Some investors intend to set up 25 floating hotels on Lake Nasser, a strategic reservoir in Upper Egypt. The project is nothing new; it has previously been suggested by ex-Prime Minister Atef Ebeid. However, fierce opposition from then Minister of Water Resources Abdel-Hadi Radi convinced the leadership to suspend the project, in order to protect the lake from possible pollution by the tourist hotels. Environmental and tourist experts alike affirm that the project would seriously pollute the lake, while the profits wouldn't be that great, especially as the occupation rate of the six hotels already in operation is only 60 per cent. Why build 19 more floating hotels that would only harm the primitive nature of the great lake and thwart any development projects in Upper Egypt, that depend on it because it provides much of Egypt's fixed quota of Nile water? There was already a shortage of water for cultivation even before the crisis with the Nile Basin countries, so we should optimally use Lake Nasser to boost national development. Lake Nasser, formed behind the Aswan High Dam, was supposed to make up for the shortage of protein in Egypt by creating a big fishing fleet and also frozen fish factories to supply the north of the country. Though the rocky land surrounding the lake is no good for cultivation, experts say that water could be piped from the lake to cultivate the land further east and west. There is even an idea to use the huge quantities of mud that have accumulated behind the dam to cultivate a large stretch of desert. Any projects proposed on the lake or around it should be thoroughly discussed by the agencies concerned, so that this primitive region is wisely exploited.
