Last August, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly directed that a comprehensive and accurate inventory be carried out swiftly of the vacant, unused land overlooking the Nile Corniche, that this land be valued, and that a clear plan be drawn up for its investment use so as to achieve a sustainable economic return for the state, as part of the government’s strategy to maximise the benefit from public assets through professional management and partnerships with the private sector.
The Cabinet reviewed the preliminary inventory of land located on the Nile Corniche in the districts of El-Sahel, Rod El-Farag, Bulaq Abu El-Ela, West Cairo, Dar El-Salam, El-Maasara, Helwan and El-Tebbin, going over the details of the plots’ locations and areas, the bodies with jurisdiction over them, the detailed plans approved for them and the legal status of each plot, in preparation for packaging them as integrated investment opportunities ready to be offered.
Madbouly stressed that the government aims to maximise the added value of unused assets, whether through urban development projects or tourism and service investments, in a way that reflects positively on the national economy and boosts the resources of the public treasury.
This decision brought back to the fore the issue of the river accretion lands, as the Armed Forces Land Projects Department had issued, in October of last year, official letters based on higher directives, providing for the non-renewal of usufruct contracts for all river lands stretching from Shubra to Helwan. The decision covered several facilities, among them: the Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, the Floating Theatre, the Water Surfaces Police Club, the Umm Kulthum Garden and other clubs, and the department explained that these lands are owned by the state and had been allocated for temporary usufruct, stressing the need to vacate them immediately.
Despite this direction, the Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Hani Sewilam, stated on 20 September of last year that cooperation would continue between the ministry and the Armed Forces Land Projects Agency on issuing licences for river accretion lands from Shubra El-Kheima to Helwan, in compliance with the applicable legal requirements, noting that cooperation between the relevant bodies had led to the removal of many cases of illegal landfill along that stretch.
In the same context, on 28 September of last year the Ministry of Culture received an official letter numbered 14/527413 from the Armed Forces Land Projects Agency, containing a decision to cancel and not renew the usufruct contracts for all river accretion lands within the area slated for development to build the Qasr El-Aini hospitals on Roda Island, among them the “Fatma Rushdi” Floating Theatre, which belongs to the Artistic House of Theatre. The letter, signed by Staff Major General Mohamed Mostafa Radwan, demanded that the necessary steps be taken to move all the theatre’s belongings within a week of its date, and that the land be handed over to the joint committee of the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation and the military agency, with the financial dues to the state paid up to 30 September.
Last October, MP Doha Assi, a member of the Culture, Media and Antiquities Committee of the House of Representatives, submitted a briefing request to the Prime Minister and the ministers of culture, higher education, local development, and water resources and irrigation, regarding the removal of the Floating Theatre in Manial El-Roda. She also demanded that the fate of a number of other theatres, such as the Al-Salam Modern Theatre and the Metropole Theatre, be disclosed, whether they were being prepared for sale or for lease.
In the absence of official statements and with media coverage ignoring the matter, social media users circulated during last August photographs of the demolition of the Fatma Rushdi Theatre, known as the “Floating Theatre”, which is considered one of the most prominent landmarks of Egypt’s theatrical heritage and the only theatre floating on the River Nile in Africa and the Middle East. It dates back to the 1960s and has two stages for performances: the larger seats 480 spectators and the smaller 250, and it was reopened after its renovation in 2019.
Law No. 147 of 2021 on water resources and irrigation defines “river accretion lands” as the lands or islands whose course the river changes or which the river uncovers, whether within the boundaries of the river’s protected zone or outside it. According to the law, the river’s protected zone extends 80 metres beyond the two regulation lines on either side of the river, and 80 metres inside islands from the regulation line, over the stretch from behind the Aswan Dam to the estuary, with the exception of areas with approved zoning lines, where the public corniche is considered the boundary of the protected zone.
Corniche land offered in investment auctions
In the first official move following the Prime Minister’s directives, the Investment Department of Minya Governorate announced the offering of a new investment opportunity, consisting of a walled plot of land next to the Nile Bridge at the entrance to Corniche Street in the city of Minya. The department explained that the land is suitable for sports, recreational and commercial activities, stressing that the investment will take place under the usufruct system, with the aim of attracting serious investors and providing safe investment opportunities that achieve a suitable economic return.
Ambassador Nader Saad, spokesman for the Cabinet, had announced on the sixth of April 2023 that a number of assets overlooking the River Nile within Cairo and Giza governorates would be offered for investment. These assets include land and buildings belonging to government bodies that have not yet moved to the New Administrative Capital, a number of which have been transferred to the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, as part of the state’s efforts to increase hotel capacity in response to investors’ demand for this type of project.
