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Upgrading Cairo & Potential Private Sector
Involvement
Governor of Cairo Abdel Rehim Shehata, the guest speaker at an
AmCham Egypt luncheon on April 16, provided an in-depth presentation
of the governorate's efforts - under multiple programs - to upgrade
the city.
His lively presentation - complete with slides, graphs and full-color
photos - highlighted the largely unpublicized but vital place of
the private sector in these efforts. "The private sector is
highly involved in the development of Cairo, but we are not making
a big fuss about it," he said.
With a population of 12 million during the day and 10 million at
night, Cairo's limited geographical area is under extreme pressures,
the governor said. In particular, the 6700-kilometer Cairo road
network has the capacity for 500,000 cars, but there are currently
1.5 million vehicles traversing the streets - a number that Shehata
expects will climb to 2 million by 2007.
Shehata - who has been governor for 6 years - said the 6th of October
and 15th of May highways, the Al Azhar tunnel, a planned third line
for the metro and the expansion of the ring road have all helped
to ease the traffic problem in recent years.
But the "serious" traffic problem is aggravated by a
parking shortage. To address this, 50 to 100 more underground garages
must be built, Shehata said. Private sector companies, working on
a build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis, have invested £E 1.2
billion in these efforts so far, he added.
Shehata also tackled the issue of urban development. "Cairo
is not the Corniche. Cairo is not Zamalek. Cairo is not Garden City,"
affirmed the governor, who pointed to low-income squatter settlements
that have expanded around Cairo at an unprecedented rate since the
1970s.
The private sector has invested £E 4.5 billion in 32 projects
to clean, upgrade and beautify different areas of Cairo, many of
which were illustrated in the presentation. In Manishat Nasr, one
of Cairo's poorest neighborhoods, Shehata described how £E
500 million had been spent to improve sanitation, provide drinking
water, rehabilitate roads and improve human development.
In an effort to clean up the city, meanwhile, the city has contracted
international companies to control solid waste management.
Following the presentation, AmCham President Mohamed Mansour thanked
the governor, and presented him with an extended 2003 AmCham membership.
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