Al-Ahram Weekly | Egypt | Parliamentary postmortem

MPs and Interior Ministry officials joined the People's Assembly National Security and Defence Committee to hear the initial findings of the investigation into the fire that hit the Shura Council building on 19 August, reports Gamal Essam El-Din

Parliamentarians were taken by surprise on Sunday when fire prevention officers attached to the Ministry of Interior accused Shura Council officials of negligence in safeguarding the building against fire. More than 50 appeals, they said, had been made to Shura Council and People's Assembly officials to speed up the installation of a modern fire-alarm system. They also highlighted the difficulties of fighting the blaze once it had taken hold in the mostly wooden building, and pointed out that the presence of a metro line passing beneath the building had limited the amount of water that could safely be used without flooding the underground train network.

Assembly speaker Fathi Sorour stated that People's Assembly officials had responded to Interior Ministry concerns about the alarm system. "We took note of their appeals," he said, "and procured the money needed to install the required system." Shura Council officials strongly denied accusations of negligence. An informed council source said on Monday that, "before levelling accusations, it's important to wait until investigations conducted by the prosecution-general are over ."

In announcing the findings of what he called "the first administrative enquiry report into the 19 August fire", Sorour revealed that the LE3.3 million in electrical equipment, including computers and printers, had been lost in the blaze.

He told those present that he had left his office at 5.30pm on the day of the fire. "I left for my home in Garden City but no sooner had I arrived than I received a telephone call informing me that fire was destroying the Shura Council and irrigation buildings." Sorour said he returned to parliament buildings and on discovering the extent of the blaze "called Defence Minister Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi to ask for the army's support".

While the questioning of parliamentary staff had not cast any further light on the exact location of the outbreak of the fire, Sorour told those assembled that "some members of the assembly's Engineering Department believe the fire originated in the building of the Shura Council".

So ferocious were the flames, he continued, that there were fears the dome of the assembly's main chamber might collapse.

The findings of the parliamentary administrative enquiry, said Sorour, will be supplemented by both the prosecutor-general and criminal laboratory investigations in an attempt to pinpoint the cause of the fire. He also confirmed that President Hosni Mubarak had ordered that rebuilding costs will be met entirely by the government.

Amin Radi, deputy chairman of the National Security and Defence Committee, told the meeting no original copies of parliamentary documents or minutes had been destroyed. "The library, in which all records of Egypt's parliamentary life are deposited, is housed in an area far from the fire," he said.

Interior Ministry officials defended the actions of security personnel and firemen. Ahmed Roshdi, who heads parliamentary security, said he first became aware of the fire at 5.30pm. "It began in the irrigation building. When we discovered the extent of the blaze we immediately asked for support from Cairo's security directorate." Roshdi stressed that the onsite civil defence unit had acted to the best of its ability to ensure that the fire did not extend to the People's Assembly or destroy the Pharaonic Hall. He praised the action of firefighters, one of whom was killed in the course of his duties, in evacuating parliamentary staff from the building without serious injuries. Roshdi ruled out arson as a possible cause and dismissed claims that inflammable material used in ongoing maintenance works had started the blaze.

Ali Rizk, head of the assembly's fire department, underlined that the quantity of wood used in the mid-19th century building had hampered the work of putting out the flames. He said the Interior Ministry had repeatedly asked parliamentary officials in the People's Assembly and Shura Council to ensure that the buildings conformed with the Ministry of Housing's fire code. "We sent 50 requests to the Shura Council's secretariat-general appealing to them to implement fire regulations to safeguard the council's main hall," said Rizk.

Some parliamentarians used the meeting to vent their anger at Interior Ministry officers, with MP Mahmoud Selim accusing ministry officials of negligence and taking them to task for failing to bring the fire under control more quickly.

"It is clear that the Interior Ministry cares more about fighting political opponents than modernising its fire systems or tackling crime," he claimed.

Saad Abboud expressed the fear that despite official reassurances a wealth of parliamentary documents had gone up in flames, prompting Sorour to suggest MPs visit the assembly's library themselves to see that all documents were safe.