ON taking office, President Mohammed Morsi announced his 100-day programme for solving some major problems facing the country including those of garbage, traffic, security and shortages of fuel and bread. Since then, some people have started counting down the days waiting for the settlement of such chronic problems that the country has long suffered, which escalated during the 18 months of the transitional period of rule. However, many doubt the President's ability to solve such chronic problems in such a short period of time, especially those of garbage and traffic. Nevertheless, I personally wished that the president could solve these two problems by scientific mean rather than depending on traditional procedures or popular campaigns for cleaning the streets or controlling traffic. Unfortunately, this has not proved to be the case and the solution came in form of a public campaign for cleaning the streets and issuing a law penalising those throwing rubbish and junk in the streets. It is true that the campaign, thanks to support of the presidency and the Muslim Brotherhood as well as the state institutions, started productively by lifting hundreds of tonnes of garbage off the streets. However, this does not mean eradicating the problem from its roots and soon rubbish will reappear on the pavements in every city and suburb, because of the lack of radical scientific solutions to the problem. First, we have to admit that getting rid of the refuse is a problem for any country, even developed and rich countries that are flourishing economically and have a higher consumption of food commodities. In fact, the rich countries produce much more garbage proportionately than the poor do. However, it is the poor that suffer the accumulation of trash in their cities and streets because of their dependence on primitive means of collection of these wastes and getting rid of them. Some countries, not only follow scientific environment- friendly way to get rid of the garbage but also make the best utilisation of its components by recycling some of the substances and turning organic matter into fertilisers. Therefore, one expected from the new President with his specialised engineering background, to resort to methodical planning in settling such problem rather than launching a popular drive to clean the country. Similarly solving the traffic problem will not be achieved by the intensified presence of police on the streets, simply because the problem is not caused by mere lack of discipline and the bad behaviour of drivers. It is also caused by the excessive number of private vehicles on the roads, poor public means of transports and deteriorating and limited road networks. Thus, while creating the second republic, we have to follow an effective strategy for achieving the progress the people wish to enjoy after long decades of corruption and backwardness. The first means is to adopt a reasoned way of thinking and to draw up a plan with clear stages and time schedule to solve any problem or obtain real development in any field. The second important mean is to resort to scientific research to solve the chronic problems facing the country. In this field, it is quite promising to find the Egyptian Nobel laureate Ahmed Zewail work on creating his science city to be the nucleus of scientific development. However, until this giant project is completed, the government could resort to the National Research Centre and the Scientific Research Academy to obtain some innovative solutions to the many problems facing the country. The shelves of these reputable research centres as well at the different universities bear hundreds, if not thousands, of valuable research studies suggesting intelligent solutions to many of these problems and even providing significant recommendations for development of different sectors. Actually, the new government continuing to neglect the works of these research centres makes one doubt the State's seriousness over Zewail's project and whether it would form the nucleus of the countries' development or remain a scientific research project that would never be applied. What we need now is to give up the traditional thinking of offering tranquillisers to solve the chronic problems and seek radical solutions to uproot their causes. Accordingly, instead of launching a campaign to collect garbage from the streets that will later accumulate again because of the absence of organised means of collecting and recycling, the government could encourage local businesspeople to create large collecting and recycling companies. They could be offered good tax incentives or land with the basic infrastructure and utilities on which to create their projects. Similarly, the government via, the National Development Fund could offer zero-interest loans to young people to create small recycling units in rural regions to help restore the cleanliness of the villages and towns and at the same time reduce the unemployment problem in the rural governorates. Following this strategy for solving such chronic problem would give hope to the public of a better future even if it would take a year and not just 100 days to fulfil the goal of making Egypt a clean and civilised country again.
