You understand? There's nowhere without corruption in this country.
Local Rule and the Right to Housing
- Shabramant, Giza
Where does corruption come from? From the minor officials who can get the job done for you.
The minister might issue a decision and those under him don't enforce it.
They say, 'sure, sure' and fill out the paperwork.
But the reality? Someone pulls you to the side and asks for money and that's it.
The minister doesn't know, no one knows.
What do they do? The come, take some money, eat, order a drink, have a nescafe, and leave.
That's what the municipalities do here, nothing more.
- Old Cairo
We're the ones who built it, because it's our area. So the place looks nice.
We got a permit from the governor and everything else we needed.
But an engineer at the municipality made things difficult for us.
He wanted 5000 EGP to get the shop license.
It's a bribe, basically. If we had to pay that money to get the license itself, fine. I'd pay.
But this is just a bribe.
- Nabi Daniel Street, Alexandria
No one told us anything. The police showed up suddenly at 3am.
They searched through everything, tore the place apart.
Our shop has been there since 1974.
They should give us a license to be here.
My father has been here for 60 years. No one can come move us now. It's not right.
- Residents of Imam Al-Ghazali St., Imbaba, Giza
We're protesting in front of the governorate building because the sewage plant lines are falling apart.
So now there is water saturating the sand under the houses, causing the houses to sink and collapse.
We called the officials at the plant, they said they don't know anything about it.
They refused to come and said they wouldn't do anything.
We called the head of the municipality; it's as if he doesn't exist.
The governor has known what's going on for a year now, since he became governor.
He's known since the first houses on the street collapsed, and hasn't done a thing.
- Haj Abu Ahmed, Kawm Ghurab, Old Cairo
We're not just up to our knees in corruption, it's worse than that.
Don't get me started on the municipalities. They're the most corrupt places in the world.
Do you know the people on the municipality board here?
Yes. Any member of parliament, if he wins, he puts two of his relatives on the board.
They recommend them?
Of course. The NDP.
- Eng. Ikrami, Former Youth Member, Al-Waili Local Council.
I was a member of the Al-Waili local council, in a subdivision called Sarayat.
They forged an address for me. I was in an area I didn't know anything about.
I didn't know anyone there. All I knew was the member of parliament.
That was the first time I'd seen something like that, the first time I witnessed elections being forged.
There would be someone standing next to you with a piece of paper, telling you which numbers to mark.
Inside the council?
Not just inside, on top of the box itself, holding the paper.
As if it's totally normal. You put down the paper, hello, goodbye, and that's it.
When the results came out, of course the people they wanted to win won.
The 4--no, 5--who won were from the NDP.
They were like, "well that won't work. Five from the NDP. There has to be one from the opposition."
In the end they said, here, we made someone from the Wafd win.
What should the role of the local councils be?
- Dr. Khaled Abdel-Halim, Director, Local Development Watch, Ministry of Local Development
Local councils are supposed to manage five things.
(1) local transportation, roads, and sidewalks, (2) street lighting,
(3) trash collection and sanitation services, (4) security, traffic, and firefighting,
Item (5) is local unit support. This is for things related to the unit itself, for example administrative supplies, computers, or furnishings.
They can also create social programs, for example, offering loans to female heads of households or other programs or campaigns.
They have a budget for things like that.
Those are the five items. Other than that, they can't allocate funding.
How much of the government budget goes to the local councils?
It used to be 8%. In recent years they started talking about decentralization and it went up to 10-15%.
We're not trying to say that the ministry isn't important. It's very important.
But the ministry has to be given the powers to do its job.
It has to have the employees and be restructured so it can play this role.
If you're going to shift to decentralization, you have to take from the powers of the service ministries.
Ideally, what is done with the remaining 85% of the budget would be decided at the local level.
Now you have entities which might help limit crises, or they might make them worse.
Or maybe they don't do anything.
Local rule is a fundamental part of the right to housing
If one really wants to enter political life, the local councils play an important role.
- Sheikh Jameel, Saint Catherine, Sinai
It used to be that the municipalities just talked, and didn't do anything.
But in the coming period--don't tell us the village is too far out, too far away.
Don't tell us the people are too far from the main roads.
No. They're citizens. They have the right to live in dignity.
They have the right to road access.
They have the right to have electricity 24 hours/day, like anyone else.
- Ahmad Al-Aqra', Bir Um Sultan, Al-Basateen
The local councils were supposed to be the ones overseeing things. It was the opposite.
But that was before the revolution.
We'd love to say that now after the revolution everything has changed. That there's oversight now.
Participate - Watch - Claim your rights
- Popular Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, Imbaba
We want to send a message. We haven't blocked the roads or done anything wrong.
We came to claim our rights. We're here because of the houses that collapsed on top of our heads.
We'll give them a week.
We'll give them a week to get started.
Maybe it'll take a month, a year to complete. The important thing is they start, and continue, the work.
Did you claim your rights?
Local Rule and the Right to Housing, Part 2. Series on the Right to Housing Initiative