By Silas Nwoha
Egyptian authorities have led top journalists from sub-Saharan Africa on a guided tour of the country’s new administrative capital, which has gulped 30 billion dollars so far.
Journalists were taken on the guided tour on Tuesday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the ambitious project started seven years ago and it appears to be on course to be the best capital in Africa.
The Egyptian Government resorted to building a new capital to ease the worsening congestion in the country’s ancient capital, Cairo.
Cairo is currently bursting to the brim with no more space for housing development made worse by ageing high-rise structures many of which were built in the last century.
Records has it that Cairo was founded in 2000 BC by a king named Menes, who united Upper and Lower Egypt, which later resulted to the establishing of the city of Cairo in the 10th century.
The city has remained a centre of learning and commerce and colonisation by Britain in the late 19th century has changed nothing in the way of life of the people.
But with its current population now put at 23 million residents, it has become difficult for the city to cope with its huge population.
Cairo, which is also the melting pot of the Arab world and its rich history is full of skyscrapers on limited landscape, covering some 3,085 km of land, according to records.
The limited land area of Cairo forced the Egyptian Government to resort to building a new administrative capital on an area between Cairo and the Suez Gulf, east of Egypt.
The new capital covers a land area of 730 square km with architectural masterpieces dotting the entire landscape, depicting the best in Arabian architecture, way of life and thinking.
Mr Khaled El-Husseiny Soliman, Director of Government and International Coordination of the Administrative Capital for Urban Development, told NAN that thenew capital would be home to 6.5 million residents.
According to him, the project being handled by about 600 investors, 100 of whom are from Arab countries is expected to be completed now and 2030.
He said that the new capital was being financed totally by the Egyptian Government and that the government had not borrowed any money from external sources to finance the project.
Soliman said that up to 50 countries had secured spaces for their residences in the new capital with banking areas, religious and cultural centres among others also provided.
Twenty seven journalists from 22 countries in sub-Saharan Africa arrived in Egypt on May 14 on the invitation of the government, to showcase the huge potential of the Arab nation to the world.
Egypt with a population of about 105 million people is the third largest nation in Africa after Nigeria and Ethiopia.
The North African nation, which commands a 438.35 billion dollars economy is currently the richest country in Africa, followed by South Africa, Algeria and Morocco.
Years of relative peace and stability have placed the country on steady progress, making it a centre of learning in Africa and the Arab world. (NAN/vitalnews)
