El-Sisi’s projects plagued by setbacks

Egyptian President El-Sisi’s ambitious promise of a “New Republic” has all but vanished, as many of his flagship mega-projects have stalled or failed outright—leaving behind soaring domestic and foreign debt that continues to weigh heavily on the country’s finances.

The slogan of the “New Republic” is broadcast nonstop on state and private TV channels—yet for most Egyptians, it rings hollow in everyday life.

A field visit to villages included in the “Decent Life” initiative—a presidential program aimed at developing rural Egypt—reveals the extent to which Egyptians continue to suffer from deteriorating infrastructure and the absence or fragility of basic public services.

Crumbling infrastructure

It is not uncommon for villagers to travel dozens of kilometres to access a hospital, wait for hours outside a civil registry to renew an ID card, or journey to neighbouring towns to find a functioning ATM. In some cases, lives are lost due to uncovered or poorly maintained sewage manholes.

In May, 17-year-old Ahmed Ramadan was killed in a road accident in Egypt’s Nile Delta governorate of Monufia. The teenager struck an uncovered, elevated sewage manhole while riding his motorcycle at night, causing a fatal brain haemorrhage.

The “Decent Life” project, intended to serve 18 million Egyptians across 1,477 villages in its first phase, involves 23,000 sub-projects aimed at expanding access to sanitation, natural gas, improved water and electricity networks, and rehabilitating schools and hospitals. It also seeks to enhance services delivered by local governance units.

The first phase of the project was officially scheduled to be completed last year—with an investment volume of EGP 350 billion (around $7 billion)—but Cabinet spokesperson Mohamed El-Homsany later stated, during a phone interview for This Morning show aired on Extra News TV, that the phase was expected to be completed by the end of March 2025.

According to statements made in February 2024 by Walaa Gad El-Karim, Director of the Central Unit for the “Decent Life” presidential initiative, 16,000 out of a total of 27,000 planned projects had been completed. However, in May of the same year, Gad El-Karim stated that delayed or stalled projects represented no more than 1 to 1.5 per cent of those currently underway in the initiative’s first phase.

However, a local government source, speaking anonymously, said that lack of funding, delayed contractor payments, and bureaucratic hurdles had significantly slowed or compromised the execution of many first-phase projects.

In March, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly expressed hope that the phase would be finished by June. Yet, more than six years since the launch of the initiative in 2019, the first phase remains incomplete.

READ: Twelve years of driving Egyptians into poverty

Empty cities

Despite the continued boasting over the New Administrative Capital project—located east of Cairo—the Egyptian government has yet to begin utility works for its second phase, which was scheduled to start earlier this year at a cost of EGP 240 billion (approximately $4.8 billion), according to Khaled Abbas, head of the Administrative Capital for Urban Development Company.

The massive project, launched in mid-2015 with an estimated cost of around $58 billion, was intended to house 6 million people. Yet nearly a decade later, it is home to only 1,200 families and receives approximately 48,000 commuting government employees each day, according to official statements.

Likewise, New Alamein City—located in northern Egypt and built at a cost of $3 billion to the state treasury—has attracted only around 10,000 residents, despite plans for a population of three million.

Housing and urban policy researcher Yehia Shawkat says the new cities developed under President El-Sisi—with investments exceeding EGP 1.3 trillion between 2014 and 2023—have failed to attract residents for several reasons, including lack of services and transport, high living costs, and being far from workplaces and educational centers.

As of early 2024, only 1.7 million people lived in new cities under the jurisdiction of the New Urban Communities Authority, a government agency, according to a population survey by the independent Urban Observatory.

Repeated Failures

As Egypt’s budget continues to be strained by external debt obligations—exceeding $155 billion by the end of 2024, according to official data—government delays have extended to other projects as well. Among them is the medical city in the New Administrative Capital, which the Ministry of Health is now seeking to complete by securing a $1 billion loan from Chinese banks, according to Bloomberg Asharq.

The Egyptian government is also in negotiations with a consortium of Chinese companies—AVIC INTL and MPEC—to secure a concessional loan of $440 million to complete the fourth phase of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) project in the New Administrative Capital.

The El-Dabaa nuclear project in northwestern Egypt is also facing delays, with the launch of its first nuclear power unit pushed back to the year 2030 instead of 2027 as originally agreed. The setback is attributed to US and European sanctions on Russia, which have impacted the ability of Rosatom—the project’s contractor—to supply high-tech components.

The repeatedly postponed grand opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum — located near the Giza Pyramids and housing over 100,000 artifacts — further illustrates the state’s struggles and inability to deliver on high-profile promises.

Other failed ventures include a livestock breeding program personally endorsed by El-Sisi to replace local cattle with imported European breeds. The project collapsed when the imported cows could not withstand Egypt’s heat, as revealed by an Al-Araby Al-Jadeed investigation.

The recent fire at the Ramses Telephone Exchange in central Cairo, which disrupted telecommunications, internet services, digital wallets, ATMs, and stock market activity, may stand as stark evidence of the emptiness of El-Sisi’s promises to the Egyptian people since the military coup of mid-2013.

In the past year alone, Egypt recorded 46,925 fire incidents across the country, according to data from the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), a government body.

READ: Why did Egypt block the Caravan of Steadfastness?

Feasibility studies

In an article titled “How El-Sisi Trapped Himself in a Cage of Failure,” Amr Magdy, a researcher at the international rights organisation Human Rights Watch, writes that “the promises of prosperity and development made by the Egyptian president were nothing more than a mirage. Poverty did not end under El-Sisi’s rule—in fact, it deepened. His lavish projects served ego more than public interest, and he has at times admitted that they lacked feasibility studies.”

According to economist and researcher Ibrahim El-Masry, the ongoing setbacks in national projects are the result of policies pursued for over a decade that consistently sidelined feasibility studies. He noted that some of these projects resembled business deals more than genuine investment priorities.

El-Masry supports his argument by pointing to a 2023 announcement from Yehia Zakaria, chairman of the state-owned EgyptAir Holding Company, regarding the sale of 12 Airbus A220-300 aircraft. The planes had been purchased five years earlier for around $1.2 billion but were sold after the company determined they were not suitable for Egypt’s climate conditions.

El-Sisi had previously downplayed the importance of feasibility studies, stating during the 2018 Africa Forum: “In my view, if we had followed feasibility studies and made them the decisive factor in solving issues, we would have achieved only 20 to 25 per cent of what we’ve accomplished.”

The Egyptian president reiterated his stance during the opening of the First Industry Forum in 2022, stating once again: “There are projects that don’t need feasibility studies, and we don’t have time to waste any further on studies.”

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.