No parking -- yet
Reem Nafie tries to find out why the much-ballyhooed underground garage in Tahrir -- inaugurated more than a month ago -- is still not open for business
Prime Minister Atef Ebeid inaugurated Tahrir Square's shiny new underground garage over a month ago, to a chorus of claims that downtown's chronic parking problem would soon be solved.
Today, however, the garage has yet to open for business.
Having heard about it in the papers, mourners descending on Omar Makram mosque -- nearly under which the garage stands -- have chosen to drive downtown in greater numbers recently, confident they'd find parking. Or so says 'Am Mohamed, the sayis (car attendant) who works the curbs outside Omar Makram. 'Am Mohamed says business has been great. "Lately, people have been bringing their cars because they think the garage is running. When they find out it isn't, they have no choice but to get me to park their cars."
The four-storey garage will hold 640 cars. Built by the private sector Tahrir Investment Company for Garages (TICO) using the BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) system, TICO gets to rake in the garage's profits for the coming 25 years, before transferring it to Cairo governorate.
Abdel-Kader El-Dardeery, head of the Cairo governorate housing department responsible for the garage project, denied that the delays in the garage's opening had to do with "unresolved fiscal issues between TICO and Cairo Governorate". The delays, he said, were due to a ventilation problem that had to be resolved before the garage opened for business.
El-Dardeery said that some of the equipment -- including fans -- being imported from abroad for the project had been delayed at customs. He was confident, however, that the red tape would soon be resolved.
Others, meanwhile, are claiming that there actually is a disagreement over both the fare that should be charged by the garage, and how the profits would be distributed.
Ahmed Lotfi, an engineer with Arab Contractors for Maintenance and Services (ACMS) -- the firm responsible for operating the garage -- was shocked that such issues should arise considering the nature of BOT projects like this oone, which he said give the investment company both 25 years of revenues and the freedom to price the service as it chose.
The core of the issue, perhaps, are the rumours circulating that the garage is planning on charging up to LE3.5 per hour for parking. Ismail Tohami, assistant to the garage manager, said he understood how high the price seemed, "but you have to realise that you are parking your car in an air-conditioned, safe facility".
Garage security guard Mohamed Ahmed said, "the governorate and TICO are arguing over the money. TICO wants a certain fare, but the governorate says it's too high."
Asked by Al-Ahram Weekly what the garage plans to charge, the manager would only say, "nothing is definite yet".
El-Dardeery, meanwhile, was of the opinion that the delays were not unexpected. "There has to be a test period before it's officially open to the public," he said. According to El- Dardeery, "TICO wanted to open just the first floor (where there aren't any ventilation issues), but the governorate chose to wait and open the entire thing properly."
Despite reassurances like these from governorate officials, many ordinary customers have begun to lose faith. Curious potential parkers and passers-by are told by security guards at the garage's entrance to "come back in a few days".
Kamal Abdel-Ghaffar, who works at the Omar Makram mosque, said he has been asking garage employees for the past month when they would be opening, and "every single time, they would say next week."
"They've been talking about it for so long, saying it's going to open soon," said Nadia Maged, who works at a nearby five-star hotel, "that I've just stopped asking."
