CAIRO - Advertisers are up in arms against Governor of Cairo Abdel Azeem Wazeer who has recently decided to remove outdoor billboards from the rooftops of the Egyptian capital. They threaten to take escalatory measures against the Governor who has already started removing the hoardings, claiming that they are eyesores and distort the Egyptian capital's beauty. “The Governor has taken his decision to remove the hoardings without even considering the effects of his decision on the people involved in this industry,” said Ashraf Khairy, an advertiser himself and a spokesman for a recently formed alliance of advertisers in Cairo. “The sorry thing to say is that the decision of the Governor will cause thousands of people to lose their jobs,” he added. Around 35,000 people are said to be engaged in the making of street advertising hoardings. They were usually seen fixing these hoardings on rooftops in central Cairo, adjusting their light, and also cleaning them. But this is a scene the decision of the Governor will make rare in the future. Governor Wazeer says the absence of regulations for the places where these hoardings should be installed has resulted in a “mess” on the streets of the capital. The Governor's detractors, however, listen to his pronouncements and decisions and produce a smirk. Some of them include ordinary people who say the Governor turns a blind eye to the very large things that make hell of the lives of the residents of Cairo and cares only about “trivialities”. Why doesn't he remove the accumulating mountains of garbage on the streets of his city instead? asked Sobhi Ahmed, a plumber and a resident of Cairo. The advertising hoardings do nothing to harm us, but the garbage gets under our skin in a factual manner, he told The Egyptian Gazette in an interview. Some people say the decision of the Governor to remove the advertising hoardings is part of a larger plan for beautifying the capital where building facades started to have fresh paint, as well as windows. Rumours have filled the local newspapers in the last few months over the intention of the Government to redevelop Cairo and reorganise its streets. But Governor Wazeer is getting nothing out of his decision to remove the hoardings but criticism from advertisers and the people involved in the advertising industry. The advertisers had already turned the lights of their billboards on the streets of Cairo on Thursday and Friday. They say they will start an open-ended strike at the Industries Federation if the Governor does not reconsider his decision.
