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You understand? 
There's nowhere without corruption in this country.

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Local Rule and the Right to Housing

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- Shabramant, Giza

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Where does corruption come from? From the minor officials who can get the job done for you.

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The minister might issue a decision and those under him don't enforce it.

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They say, 'sure, sure' and fill out the paperwork.

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But the reality? Someone pulls you to the side and asks for money and that's it.

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The minister doesn't know, no one knows.

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What do they do? The come, take some money, eat, order a drink, have a nescafe, and leave.

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That's what the municipalities do here, nothing more.

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- Old Cairo

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We're the ones who built it, because it's our area. 
So the place looks nice.

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We got a permit from the governor 
and everything else we needed.

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But an engineer at the municipality 
made things difficult for us.

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He wanted 5000 EGP to get the shop license.

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It's a bribe, basically. If we had to pay that money to get the license itself, fine. I'd pay.

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But this is just a bribe.

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- Nabi Daniel Street, Alexandria

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No one told us anything. 
The police showed up suddenly at 3am.

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They searched through everything, 
tore the place apart.

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Our shop has been there since 1974.

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They should give us a license to be here.

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My father has been here for 60 years. No one can come move us now. It's not right.

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- Residents of Imam Al-Ghazali St., Imbaba, Giza

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We're protesting in front of the governorate building because the sewage plant lines are falling apart.

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So now there is water saturating the sand under the houses, causing the houses to sink and collapse.

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We called the officials at the plant, they said they don't know anything about it.

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They refused to come and 
said they wouldn't do anything.

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We called the head of the municipality; 
it's as if he doesn't exist.

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The governor has known what's going on for a year now, since he became governor.

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He's known since the first houses on the street collapsed, and hasn't done a thing.

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- Haj Abu Ahmed, Kawm Ghurab, Old Cairo

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We're not just up to our knees in corruption, it's worse than that.

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Don't get me started on the municipalities. They're the most corrupt places in the world.

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Do you know the people on the municipality board here?

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Yes. Any member of parliament, if he wins, he puts two of his relatives on the board.

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They recommend them?

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Of course. The NDP.

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- Eng. Ikrami, Former Youth Member, Al-Waili Local Council.

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I was a member of the Al-Waili local council, in a subdivision called Sarayat.

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They forged an address for me. I was in an area I didn't know anything about.

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I didn't know anyone there. All I knew was the member of parliament.

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That was the first time I'd seen something like that, the first time I witnessed elections being forged.

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There would be someone standing next to you with a piece of paper, telling you which numbers to mark.

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Inside the council?

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Not just inside, on top of the box itself, 
holding the paper.

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As if it's totally normal. You put down the paper, hello, goodbye, and that's it.

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When the results came out, of course the people they wanted to win won.

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The 4--no, 5--who won were from the NDP.

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They were like, "well that won't work. Five from the NDP. There has to be one from the opposition."

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In the end they said, here, we made someone from the Wafd win.

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What should the role of the local councils be?

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- Dr. Khaled Abdel-Halim, Director, Local Development Watch, Ministry of Local Development

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Local councils are supposed to manage five things.

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(1) local transportation, roads, and sidewalks, 
(2) street lighting,

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(3) trash collection and sanitation services, (4) security, traffic, and firefighting,

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Item (5) is local unit support. This is for things related to the unit itself, for example administrative supplies, computers, or furnishings.

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They can also create social programs, for example, offering loans to female heads of households or other programs or campaigns.

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They have a budget for things like that.

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Those are the five items. Other than that, they can't allocate funding.

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How much of the government budget goes to the local councils?

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It used to be 8%. In recent years they started talking about decentralization and it went up to 10-15%.

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We're not trying to say that the ministry isn't important. It's very important.

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But the ministry has to be given the powers to do its job.

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It has to have the employees and be restructured so it can play this role.

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If you're going to shift to decentralization, you have to take from the powers of the service ministries.

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Ideally, what is done with the remaining 85% of the budget would be decided at the local level.

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Now you have entities which might help limit crises, or they might make them worse.

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Or maybe they don't do anything.

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Local rule is a fundamental part 
of the right to housing

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If one really wants to enter political life, the local councils play an important role.

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- Sheikh Jameel, Saint Catherine, Sinai

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It used to be that the municipalities just talked, and didn't do anything.

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But in the coming period--don't tell us the village is too far out, too far away.

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Don't tell us the people are too far from the main roads.

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No. They're citizens. They have the right to live in dignity.

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They have the right to road access.

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They have the right to have electricity 24 hours/day, like anyone else.

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- Ahmad Al-Aqra', Bir Um Sultan, Al-Basateen

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The local councils were supposed to be the ones overseeing things. It was the opposite.

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But that was before the revolution.

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We'd love to say that now after the revolution everything has changed. That there's oversight now.

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Participate - Watch - Claim your rights

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- Popular Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, Imbaba

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We want to send a message. We haven't blocked the roads or done anything wrong.

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We came to claim our rights. We're here because of the houses that collapsed on top of our heads.

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We'll give them a week.

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We'll give them a week to get started.

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Maybe it'll take a month, a year to complete. The important thing is they start, and continue, the work.

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Did you claim your rights?

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Local Rule and the Right to Housing, Part 2. Series on the Right to Housing Initiative