Back in the day, the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer. Recently in Egypt, though, the country’s flailing economy has hit both the rich and the poor hard, with no victors in sight. Over the weekend, the government issued a decision to increase tariffs on what it termed “luxury imports,” across the country. Some of these “luxury” items include fruits, cleaning products and beauty items, because hey, who needs any of these anymore?
And that’s not the worst of it, either. People in various industries throughout the country have raised their prices exponentially across the board for no particular reason because well, “il as3ar 3’elyet ya basha.” We get it in industries whose core production prices, so to speak, have indeed risen such as restaurants and taxis; we don’t get it anywhere else, however. In (dis)honor of this bi-annual price increase tradition that we Egyptians seem to hold so dear to our hearts, we’ve decided to compile five of the most bizarre price hikes that we’ve heard of in recent times.
1- Bawabs asking to get paid more, because obviously, all of their transactions revolve around the dollar.
2- Barbers convincing us that the price for cutting hair is directly correlated to the amount of foreign reserves in the country.
3- Parking getting more expensive across the country because well, duuh!
4- Air isn’t for free, either. It now costs more to pump air into your tires.
5- Dairy products getting more expensive. We could really try to make a joke here, but we won’t!
