It is not true that the sidewalks are for public use. Now you can buy the sidewalk in front of your house for a kickback to the local council, and you can forbid anyone from using it. Of course we al know that the officials of the council have always been doing such things so as to make a extra buck, but it was more discrete in the past when the council belonged to the Cairo Governorate under the control of conservative Abdel Azim Wazir. But now the council is doing much better, and the residents can negotiate directly with its officials. There are numerous examples for this: On Road 216, a resident illegally build an extra kitchen room adjacent to his neighbor's bedroom window. When his neighbor made a complaint to the Local Council, the employees came immediately and issued a fine, but they did not remove the kitchen, because he did not give them kickbacks. Today, that man sleeps on the smell of onions and garlic every night. On Road 17, the wife of a Western ambassador told me she cannot open her bedroom window because the smell of piles of garbage on the sidewalk has become intolerable. When she filed a complaint with the council, they told her the garbage is the responsibility of a private company, not theirs. It seems the company agreed with the council to leave the garbage on the sidewalks for the council to offer the residents to buy those sidewalks for a certain sum of money that does not go to Dr. Youssef Boutros-Ghali's Treasury. The sidewalks of Road 85 and 13 that were covered with garbage are now turned into gardens and annexed to the houses. And the pedestrians now have to walk in the street next to the cars, while the Municipality is fast asleep. Rumor has it that this system would be applied to other neighborhoods after it prove successful in Maadi. I personally like those fences that annex the sidewalks to the houses. It is obvious that the residents built them, telling from the taste, as we know the taste of the council when it builds fences or other constructions. I suggested to the council that they place ads in the papers saying: Sidewalk for Sale. But they said Ghali will take that money for the treasury.
