I have never imagined that the encroachments on the sidewalks in the district of Maadi reached this extent. Nor have I imagined that the suffering of the people reached those dimensions. In my last week's article, I said some "irresponsible" officials in Maadi sell the sidewalks for unknown sums of money, but the known thing is that these sums do not go to the Treasury of the Minister of Finance Youssef Boutros Ghali. Following this article, I received hundreds of letters, e-mails and telephone calls in this regard. One of these letters was from citizen Ashraf Farghali, who complains that there are no longer sidewalks in Maadi. I received another phone call from citizen Nadia Hilmi, who said that I exaggerated when I said that there are no longer sidewalks in Maadi after the officials sold them. She told me that she found a single sidewalk in a Maadi remote street when she was lost on her way to a friend of her! Hilmi told me the sidewalk's name and place. Strangely enough, I received an email from lawyer Mohsen Mehana, who talked about the same sidewalk. He said the conditions of sidewalks have become very bad. The sidewalks, if you found them, are high and could be only mounted by strong people although sidewalks all over the world have certain and studied specifications that should be observed.
I received a "terrible" list of the encroachments on the sidewalks in Maadi, Degla, and New Maadi districts. The list includes some 100 blatant cases. I do not know how officials ignore or allege - as some officials in Maadi district did – that they know nothing about such encroachments!
I hoped to publish that list uncut to be tantamount to an official statement to the district's bodies that deny any encroachments, saying that their documents do not say that any sidewalk was sold. I could not publish the entire list because I am restricted by a specific space, but I called for publishing parts of the list in light of the space allocated for my article. However, I have the entire list for anyone who wants to know the crime that is being committed in Maadi district. I received another letter from citizen Essam Gohar, who said that Maadi was planned by a Belgian company, which established the wonderful club of Maadi, which was freely joined by all Maadi inhabitants. In addition, that "former" beautiful district was a favorite location for the Egyptian cinema in the fifties and sixties.
I want to tell Gohar that we should thank God because the officials of our districts liberated us from that exploited foreign company so that they can freely sell our sidewalks!
