Not many householders are waiting for rain. It is water they want, from their taps, Reem Leila reports With the beginning of Ramadan there is no obvious end in sight for the thousands of people who have had to cope with the scorching summer heat without access to potable water. The problem is particularly acute in the governorate of Suez though supplies have been intermittent in the capital, in well-heeled neighbourhoods such as Nasr City and Heliopolis as well as in the Faisal and Haram areas of Giza. In Suez 500 residents from the villages of Mohamed Abdu, Omar Ibn El-Khattab and Al-Hattaba blocked the Cairo-South Sinai Road on Friday for more than an hour to protest against water supplies that have been cut for more than four months. The police cordoned off the road as traffic tailed back. It was not the first time residents from the area have demonstrated. Since water shortages first began to hit at the beginning of the year they have sent numerous letters to government officials, including Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, pleading for help. Then, in April, water supplies were completely cut, affecting up to 40,000 people in the area. Suez MP Saad Khalifa says the problem is caused by low water pressure at the local water pumping station. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that, "there is discrimination in the distribution of drinking water, a result of corruption, with new, up-market residential developments, which have increased the burden on pumping stations, being given favourable treatment." Khalifa also claims that in the rare moments when water is available it is heavily polluted. "There is a direct link between pollution and the high salinity of water and the fact that more than 50 per cent of Suez residents suffer from liver and kidney diseases." He warns of a struggle over water resources between rural villages, urban centres, and the part-time residents of areas such as Ain Al-Sokhna where second homes have been developed in vast resorts along the coast. Hassan Kamel, head of Suez's Housing Department, promised protesters that water supplies would be resumed within weeks, pointing out that the government had allocated LE17 billion over five years to tackle the problem. Such reassurances, though, may well have been undercut, as far as protesters are concerned, when Kamel noted that, "no government in the world provides drinking water to 100 per cent of its residents; the government will never be able to please the entire nation." Ahmed El-Maghrabi, minister of housing, utilities and urban communities (MHUUC) met with the heads of the National Organisation of Potable Water and Sanitary Drainage and officials from the Holding Water Company (HWC) on 31 August and stressed that the government was committed to building new water stations around the country which will increase capacity by 11 million cubic litres. "Currently Suez has 22 water stations. It will receive four additional stations under government plans," says Abdel-Qawi Khalifa, head of the Western Nile Sector at the HWC. Khalifa told the Weekly that the new stations will be rolled out first in governorates with areas lacking drinking water and those in which water access is rotated. The MHUUC, in cooperation with the HWC, has in the meantime formulated temporary solutions -- drilling more wells and expanding water pump networks -- to be implemented within six months. "The plan set for Giza is scheduled to end during the month of Ramadan. Other areas, including Manial, will find water supplies improving within two months at most," said Khalifa. Areas such as Al-Remayah and Hadabat Al-Ahram in Giza will, however, have to wait until February 2009 before their currently heavily polluted supplies are replaced by clean drinking water. Some 400,000 residents are expected to benefit from the interim measures though until they are completed supplies will remain intermittent. Khalifa, however, promised that during Ramadan every attempt would be made to ensure water supplies are available for the maximum time each day. Suez MP Abbas Abdel-Aziz complains the government is again promising illusory solutions and accused officials of wasting millions of pounds on doomed water tower projects. Rapid population growth, poor water management, inefficient distribution systems and increased levels of pollution are all cited as reasons for the shortage. A report issued earlier this year by the Water Research Centre states that Egypt will face "serious water shortages" by the year 2025, describing the crisis as "a possible drought" in which 60 per cent of farms may face water shortages.
