Egypt government responds to reports on wasted public funds

Felluca boats and a ferry sale on the Nile near the Cairo University Bridge on September 24, 2017 in Cairo, Egypt. [David Degner/Getty Images]

The media centre of Egypt’s Council of Ministers has responded to reports claiming that vast sums of money are being wasted by implementing road and bridge projects that do not conform to standards.

The Ministry of Transport explained that the new network of roads and bridges is planned and implemented in accordance with the latest international standards, and is subjected to a comprehensive review process that aims to ensure compliance with standard specifications.

The centre denied the news, while announcing in a statement on Thursday: “Some websites and social media pages have been circulating information about huge sums of money that are being wasted by the state in implementing road and bridge projects that do not comply with standard specifications.”

The statement confirmed that the rumours about wasting public funds on infrastructure projects that do not conform to international standards are misleading.

READ: For too many Egyptians, the cup of clean drinking water is always half empty

The ministry indicated that the roads and bridges sector had witnessed significant advances reflected in Egypt’s progress by 90 places in the Global Competitiveness Report in the field of road quality, to reach the 28th position by the end of 2019, after ranking 118 in 2014. The ministry added that this progress contributed to reducing fatal road accidents by 44 per cent between 2019 and 2020.

The Egyptian state is working to extend an enormous road network as part of a comprehensive development plan aimed at creating new urban communities and accelerating agricultural and industrial growth.

Around 4,800 kilometres of roads have been established in the first and second phases, out of a total of 7,000 kilometres to be implemented by the National Roads Project. The authorities have also developed, maintained and upgraded 5,000 kilometres of the pre-existing road network at a cost of 15 billion Egyptian pounds.

READ: Sisi urges families to have 2 children to save the state $1 trillion

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.