Pretoria - The opinion piece by Shannon Ebrahim (" Egypt’s new capital city is Sisi’s way of preventing being overthrown", Sunday Independent, September 16, 2018) compared the establishment of Egypt's new administrative capital with building the capital city of Myanmar, "Naypyidaw".
The false analogy stated that it is "seat of government and the military, empty work in progress and new way to circumvent peoples’ power and real democracy". The inappropriate metaphor mentioned that "building a new capital city in secret and workers to be given 'time, notice' to relocate their families".
Egypt's new administrative capital is being built in a publicly known place according to a specific time frame and it will be for all Egyptians.
Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi issued a Republican Decree on February 8, 2016, allocating the area for the establishment of the new administrative
capital. The construction of the public utilities of the new capital started on April 2, 2016. Local and International contractors started working on the
project on March 3, 2016.
Egypt's new capital will include the government headquarters in addition to affordable residential quarters, economic housing which is publicly available, a universal medical city, a sports city, a smart village, an international conference hall, an exhibition city, service and educational areas, finance and business zone, modern roads with a width of 120 metres and a green corridor over an area of 7 200 feddans.
The new city is one of other mega projects that are considered as a locomotive of development where new cities like; East Port Said, New Ismailia, New Alamain and the Integrated City at Galala Plateau, are being established.
All new cities, including Egypt's new administrative capital, are being established for Egyptians by Egyptians and two revolutions in a short time, 2011
and 2013, are irrefutable evidence that there is no path to circumvent peoples’ power and real democracy.
* Ayman Walash is Head of the Press & Information Office at the Embassy of the Arab Republic of Egypt in Pretoria.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.