\nCAIRO: A decree from Egypt\u2019s president to paint all the country\u2019s red brick buildings in an effort to make the country more beautiful has been criticised by residents.<\/p>\n
\nPresident Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has ordered buildings in cities must be painted \u201cdusty colors,\u201d while coastal buildings will take on shades of blue, according to the decree.<\/p>\n
\nPrime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said the buildings will be colored based on a scheme reflective of the area.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThe plan is to have unified colors for the buildings instead of this uncivilized scene,\u201d Madbouly told a cabinet meeting last week.<\/p>\n
\nProvincial leaders have been told how crucial it is to improve the appearance of urban and rural settlements.<\/p>\n
\nAccording to Madbouly, each governorate will have a certain color scheme.<\/p>\n
\nGovernors will be given deadlines and those who don\u2019t comply with the decree will be fined.<\/p>\n
\nThe decree comes as a part of a move to improve and restore the overall appearance of Egypt\u2019s different governorates.<\/p>\n
\nBut many Egyptians have questioned whether cosmetic improvements to buildings should\u00a0 be a top priority for a government of a country facing a massive housing crisis.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cEnforcing monetary penalties on people to have more dusty-colored buildings sounds problematic to me,\u201d Ahmed Mostafa, a\u00a0Cairo\u00a0resident, told Arab News. \u201cPainting buildings will not help solve Egypt\u2019s housing problem. There are millions of homeless people who can\u2019t even find a red brick building to live in.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe changes already have started in Khedival\u00a0Cairo\u00a0are, with painters and workers on-call to paint the buildings.<\/p>\n
\nRed-brick building are common in the Egyptian capital, accommodating up to 11 million people – nearly two thirds of the vast city\u2019s population.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nUrban planning expert David Sims, author of \u201cUnderstanding\u00a0Cairo: The Logic of a City Out of Control,\u201d said there are an estimated 10 red-brick buildings in Egypt.<\/p>\n
\nlast year, the Egyptian government vowed to eliminate slum neighborhoods from Egypt and to put an end to informal housing by the end of 2019. The slum areas house up to 40 percent of the Egyptian population. Approximately 14 billion Egyptian pounds ($782 million) was allocated to complete the project.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
El-Sisi\u2019s order to paint Egypt\u2019s \u2018uncivilized\u2019 buildings puzzles residents CAIRO: A decree from Egypt\u2019s president to paint all the country\u2019s red brick buildings in an effort to make the country more beautiful has been criticised by residents. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has ordered buildings in cities must be painted \u201cdusty colors,\u201d while coastal buildings will…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":30619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}