By Mohammed Baali
Albawaba.com - Cairo
In a sign that the government has won this round of a battle over a new tax, hundreds of Egyptian merchants have started reopening their shops on Cairo’s Mosky and Abdel Aziz streets and areas in Alexandria.
The shop owners had shut down to protest a new sales tax, in a popular campaign that stirred up Egypt’s political scene.
It now appears that their extensive protest campaign against the implementation of the second and third phases of the sales tax has not succeeded in derailing government plans.
Meanwhile, the sales tax agency has intensified its efforts to wrap up the registration of merchants subject to the tax.
The agency announces daily that its offices are open for merchants to register their names, despite the fact that no more than one percent of the expected number of 200,000 merchants have so far signed up.
The head of the agency, Mohammed Mahmoud Ali, has told the Egyptian press that his agency will organize free courses to instruct merchants on the easiest methods of collecting and delivering the tax money. The agency has also issued 14 orientation directories to explain tax procedures, in addition to a booklet describing the impact of the new tax on the merchants and the market as a whole.
Egyptian merchants, far from being won over, have launched all kinds of protests, short of holding demonstrations.
Besides sponsoring meetings and conferences and sending notes to Parliament, they have also organized the shop shutdowns.
The first reason for the campaign’s failure, say observers, has been the rejection of the campaign by certain prominent merchants in important commercial areas, including Wikalat Al Balah and downtown.
Secondly, they say, members of the Cairo Chamber of Commerce have not only refrained from supporting the closures, but have also issued a statement against it. This came after initially taking a lead role in the protests.
In fact, on the first day of the shop closures, the only stores open on Mosky Street were those owned by the head of the chamber, and one of its board of directors.
Despite the chamber’s leading role at the beginning of the strike, it is evident that it faced pressure from higher levels.
The Cairo daily Al Akhbar points to the accusations flying among members of the chamber, who accuse each other of being government supporters.
Meanwhile, several opposition lawmakers have tried to interfere in the crisis to embarrass the government.
Among the most active of these has been Ayman Noor, an independent MP previously expelled from the Wafd Party, who delivered a harsh statement at Parliament on the issue. Another active MP has been Nasserist lawmaker Haider Baghdadi.
In addition, a number of independent and opposition candidates in the ongoing Shura Council elections have tried to exploit the issue to score points against rivals from the ruling National Democratic Party.
