The Egyptian government instructed governors nationwide on Monday to halt the issuance of building permits in an attempt to limit construction of slums.
Egypt’s Local Development Minister Mahmoud Shaarawi issued a ministerial order instructing governors to stop all licenses for establishing, expanding, amending, or modifying construction work for private sites.
The order, effective as of May 24, 2020, will last for six months and covers the governorates of Greater Cairo and Alexandria as well as the capitals of governorates and major cities across the country.
The decision also stipulated halting the completion of buildings currently under construction, pending confirmation of the requirements.
Last week, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi instructed the government to halt all construction activities and arrest violators to limit random construction in the country.
Alexandria is one of the Egyptian governorates with the highest number of building violations.
Governor of Alexandria, Mohamed el-Sherif said there were 133,000 orders to remove violating buildings constructed between 2011 and 2020, noting that only 9,000 of these orders were implemented.
Sherif asserted that measures will be tightened after the President’s directions and the violators will be arrested.
Earlier, Sisi inaugurated “Bashayer al-Khair 3” project in Alexandria, one of the most important projects Egyptian authorities recently implemented to develop slums.
The project was established in two and a half years with the participation of over 75 Egyptian companies under the supervision of the Engineering Authority of the Armed Forces.
In an attempt to eliminate all random construction, the Egyptian government continues to implement the slum development plan, along with establishing new urban communities and social housing projects in various governorates all over the country.
Egypt has different types of random projects varying between unsafe, unplanned, and illegal buildings.
The government has various plans to develop each region separately, according to the Executive Director of the Slum Development Fund, Khaled Seddik.
He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the development of all the insecure areas would be completed by the end of the year.
Seddik explained that slums represent 40 percent of the urban construction in 230 Egyptian cities, with an area of 160,000 acres, out of a total of 417,000 acres, inhabiting about 22 million citizens.
