounted to less than US$10 in the late
1980s.
To attract people to the uniformed services, the military began
offering recruits comfortable apartments in new "military cities."
Most of these cities were located in the desert just outside Cairo
and other major cities and near the Suez area, where there was a
high concentration of military installations. As of 1986, the
military had built thirteen of these cities and was constructing
another ten. The largest of these was Nasser City near Heliopolis,
where an estimated 250,000 people lived in 1986. Other military
cities were designed to accommodate as many as 150,000 residents,
including troops in new barracks. Each city generally included a
large number of apartment blocks, as well as primary schools, high
schools, nurseries, mosques, supermarkets, social clubs, banks, a
water purification system, and solar heating.
The military raised some of the capital needed to erect the
military cities from the sale of valuable land it owned in the
center of Cairo. With subsidized prices and favorable loan terms,
career military personnel could typically buy an apartment for
ŁE12,000 as of 1986 (for value of the
Egyptian pound, see Glossary),
with down payments ranging from ŁE1,000 to ŁE3,000
amortized over thirty years. Some officers profited by subletting
their apartments to civilians. In addition, land was made available
within the military cities for construction of civilian apartment
blocks. As of 1986, construction in military cities accounted for
5 percent of all Egyptian residential construction.
Data as of December 1990
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