Sisi’s Long Live Egypt to Fund upgrading of Deweika Slum

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi dedicated EGP 500 million (around US$70 million) in Tahya Misr (Long Live Egypt) Fund to develop one of the most impoverished informal settlements, El-Deweika.

According to cabinet spokesman Hossam Al-Qawesh, Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab has made on Sunday the announcement of Sisi’s decision to devote efforts to upgrade slums in Egypt.

Mahlab has visited on Sunday El Asmarat district in Mokattam to examine the construction works on a housing project. The project is being implemented in order to place the residents of dangerous slums, notably Manshiyat Naser, east Cairo. Ministers of Local Development, Housing and State Cultural Development as well as the Cairo governor had accompanied the prime minister during his visit.

“There are 1300 slums all over Egypt, 340 of them are dangerous” PM stated, asking civil society to cooperate with the government in upgrading these slums.

For El Asmarat project, Cairo governor Galal Saeed said it is constructed on 85 feddans to encompass 173 buildings with 5190 housing units; each unit is on a space of 65 square metre. He added that the total cost of the project equipped with public utilities is EGP 650 million.

The Governor stated that 20% of project’s buildings have been executed so far, noting that the government started working in this project two months and half before.

The housing project will include mosque, mall, nursery, school and other important social services and expected to be finished at the end of 2015.

On September 6, 2008, Cairo landslide happened in el-Deweika. 119 people died in the rockslide. Boulders weighing as much as 70 tons rolled into the shantytown following the landslide. After most of the neighborhood had been flattened, those families still living in the slum were evicted and any remaining buildings were flattened by the government.