In this context, strategic planning and international marketing expert Sally Salah expressed concern about what she described as “the largest redistribution of ownership of Nile Corniche land in Egypt’s history”, noting that what is happening goes beyond urban development to amount to a wholesale offering of the Nile waterfront in investment auctions, stretching from Cairo, Giza and Qalyubia to the coastal governorates.
She explained in a post on Facebook that the powers of the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, which had been the official body responsible for managing Corniche land, had recently been withdrawn and transferred to two main bodies: the National Company for the Protection of Shores and Water Surfaces, affiliated with the Armed Forces, which handles sales and the collection of revenues, and the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, which currently owns the land of a tourism and hotel nature.
She added that the land on offer, whose official value is estimated at tens of billions of dollars, and possibly more according to some estimates, includes vast areas in districts such as Rod El-Farag, Bulaq Abu El-Ela, Dar El-Salam, Helwan and El-Maasara, as well as coastal land in strategic locations such as Ras El-Hekma, Ras Shukeir and Ras Banas.
According to Salah, the recent government meetings chaired by Mostafa Madbouly produced clear directives to speed up the inventory, valuation and offering processes, without announcing an integrated development plan or involving public opinion in shaping the decisions. She noted that the proposed projects centre on restaurants, cafés, residential towers and hotels, entrenching the transformation of the Corniche from an open public space into closed investments not accessible to citizens.
The expert criticised what she considered “advance preparation for the deal”, pointing to the uprooting of green spaces and the filling-in of parts of the River Nile to carry out projects such as the “Ahl Misr Walkway”, which has blocked the view of the river over a distance estimated at about 40 kilometres, turning the Nile waterfront into leased commercial facilities. She described these steps as a violation of the Constitution and the law, especially given the water crisis the country faces because of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
Salah also linked these policies to the reality of public debt, which rose – according to her – from about USD 65 billion to USD 160 billion within a few years, despite the revenues generated by major deals such as Ras El-Hekma. She stressed that selling public assets to pay off part of the debt has not stopped the debt from swelling, nor has it reflected positively on citizens’ lives or their living standards.
She gave examples of cultural and service facilities that she said are at risk of demolition or removal under this plan, among them: the Floating Theatre, the Faculty Members’ Club, the Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, the Judges’ Club, the Umm Kulthum Garden and the Fatma Rushdi Theatre, considering that what is happening is emptying the Nile of its architectural and cultural identity.
She concluded her statements by saying that what is happening amounts to “selling off history, the present and the future”, noting that the banks of the Nile, which have always been a free public space for all Egyptians, are gradually being turned into a closed investment frontage, managed with the logic of “accelerating sale and liquidation” instead of resting on a vision for building the state or developing the productive economy.
The Armed Forces Land Projects Agency, established by Presidential Decree No. 531 of 1981, had announced in 2023 the offering of plots of land on the banks of the Nile (“river accretion”), to be used for tourism activities, by public auction at 12 noon on 20 March 2023 at the agency’s headquarters in Nasr City, stating that the land lies at various locations in Cairo and Giza, in the areas of (Zamalek Island, Maadi, Manial Island, Old Cairo, Tora, Dar El-Salam, El-Maasara and Imbaba), and that it is suitable for floating tourist marinas, restaurants and cafeterias.
The agency had previously published an advertisement in a number of state newspapers on 20 December 2022, in which it offered prime plots of land on the banks of the Nile for public auction under the annual usufruct system, including (Zamalek, Agouza, Dokki, Garden City, Manial, Maadi, El-Maasara, El-Mounib, Imbaba and Warraq).
Loss of open public spaces
Engineer Yehia El-Zeiny, founder of the Diwan of Architects and member of the Young Architects Committee at the Society of Egyptian Architects, stresses that riverbanks are fundamentally public spaces for city dwellers and should not be directed towards intensive real-estate or tourism investment, emphasising that their optimal use lies in gardens, open parks and public playgrounds, ensuring that all citizens benefit from this natural resource.
He tells Zawia3: “The state’s move to exploit this land by building investment facilities or turning it into restaurants, cafés or residential towers is not the optimal use. Any intervention of this kind robs the River Nile of its basic function as a natural waterfront open to all, and the maximum acceptable is the presence of light facilities serving parks and public spaces, without the banks themselves turning into closed investment projects”.
Regarding decisions on expropriation or the widening of roads on the Corniche, El-Zeiny explains that roads running parallel to rivers should be local and low-speed, and that any major expansions that separate the city from its natural resource are an approach that is wrong in urban and environmental terms, stressing that using the banks of the Nile to build highways or closed investments deepens residents’ isolation from the river instead of integrating it into their daily lives.
