Background:
In this press conference, the Minister of the Business Sector, ʿĀṭif Muḥammad ʿAbīd, and Muḥammad Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Ḥāfiẓ, the Chief Executive Officer of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency, talk about their efforts to encourage the business sector to work together with the ministry to reduce pollution.
Side A:
The minister, ʿĀṭif Muḥammad ʿAbīd starts out by talking about a “foundation for a strategy to save the environment”. He cites population growth as the main cause for increased levels of pollution and depletion of resources. He addresses a need to “get the support of the population”. Second, he believes that they must be “protecting the resources available”. Third, he continues on “the resources that could be made available to protect the natural resources and influence population growth”. Egypt realised its problem with population growth fifteen years ago, and has had a successful program, but he hopes to bring the population growth down to 1.5-1.7% by 2010.
Between 1950 and 1984 Egypt lost one sixth of its fertile land to urbanisation and brick production. Now it has stopped and authorities have the right to demolish buildings built on cultivable land. Renewable energy is limited and expensive, therefore they must, at the same time, attract investment and rationalise energy use. This can be done through pricing, technology and international private sector cooperation. As for water resources, Egypt’s share of the Nile water is constant. However, demand is on the rise, so rationalisation and recycling is required, especially to expand fertile land. Also, the cleanliness of water is of importance and they hope to be able to finance this, especially after the enactment of the environment law. They hope to install sewage treatment all over the country to cope with the problem of human waste. Additionally, air pollution mainly comes from industry and they hope to start correcting it with their fund worth 80 million LE. The protection of Egyptian cultural heritage is also on the agenda, as it has to be protected for the sake of humanity. It is hard, but they have strong support. The man behind the Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and the Middle-East informs the reporters that his association aims to support national organisations and institutions in order to render the services that are required from them to their own countries.
ʿAbīd just funded a new organisation under the umbrella of his association which focuses on enterprise environmental control. It is a trial project to get the business people involved with the issue of the environment as they have been “on a separate end vis-a-vis the environment”. Muḥammad Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Ḥāfiẓ, the Chief Executive Officer of the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency informs the reporters that they have made an action plan to complement existing legislation with modern technology in mind. This was outlined in partnership with NGOs and part of the public. They admit to there being a conflict of interest between their responsibility of the environment and their responsibility of the large public sector companies that are polluting the most.
Side B:
The first side of the tape is continued here and it is said that the reason as to why there is a conflict is because most measures to stop pollution require additional investment, and it adds up to the operating costs of the companies. It is a risky investment, as you might or might not get a return on it. This is especially because society tends to see the reduction of pollution as a social return in any case, even if it is not financial. They believe that industrialisation, unless it is accompanied by corrective measures to protect the environment, definitely affects quality of life. Also, the public sector is the easiest sector to deal with because the government has moral leverage over it. In any case, the conflict of interest is minimised when there is a financial benefit from measures to reduce pollution. They try to achieve this through linkages between businessmen across borders to gain access to technology, with sponsoring from USAID and the EU.
On the topic on how the law will be enforced, they have decided to promote compliance with the law through assistance, awareness campaigns and education. This is instead of a sudden forceful enforcement of the law, as that would not balance the interest of the business and that of society. They refer to previous successes like stopping illegal urbanisation of land end the establishment of the Ras Muhammad National Park. They have identified seven “black spots” in the Nile where the pollution indicators are higher than the international ones, but even as pollution is increasing in the Nile, it is below the pollution level accepted by the WHO and is considered cleaner than most rivers in Europe. Certain areas in Cairo have high contents of particles, ozone and lead, however the lead content decreased by 20% from 1992 to 1994 and they have a set of plans to decrease it further, depending on financial resources.
