Just six months after President Hosni Mubarak inaugurated a drainage project in Rashid, the Beheria Governorate town is drowning in sewage water. The waste water has surrounded houses, forcing residents to use ladders to enter their homes. "I cannot enter my house. It has turned into a swamp. Only ladders help me to get in," says Mohamed Ahmed Mohamed el-Oqda, a basket maker from of the Qutqut neighborhood of Rashid. "How could we live in such a contaminated atmosphere that causes infections and diseases?" El-Oqda said the water has infiltrated the ground floor at his house, prompting him to move to the second floor. Youssef Moussa, a 55-year-old salesman, says that the sewage water has invaded his house and the smell is unbearable. He warns that the city is facing a health catastrophe. In the neighborhood of Ganayen, Ahmed Meneisy, a market owner, stressed that all the areas of the city are flooded with sewage due to the failing drainage project which took 15 years to put in place. A number of lawyers from the city sent cautions to Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, as well as the board of the Holding Company for Potable Water and Sanitary Drainage, the administration of Arab Contractors Company, the governor of Beheira, and the mayor of Rashid. The lawyers cited the suffering by Rashid's citizens as a result of the failing drainage project. The lawyers' memo demanded an investigation. A number of citizens also submitted reports to the prosecution, describing the drainage project as "fake." Abdel Hamid Zaghloul, Rashid's representative in the People's Assembly, submitted an urgent motion to the prime minister and the minister of housing, stressing that the project has not yet been finished and is encountering intractable problems. He also claimed that the city's local unit failed to deliver sanitary drainage services to the houses, which, he said, means about LE200 million have been squandered on the project. Rashid Mayor Fathalla el-Gendy said that Qutqut district is an area of low water level, which made it vulnerable to the heavy rains that fell on the city recently, causing water accumulation. El-Gendy asserted that a drainage pipe linking the area to the sewage station is being installed to solve the problem. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
