WATANI International
1 August 2010
Nile Basin friends
Last week’s meeting of the Nile Basin countries in Kampala, Uganda, saw Egypt extend an olive branch to the other riparian states when it offered a package of joint projects for the benefit of all countries. In the meantime, Egypt’s aid to Africa is business as usual.
Under a USD26.6 million Egyptian grant to South Sudan, Egypt will be dispatching equipment to clean the waterways of Bahr al-Ghazal basin in southern Sudan, Minister of Water Resources Mohamed Nasreddin Allam said. Allam explained it would take five years to fulfil the project which would serve to link major southern Sudanese cities through Nile passages, in addition to linking for the first time Bahr el-Ghazal to the White Nile in Sudan. The project also includes digging 30 water wells in South Sudan and establishing a central water laboratory and water pumping stations to provide water for agriculture and drinking purposes, he said.
In a recent meeting in Cairo, the Nile Basin trade unions unanimously approved Cairo as headquarters for the confederation of African trade unions. The trade union movement in the ten Nile Basin countries was examined in light of exploiting available resources to create job opportunities. Under the financial support offered by the Egyptian Trade Union Federation (ETUF) to the Nile Basin countries, Egypt will pay the Nile Basin countries’ dues to the confederation for five years, ETUF Chairman Hussein Megawer said.
Double tax revenue
The Ministry of Finance said it plans to double tax revenue within five years to EGP408.27 billion in fiscal year 2014/15 from the targeted EGP197.3 million in fiscal 2010/11, through implementing a VAT (Value Added Tax) system instead of the current general sales tax and amending income tax. Egypt’s inflation rate was 10.7 per cent in June, the first increase after four months of declines, the government recently said. This makes it likely the central bank would keep interest rates unchanged.
Scouring Lake Qarun bed
Egyptian experts have begun to explore the depths of Lake Qarun, some 100km southwest of Cairo, using remote sensing radar in search of sunken artefacts. Secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) Zahi Hawass said this was the first time ever an archaeological mission is carried out in Lake Qarun where teams of divers are currently examining a 10-kilometre long stretch of seabed.
Khaled Saeed, who heads the department of pre-history at the SCA said it was hoped to pinpoint “huge basalt rocks” at the bottom of the lake. The rocks were first discovered by Egyptian-American scientist Faruq al-Baz, a veteran of NASA Apollo programme, five years ago. Baz, who now runs the Centre for Space Studies at Boston University, was carrying out a satellite survey of Egypt’s Western Desert when he and his team discovered in the Lake Qarun area a large number of huge blocks of rock. Huge basalt (volcanic rock) slabs, according to Saeed, could have been eventually moved upstream to the Giza plateau for the construction of the Great Pyramid.
Museum for Nasser
The building of the headquarters of the 1952 Revolution which was commemorated by Egypt last weekend, has been approved by the SCA for listing as a historical monument. The SCA is currently planning to turn the building, which lies at the tip of the Nile island of Gezira in Cairo, into a museum for Gamal Abdel-Nasser, leader of the Revolution and Egypt’s president from 1963 to 1970. The 40-room building was erected by King Farouk in 1949 on the Nile bank to serve the mooring of his royal yachts, and cost some EGP118,000 at the time.