107 families living below overhead power lines moved to alternative housing

CAIRO – 29 November 2020: The Cairo Governorate Municipal Authority moved 107 families who were dwelling a slum area formed below overhead power lines in Ezbet Al Hagana to the alternative housing project Ahalina 2 in Salam City.

After their departure, 61 buildings were demolished making room for the construction of a road that will connect Nasr City with Suez Road after the overhead power lines are substituted with underground cables.

The families have received three-room apartments that are fully furnished.

Ahalina 2 – worth LE700 million – consists of 34 12-storey residential buildings. Each floor has four apartments. The total number of flats in the project is 1,632. As for services, it is planned to build four shopping malls housing a total of 176 stores. The surface area of each is 45 square meters.

The project includes a mosque, church, elementary school having 33 classrooms, parking lot, landscape, and a youth center spanning over 7,300 square meters. The center is intended to receive the dwellers of Ahalina 1 residents as well.

Ahalina 1 executed by the Higher Command of the Central Military Region, Cairo governorate, the National Bank of Egypt (NBE), and Ain Shams University. The value of the project is LE365 million. Forty-six percent of the cost is covered by donations, while the rest is funded by NBE.
 

The project includes schools having a total of 120 classrooms, a medical center, and a mosque. Basements will be used as fashion workshops to create jobs for women.

Both neighborhoods were inaugurated by President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi in December. The state aims at eliminating all slums across the country by the end of this year as it cleared 80 percent of 351 areas last year. In parallel, dwellers were granted free fully furnished units in social housing projects. The president stated that the cost of furnishing apartments in such new neighborhoods is LE 6 billion.
 

In May 2016, President Sisi promised to move all those living in slums to new flats over 3 years as part of an ambitious project expected to cost about LE 14 billion ($790 million).