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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 28 January 1999 Issue No. 413 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 28 January 1999 Issue No. 413
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Focus Economy Opinion Culture Features Living Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Channelling dissent
By Gamal Essam El-DinDebate over the government's giant land reclamation Toshka project has not abated since it was launched amid much fanfare two years ago.
A recent two-week hostile press campaign by the Wafd Party in its newspaper Al-Wafd concluded that "the People's Assembly has never opted to exercise a supervisory role to discuss the project fully." It claimed, "Very recently, the project turned out to be fraught with financial and technical difficulties. Therefore, it should be subject to extensive discussion in a scientific conference."
Al-Wafd focused on a number of issues concerning the project. First, the Chief Editor Said El-Tarabili said: "No one knows for sure how the government will be able to foot the project's huge bill." He asked, "Why has the government refrained from submitting to the People's Assembly a detailed budget for this project... The government is required to submit this budget as soon as possible so the Assembly can assess whether Toshka will turn out to be a drain on the economy or not."
El-Tarabili claimed that, due to lack of preparation and insufficient budgeting, the government needs an extra LE250 million to complete a LE1.5 billion pump station, designed to provide water for the reclamation of 540,000 feddans of land in Toshka, west of Lake Nasser. El-Tarabili also claimed international lending institutions were not convinced by the project to inject extra cash.
The newspaper alleged the go-ahead for the Toshka project was given without adequate studies being carried out first. "As a result, the digging of the main Sheikh Zayed Canal, which will provide water for the Toshka valley, was recently stopped. Fifty kilometres from the beginning of the canal, a rocky granite layer was discovered, which held up the digging," said El-Tarabili.
Furthermore, he claimed that canal workers had unexpectedly come across a 200-metre depression 18 to 21 kilometres into the canal. "This depression will have to be filled, or the canal re-routed," El-Tarabili wrote. He called on the government to hand over to parliament and political parties copies of the studies it has conducted on the Toshka project. "The government claims as many as 100 studies were conducted on all aspects of this project. We, however, challenge them to provide us with only four of those studies," El-Tarabili wrote.
According to El-Tarabili, the financial dealings for the project have been rife with irregularities, and some of the work on the canal was not implemented accurately and did not stick to the schedules.
Prime Minister Kamal El-Ganzouri dismissed the allegations and argued that a hostile campaign against such a huge development project is not in the interests of the nation. He said at least 79 studies were carried out on the project, ranging from in-depth scientific and technical research to economic feasibility studies.
Furthermore, Minister for Irrigation Mahmoud Abu Zeid vehemently denied that work on the canal had been stopped. "Work on the 72-kilometre canal proceeded according to the schedule and did not encounter any problems with granite rocks. It was only at kilometre nine that the workers came across sandy and gypsum rocks. These were exploded with dynamite to allow the digging to proceed to kilometre 60," said Abu Zeid.
He went on to assert that studies for the project had been carried out since the mid-50s. "We are used to the fact that mega-development projects usually face hostile campaigns and attacks. This happened with the High Dam project in the '50s and it's the same story with Toshka in the '90s," said Abu Zeid. He explained, if the High Dam were to be built today, it would cost LE10 billion, compared with the more than LE400 million it cost at the time. "We all know how invaluable the dam has been," he said. "It is always attacked by the Wafd but it has saved Egypt from floods and provided it with enormous amounts of electric power and water to reclaim the desert."
A satellite image of the gaint land reclamation project and the object of controversy
Independent analysts and political commentators, however, criticised the government's reaction to the Wafd campaign, claiming it had not acted quickly and efficiently.
Ahmed Abu Ismail, a former economy minister, told Al-Ahram Weekly that the government's response was not precise enough about the nature of the local and international institutions that have already applied to work on the project. "The answer to this question and other questions, especially those about the studies conducted on the project and its initial costs should be submitted to the Assembly's Agriculture Committee for discussion and scrutiny," said Abu Ismail. "A project that costs as much as Toshka should receive the approval of concerned institutions. It is a big responsibility that they should all share. This project will remain shrouded in mystery as long as the government denies the Assembly the right to discuss it in detail."
Abu Ismail said that according to estimates made by government officials, the initial costs for the project are expected to be between LE300 billion and LE500 billion over the next 20 years. "Government officials also said that the private sector would contribute two thirds of the costs. If this is the case, the government will still have to find between LE2 billion and LE3 billion a year. So far, it has failed to tell us how it is going to find the money," said Abu Ismail.
Economist Mustafa El-Said concurred and said the government had not provided sufficient transparent information about the project. However, he said the project could meet the needs of the country in the next millennium, provided it avoided the problems other land reclamation projects encountered. "Egypt has reclaimed 2.9 million feddans in the past 50 years. This falls short of its objective, due to unfulfilled targets, insufficient water and astronomical costs. As a result, the amount of cultivated land in Egypt is seven million feddans. We agree Toshka is a 'new civilisation-type project' but we don't want it to rely on promises, insufficient information and hasty preparation, and turn out to be a fiasco," said El-Said.
On the People's Assembly front, most of the deputies in the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) received Al-Wafd's campaign with scepticism. Several NDP deputies interviewed by the Weekly said the Wafd Party was prone to periodically launching campaigns against the government. One of them, speaking on condition of anonymity, cited the Wafd's campaign against the government's plan to build a nuclear reactor in the early '80s. "Although the cost of the reactor was reasonable at that time, the government bowed to the campaign and put the project on hold," he said.
Another NDP deputy, also preferring anonymity, said the Wafd Party suffered a major setback after the government started adopting liberal economic policies. "The leaders of the party, most of whom belonged to the ancien regime, are aware of this setback. In order to create some appeal for themselves and their party, they launch hostile campaigns every now and then, regardless of whether they are in the country's interests or not," he said.