The founder of the Diwan of Architects notes that public spaces in Egypt have declined significantly in recent years, explaining that most gardens are now surrounded by walls and require entry tickets, which contradicts the concept of public space, which should remain open and free. He considers that imposing fees on citizens ignores the fact that they already pay general and property taxes that are supposed to be directed to the maintenance and development of these spaces.
El-Zeiny criticises the growing trend of turning public land into private clubs or investment projects under the idea of “usufruct”, considering that this vision deprives citizens of their right to nature and reproduces the model of urban elitism, in which rivers and seas are hidden behind the walls of clubs and cafés, and stressing that riverbanks must remain open public spaces that reflect urban justice and serve all social groups, considering that any vision other than that is reduced to a mere short-term investment outlook that does not serve the public interest.
Meanwhile, Dr Abbas El-Zafarany, dean of the Faculty of Urban Planning at Cairo University, stresses that the exploitation of land and property overlooking the Nile Corniche must take place according to a balanced vision that preserves the state’s right to invest without depriving citizens of their historic right to reach the Nile and enjoy it.
El-Zafarany explains that the Faculty of Urban Planning prepared, years ago, a project for planning the banks of the Nile in Greater Cairo, whose main goal was to guarantee open public spaces on the Nile, so that the proportion of areas available to the public would be no less than 25% of the length of the Corniche.
He tells Zawia3: “These spaces should be open and free for all, with the possibility of providing optional paid services such as restaurants and cafés, but without the view turning into a class privilege that deprives less well-off groups of enjoying the Nile”.
El-Zafarany stresses that any investment activities on the Nile must not block the view, explaining that the street level is three to five metres above the water surface, which allows low-rise service activities to be built that preserve the visual landscape of the river. He stresses that blocking the view, whether for passers-by on the Corniche or for residents of buildings overlooking the Nile, harms the rights of citizens who paid for the “view” as part of the prices of their housing units.
As for the optimal form of investment, El-Zafarany considers that hotels come first because of their high and sustainable economic return, followed by large administrative buildings, which give international companies added value thanks to their location on the Nile. As for real-estate investment in the form of residential towers or compounds, he does not see it as the best, because it generates a quick return from sale and then stops, unlike hotels and offices, which achieve a continuous annual return.
The dean of the Faculty of Urban Planning at Cairo University also calls for green spaces and public gardens to be allocated on the banks of the Nile to enhance their aesthetic value and increase tourism benefit, stressing that these green spaces make the view of the Nile more valuable and at the same time serve citizens and tourists alike. He explains that the presence of restaurants and cafés on ground floors or inside gardens is a natural addition that supports tourism activity and hotel and administrative services.
El-Zafarany concludes his conversation with us by stressing that the optimal model is one that balances tourism and administrative investment on the one hand and citizens’ right to open access to the Nile on the other, emphasising that “the Corniche must remain public property for all, and the visual view of the river must remain available without restrictions or obstruction”.
Striking a balance
Any plan to exploit Nile Corniche land must be based on striking a balance between the requirements of investment and citizens’ right to public use of the Nile, according to Dr Alaa El-Askary, professor of insurance and actuarial science at Al-Azhar University, who stresses that the river is not merely a source of water but also a natural resource for recreation and visual enjoyment that must remain accessible to all without financial or social restrictions.
El-Askary explains that charging fees for entry to some spaces overlooking the Nile may be acceptable as a temporary measure if it aims to fund services or maintenance, but it should not be a general rule that deprives citizens of their social rights, stressing the need to allocate completely free open spaces that allow all groups to enjoy the Corniche, similar to what happens with public beaches that are left free of charge alongside paid tourist beaches.
He tells Zawia3: “Investment around the Nile should not be reduced to consumer activities such as cafés, restaurants, floating hotels or residential real-estate projects”, pointing out that these activities achieve quick and temporary returns but do not provide added economic value in the long term, and criticising reliance on this type of investment as “taking the easy way out” that does not serve the state’s economic strategy.
El-Askary explains that the lands known as “river accretion” are originally public property of the state, on which building or exploitation is prohibited except within the narrowest limits, so that they remain open to citizens, considering that the optimal model lies in confining real-estate and service investment to the side opposite the Corniche, as is the case in Alexandria, where the seafront remains public while buildings and investment activities are concentrated on the inland side.
