A poll conducted by Egyptian Center for Public Opinion Research (Baseera) concluded that only 6% of those surveyed responded to the president’s request to donate via text to Egypt each day in order to help ameliorate the Egyptian economy.
Egyptian president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi encouraged citizens to donate to the Tahya Masr (Long Live Egypt) fund, saying: “If every day, 10 million from the 90 million mobile holders sent a text to Egypt donating EGP 1, that will total EGP 10m [each day].”
“That is EGP 300m per month and EGP 4bn per year,” he continued.
The poll was conducted in March 2016 using mobile phones and landlines. The surveyed sample included 1,526 citizens aged 18 and above, across all governorates.
“About two-thirds of the respondents said that they didn’t take part in the initiative or send text messages to the phone numbers provided by the initiative,” an official statement issued by Baseera read.
“The poll showed that 21% of Egyptians had never heard of the ‘Say Good Morning to Egypt’ initiative,” the report read. “In urban areas, 16% of the population is unaware of the initiative, and this increases to 25% in rural areas.”
Around 4% indicated that they sent one message, said the report.
The research agency added that approximately 23% sent more than one message to the initiative.
By 6 March, government officials announced that the fund successfully collected EGP 3.75m via text messages.
