President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi inaugurated on July 12 phase III of Mokattam’s Al Asmarat housing project, which comes on the back of the state’s efforts to combat informal settlements and build new homes for slum residents, Invest-Gate reports.

Encompassing 7,440 residential units that are fully-equipped with utilities and facilities, Al Asmarat 3 also includes playgrounds, health units, a 9,000-car parking garage, along with a service complex to meet needs of all residents of Al Asmarat housing project (100,000 people), according to a recent presidential statement.

On the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony on-site, in the attendance of Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly, Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel Aal, Defence Minister Mohamed Zaki, amongst other officials, El-Sisi reiterated the government’s zero-tolerance policy on building infringements, stressing that “violations on state lands will not be permitted.”

A large portion of the local 100 mn citizens dwells in clusters of red-brick buildings and informal settlements. Since June 2014, unsafe areas, located in 13 governorates, have successfully been eradicated, in a bid to make Egypt slum-free by year-end as informal settlements constitute around 40% of the country’s urban areas, Minister of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Communities Assem El Gazzar unveiled during the site tour. 

According to the minister, 250,000 housing units are underway to rehouse residents of unsafe areas, at a total cost of EGP 61 bn, alongside 750,000 others as part of the Social Housing Program, with investments estimated at EGP 145 bn, according to a separate statement.

Merely 296 out of the country’s total 357 unsafe slums, comprising 175,897 units, were rehabilitated, while work is ongoing on 54 others across 14 provinces, with almost 65,500 houses, El Gazzar further added, underscoring that coordination to start development of another seven informal areas, including 1,521 blocks, was initiated.