Problems on hold

A few weeks ago I wrote warning of the time bomb threatening the satellite town of al-Rihab, one of the most beautiful satellite cities around Cairo. An Exxon Mobil gas station is being built on a plot of land directly adjacent to the electric transformer plant supplying the town with power. The problem has now taken a different, surprising turn. The officials in the Egyptian Electricity Holding Company who had sided with the town residents and sent a stern letter to the head of Rihab town council warning of the hazards of constructing a gas station near the plant, suddenly and inexplicably adopted a diametrically opposite stance. The same official who had written demanding that the gas station be moved to another site away from the power plant wrote a letter to the opposite effect. To remind of the first letter dated 20 October 2007, I am reprinting it here:
Mr Head of Rihab town council
“In light of the ongoing construction work for the erection of a gas station adjacent to the electrical transformer plant, please be informed and take all the necessary measures towards moving the gas station to some other location away from the transformer plant, to avoid the extreme hazard due to their close vicinity. The company stresses that it will bear no responsibility whatsoever for any accident or fire that may erupt due to the proximity of the gas station and the electric transformer plant.”
Engineer Galal Abdel-Hamid Halawa
Manager of the Northern Area
On 20 February 2008, Mr Halawa wrote:
“Mr Deputy Head of the Arab Company for Projects and Urban Development
In light of your letter concerning the establishment of a gas station, which we previously disapproved until you fulfil the measures of civil defence, we would like to inform you that we no more object to building the gas station since we found that the official parties concerned had approved the station’s construction. The Cairo district branch of the Egyptian Electric Holding Company thus has no objections to the erection of the gas station. We would like to inform you that you should meet all the stipulations involved in the approval letter including the construction of a five-metre high fencing wall between the plant and the station.”
So it appears that quite suddenly all fears of any hazards disappeared. The phrase‘ until you fulfil the measures of civil defence’ was not included in the first letter as the second one claims. It is utterly clear that the first letter absolutely rejected the construction of the station. The question that now begs an answer is how and why this U-turn in attitude came to be.
The entire situation brings into focus the question of the technical standards which govern the issue. Are there no general safety rules to be followed by the different bodies concerned, including planning departments, councils of urban services, or civil defence departments? If the answer is yes, how can one explain the flagrant contradiction between the two letters? Where is the error? And who should be held accountable?
Finally, I would like to mention that the Housing Minister issued a decision no. 1573 on 28 January 2008 halting work in the gas station until the court rules in the lawsuit filed by the town residents. Yet facts on the ground show that construction is charging full speed ahead.

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