The Occupancy Correction Committee, headed by the Minister of Justice, Mrs. Ikhlas Helmy, owner of the 77th pontoon located on the banks of the Nile in the Agouza area, handed over an apartment in Zamalek overlooking the Nile River, in compensation for the removal of its pontoon, as part of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s response to her appeal. providing her a home.
Counselor Wadih Hanna, Head of the Technical Office of the Minister of Justice, and Secretary General of the Works Correction Committee, handed over the old lady, Ikhlas Helmy, the contract of the new apartment, which she officially received today, instead of the buoy that will be removed from the marina in which she is located.
Residential pontoons are two-storey houses made of wood, whose owners were issued licenses from the thirties to build them on the banks of the Nile so that they are fixed or mobile floating with the help of an “engine” and their number reached more than 500 floating until the end of the forties and shrunk until it became 32 floating.
The authorities with jurisdiction over these pontoons used to grant a license to their owners to renew every two years to allow the pontoon in the berth. Then the renewal became every year, through which it is checked that there is a sewage network for the buoy in its own pipes, for not dumping sewage into the Nile and to ensure its condition and need for restoration or not. .
The supervisory authorities on Nile floats are represented in the Navigation Department, the Local Unit in Giza, the Nile Protection Department, the Water Bodies Police, the Ministry of Irrigation, State Properties, Sanitation, and the Ministry of Tourism.
The reason for removing floaters
In 2016, a directive was issued after renewing the licenses for any of the residential floats in the Nile River, and in 2020 an official decision was issued not to renew the licenses for the residential floats and to remove all of them for not renewing them and some of them were worn out.
Accordingly, the concerned authorities sent 6 warnings to the owners of the floats to remove them and transfer their belongings before removal. The state also obtained decisions of bank reservations on some of the assets due to the presence of debts on them.
During the current month, a decision was issued to form a committee to correct the works on the river and remove the floating floats headed by the Minister of Justice. ) for its illegal situation and the absence of licenses or the renewal of licenses for it.
On June 6, the committee identified 32 residential buoys to remove them. Indeed, the Ministry of Irrigation implemented the removal of 3 residential buoys, and 15 buoys will be removed next Tuesday, leaving 14 buoys.
For his part, Eng. Ayman Anwar, head of the Central Administration for the Protection of the Nile River in Greater Cairo, and a member of the committee to correct the works on laying the river and removing floating floats, said that:
1- There is not a single state-owned pontoon on the banks of the Nile
2- All heritage floats, such as the one that the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser was traveling on, and others, will not be touched, and they are not presently on the banks of the Nile, but are stored inside the workshops for restoration.
3- All 32 residential floats will be removed, and their owners have already been given 6 warnings and refused to implement
4- The owners of the floats were given a period of 10 days from June 20 to 28 to transfer their movables and belongings, and 11 people responded to this.