Egypt’s New Desert Capital: The Ultimate Dictator Power Move?
In 2015, the Egyptian government announced that it would be creating a new capital city in the Sahara desert between Cairo and the Red Sea port of Suez. The still unnamed new capital goes by the name ‘New Administrative Capital’ (NAC). The country’s current capital Cairo is one of the most congested and polluted cities in the world. This has happened because new infrastructure developments have been unable to keep up with the city’s rapid population growth in past decades.
The official reason for the creation of the NAC is to reduce pressure on Cairo’s outdated infrastructure. By moving government institutions and people away to the new capital, the Egyptian government is aiming to relieve congestion and improve living standards in Cairo.
The NAC is an infrastructural project of massive proportions. The planned population of the city will be 6.5 million, equivalent to the population of Rio de Janeiro. Amenities constructed for the city will include a new international airport, a theme park larger than Disneyland Paris, and a presidential palace eight times the size of the White House.
Egypt isn’t the first country to build a new capital city. Throughout time, many planned capitals have been built around the world with varying levels of success. Some, such as Washington D.C., have become fully functional cities, whilst others, such as Naypyidaw in Myanmar, are virtually abandoned aside from government workers.
The NAC can join the list of fully integrated planned capitals or become a hollow monument to a dictator’s ambition. Whether it will become a success depends on how well this new project is accepted by ordinary Egyptians. Egypt’s political decisions are often shaped by the country’s rampant corruption and the government’s quests for power. This makes it questionable if the creation of the NAC will have a positive impact on the country’s population, or if the official reasons simply serve to cover up a project aimed at enriching the elite.
Why build a new capital?
The Egyptian government’s official motivation for building a new capital is to reduce congestion in Cairo by moving people and businesses to the NAC. Historical evidence however suggests that this wouldn’t be the case at all, as is shown by a similar case in Pakistan.
In the 1960s, Pakistan built the new capital of Islamabad to relieve congestion in the old capital of Karachi, amongst other reasons. Due to its modern design, Islamabad is ranked as the best city to live in in Pakistan. However, the old city of Karachi is even more congested than it was in the 1960s, as infrastructure spending has been diverted to Islamabad, whilst most people remained in the old capital. Karachi is 14 times the size of Islamabad, which means that the new capital city’s modern infrastructure has benefited few ordinary Pakistanis. What it has done however, is to allow the country’s political elite to create a clean and functioning city for those in power.
A similar tale could unfold in Egypt. Even if the new capital city were a success, this would likely have little impact on congestion in Cairo, since the vast majority of the city’s population is expected to stay there. In fact, due to the vast amount of resources being used to build this new capital, it will likely leave even less funds to develop Cairo’s infrastructure, allowing it to further deteriorate in the future.
The reasons for building the NAC do not seem to line up with the evidence from other similar situations. The city is more likely constructed to protect the Egyptian government from a sudden popular uprising. In 2011, The Mubarak regime was overwhelmed by the speed at which the Egyptian revolution captured the capital. Moving the capital city into the desert would prevent future protests from catching the regime off-guard. This would explain why president Sisi is in a hurry to build this new capital and move government institutions there. He commenced the project one year after taking office in 2015, with the transfer of the government from Cairo being planned for last year. Whilst the government’s move to the NAC was delayed by financial difficulties, their seeming rush to leave Cairo tells something about the ulterior motives of the NAC project.
The stark economic realities of the NAC project:
Aside from the political cost, the economic cost of the NAC is massive due to the sheer size of the project. It is predicted that moving government institutions from Cairo will cost $45bn alone. In contrast with Egypt’s GDP of $245bn, this is an extremely large figure. Significant parts of the funding is coming from foreign investors, including the Chinese government, which is feared to massively increase Egypt’s national debt for years to come.
High corruption and low political accountability seem to be key reasons why the NAC project is continued despite widespread evidence disputing its intended benefits for Egypt. The Corruption Perceptions Index ranks Egypt amongst the most corrupt countries in the world. Uneven enforcement of corruption laws favours enterprises with government connections over those that are most efficient. This is a key impediment to the country’s economic development, as it stifles economic growth and increases product prices for the general population. Also, the government’s quest to uproot political opposition and consolidate power diverts away resources from projects aimed at improving the general population’s living standards.
The $45bn used to move the country’s government institutions to the new capital is more than three times the government’s annual expenditure on healthcare and education combined. The prioritization of vanity projects, such as the new presidential palace over the lives of ordinary people is symbolic of the governing elite’s disregard of the country’s population.
What does this mean for the people of Egypt and the future of the NAC?
For the general population of Egypt, the NAC does not seem to hold the future benefits promised by the government. The vast majority of the 20 million people living in Cairo’s metropolitan area will remain there, and they will continue to live with the problems that have plagued the city for years.
In a country that is already struggling economically, precious government money is wasted. Instead of constructing the NAC, this money could be used to improve the lives of those suffering most from the out- dated infrastructure and bad living conditions in Cairo, and the rest of the country in general.
Sadly, the official stories serve to mask the efforts to enrich the elite and consolidate the power of president Sisi’s regime. Decades of dissatisfaction caused by similar bad governance of the Mubarak regime was a key contributor to the 2011 Arab spring. If Egypt’s elite does not learn that the only way to create enduring stability is to use the government’s power to serve and protect the interests of the people, history is bound to repeat itself.
As for the NAC, it seems to be a project motivated by the elite’s self-interest and funded from the pockets of ordinary Egyptian people. The project clearly isn’t on the path to helping Egypt develop economically. Rather, it will likely end up as a massive monument to the greed of dictators and their disregard for their own people’s well-being.
Note: All sources used for this article can be found separately in the article entitled “compiled bibliographies for all my published articles” on my profile.
