CAIRO: Egypt is an example of what African countries can do for themselves without European influence.
Let’s take the Suez Canal and the New Suez Canal as examples.
The Suez Canal was completed in 1869. A French engineer had taken the measurements, and for the next 80 years the French controlled it.
Suez Canal Authority officer for public relations, Khalid Taha, told the journalists from 24 African countries visiting Egypt last week that a million Egyptians dug the canal.
In the end 120 000 of them died while digging – their blood ran through the canal before a ship passed through.
In July 1956 Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced the nationalisation of the canal. Taha said the UK, France and Israel then boycotted using it and the three nations invaded Egypt.
Under UN pressure, Britain and France withdrew in December; and Israeli forces left in March 1957. Ten years later Egypt shut down the canal again following Israeli occupation of the Sinai peninsula.
It took peace talks for Egyptian president Muhammad Anwar el-Sadat to decide in 1975 to reopen the canal.
Egypt successfully ran the canal, and due to the increase in world trade, the country started the construction of the New Suez Canal in 2014.
It took just a year for them to complete and it runs parallel to the original one. The execution time was originally scheduled to take 36 months.
However, as per the instruction of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi the time frame was cut to a year.
The project cost $8 billion, am amount raised by the Egyptian people in only eight days. A bank had been opened specifically for these contributions, citizens went to the bank and contributed towards it from their own pockets.
Taha said they wanted to complete the project free of foreign influence.
The record-achieving act demonstrated to the world the people’s patriotism and trust in political leadership.
The New Suez Canal is aimed at increasing the Egyptian national income in foreign currency as it doubled lengths in the canal and reduced the transit time of south-bound vessels from 18 to 11 hours.
Today about 10% of world traders use the Suez Canal, with the distance reduced by between 23% to 88%.