Sparkling with marble, it rises in the desert outside Cairo. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi already works here, as do the government and ministries. The list of newly inaugurated buildings to be impressed by in Egypt’s new capital is long: the continent’s largest church, the Middle East’s largest defense complex and a green area several times larger than New York’s Central Park.
Billion-dollar construction receives criticism
But the Arab world’s most populous country is at the same time one of the region’s poorest, and Egypt is currently undergoing its worst economic crisis in decades. Critics believe that the country cannot afford to take out even bigger loans to pay for the mega-project, and that the money is needed elsewhere. The estimated cost of the new building is equivalent to SEK 600 billion.
Hypermodern venture
New wide highways link the huge arched city gates with Cairo, a city of 25 million people, which served as Egypt’s capital for more than a thousand years and is often called Umm al-Dunya, the mother of the world. A high-speed train is also under construction. At the city planning office, we learn that six thousand cameras will monitor the city’s streets and that future residents will be able to submit their complaints via a mobile app.
City without a name
But even though tens of thousands of apartments are ready, few of those who work here can afford to live here. At five o’clock in the afternoon, tens of thousands of employees gather at various street corners in the vast new city to take the bus home.
The sun is high and the streets are empty. Just over four years ago, a nationwide naming contest was launched for the mega project, with the winner to be awarded 75,000 Egyptian pounds. The deadline has long since passed, but the city has not yet been given a new name, but is called “The new administrative capital” for the time being.