Egypt’s Minister of Transportation said that the ministry has been working on 15 new road projects across Egypt – 1,200km – at a cost of LE17 billion ($2.37 billion), aiming to complete them in the current fiscal year.
Hany Dahy told Al-Ahram Arabic news website that Egypt has planned to build up 3,200km of new roads, including 15 new roads across the country, costing LE36 billion ($5.03 billion), as part of the national developmental plan.
Dahy also said that this new road network will be build according to the international standards of quality and security.
He added that there will be LE7 billion to fix 400 bridges and 88 roads that have been damaged in the last three years.
Meanwhile, Dahy said the transportation ministry has been taking decisions to repair 12 roads in the Nile Delta, Upper Egypt and Suez Canal governorates where most road accidents occur.
He also explained that the ministry will be enhancing benchmarks that provide a safe path for vehicles, fixing all dangerous curves in the roads as well as developing a new method to immediately determine the cause of any incident.
Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported that Ministry of Housing, represented by the Central Agency for Reconstruction, is also working on three major projects aiming to develop 632km of roads at an estimated cost of up to LE1.37 billion as part of the new road network.
According to a recent report from the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics (CAPMAS), the country's statistical body, over 8 percent of accidents took place in the Nile Delta's Sharqiya governorate, which ranked the highest nationwide.
A total of 50,051 accidents took place in 2013, 0.04 percent higher than in 2012, according to the report, with the highest number of accidents occurring in December (5,105).
International and local reports estimate that Egypt leads the Middle East when it comes to road accidents and related deaths. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), road accidents are one of the main causes of death in Egypt.
Ahram Online
1 August
