CAIRO - Every building project under the auspices of the wife of former president Hosni Mubarak was accomplished haphazardly. These projects were meant to provide homes for poor citizens living in shantytowns. But many of them are still homeless, because favouritism means that their homes have been given to other people. A citizen called Fathi Afifi says that, a few years ago, Cairo Governorate officials decided to move people living in the shantytown in Zeinhom to temporary housing in Al-Nahda, the idea being to then redevelop the shantytown in Zeinhom. This project was launched under the auspices of Mrs Suzanne Mubarak. “Officials told us that we'd only have to spend 18 months in Al-Nahda and then we'd be able to return to our new homes in Zeinhom,” says Afifi. The head of the Zeinhom district then told Afifi that he wouldn't get a new home, because his family consists of six members. He was surprised by this and even more surprised, when the new flats were given to ex-convicts and thugs. Razeq Mohamed Hashem, another citizen, was also temporarily rehoused in Al-Nahda district, six years ago. “But, when the new flats were built in Zeinhom, we weren't given one. We're still in Al-Nahda and it's full of thugs. I'm very worried about my children,” he says, calling on the current Government to rehouse them in Zeinhom, as former prime minister Ahmed Nazif promised. On April 4, 2006, Attiya Al-Sayyed Ahmed was given a contract to sign, in preparation for returning home again. He was then surprised when district officials told him he wouldn't get a flat because of a drugs charge hanging over his head. “I've never been involved in drugs. What they said was untrue,” says Al-Sayyed, who works for the Public Transport Authority. “If this were true, the PTA would have given me the sack years ago.” According to Talaat Tantawi, Deputy Chairman of Al-Nahda Local Council, Al-Nahda was originally established to offer low-cost homes to newlyweds. However, after the earthquake that hit Egypt in October 1992, many people living in shantytowns were relocated to Al-Nahda, on instructions from the then Cairo Governor. Since then, Al-Nahda has become a hotbed for criminals, many of them drug dealers, while the families from randomly-built districts like Zeinhom are still stuck there. “Only people, who paid bribes have been given new flats in Zeinhom. Some of them are thugs,” admits Tantawi, noting that, to solve the problem of citizens wanting to return to Zeinhom, Cairo Governorate, the Local Council and the Military Council should form a higher committee to look into each case separately. “Anyone who has acquires a flat there illegally should have their contract cancelled.” Ayman Salah, a former member of Parliament (MP), told Al-Missa'iya newspaper that that the conditions for citizens to return to Zeinhom are very tough. “There families should have no more than four members and they must never have fallen foul of the law. These conditions are unfair. The Governorate has a responsibility to give them the new homes in Zeinhom that they were promised.”