He adds: “The issue of investment in Egypt is broader than the Nile alone”, pointing out that there are huge unused spaces such as the walls of universities, ministries and economic authorities, which could generate large returns if they were reinvested along the lines of the Zamalek Club wall, which represents a successful model of generating a fixed and continuous income.
El-Askary stresses that Egypt needs to reorder its investment priorities, so that efforts are directed towards projects that achieve real added value such as industry and technology, along with investment in human capital through education and training to produce cadres able to compete globally. He also cites the example of the smartphone industry, which makes profits exceeding the budgets of entire countries, considering that Egypt owning a single technology company of this size would be enough to solve the crises of the economy and of hard currency.
Concluding his statements to us, he stresses that the economic vision must shift from short-term consumer investment to long-term productive investment, ensuring sustainable returns for the state while at the same time preserving citizens’ social rights to public natural resources such as the Nile.
In parallel with the Prime Minister’s directives, the Egyptian General Survey Authority announced that it would display and publish the lists and maps containing the data and estimated compensation for a number of properties relating to the project to develop and widen the Ring Road within Cairo Governorate, from the Nile Corniche to the Autostrad, during the period from 1 to 30 September 2025.
The authority’s announcement came in implementation of public-interest decree No. 4505 of 2022, published in the Official Gazette in issue 50 (C) bis on 18-12-2022, which declares the project to develop and widen the Ring Road from the Nile Corniche to the Autostrad, which includes a basin outside the cadastral boundary, without basins, in the locality of Athar El-Nabi – Old Cairo – Cairo Governorate, as a second phase of the project numbered 444 Roads, to be a work of public benefit, and in accordance with Article 7, as amended, of Law 10 of 1990 on expropriation for public benefit, as amended by Law 24 of 2018 and 187 of 2020.
The crisis of a lack of transparency
On the issue of river accretion lands and Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly’s directives to inventory unused land on the Nile Corniche and offer it for investment, MP Dr Maha Abdel Nasser, member of the House of Representatives and deputy head of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party, believes that the core crisis lies in the lack of transparency, explaining that there are many open questions without answers, among them: who will benefit from this land? Where will the returns from investing it go? And how will they be directed?
In October of last year, MP Maha Abdel Nasser submitted a briefing request regarding the decision to withdraw all state-owned Nile accretion lands held under the usufruct system from the Shubra area to the Helwan area and to vacate the facilities on them.
Commenting on that, she tells Zawia3: “I previously submitted a briefing request concerning some areas next to Qasr El-Aini, which included the Faculty of Tourism and Hotels and the Floating Theatre. The Floating Theatre has already been removed, while I have not received an official response regarding the fate of the Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, and both the absence of accurate information and the failure to announce the procedures transparently raise citizens’ fears and open the door to anxiety about what is taking place on the ground”.
Regarding the accelerating expropriation decisions on the Nile Corniche, the MP points to a clear expansion in expropriation decisions, noting that these measures are accompanied by other problems concerning compensation, whether in terms of delays in its payment or its unfairness, which leaves those affected complaining that they are unable to buy alternative property with the sums they receive.
As for what has been raised about the possibility of the investment plan including land extending beyond Cairo, Abdel Nasser says that she has no confirmed information on this, stressing that the absence of a clear vision prevents citizens from being able to take a specific position.
She also explains that most of the land offered on the Nile is fundamentally land belonging to the state and formerly to the Ministry of Irrigation, and that the problem lies not in its belonging to any particular government body but in how it is exploited, stressing that investment in this land must take place according to fair urban planning that ensures citizens are not deprived of their right to see the Nile and stroll along the Corniche, as happened with the sea when it was cut off from people in favour of tourist and commercial facilities.
The MP stresses that what is needed is for the government to present clear plans to the public, ensuring that citizens take part in understanding what is happening and protecting their right to public space, rather than exploiting every space for closed investment projects.
In conclusion, it can be said that what is happening on the Nile Corniche and the river accretion lands opens the door to a broad debate that goes beyond the limits of investment to the heart of the relationship between the state and its citizens, between economic returns and people’s right to public space.
While the government insists that the aim is to maximise the benefit from assets and achieve a sustainable return, urban planning and economic experts and members of parliament believe that the lack of transparency, and the absence of a clear plan that balances investment and urban justice, may lead Egyptians to lose one of their most important natural and historical resources.
As the pace of expropriation decisions and offerings in investment auctions accelerates, the fundamental questions remain unanswered: who is the real beneficiary? How will these resources be managed? And will the Nile remain an open public space, or will it gradually turn into a closed investment frontage that hides the river from its inhabitants? All of these are questions awaiting official answers, which may determine the future of the Nile Corniche as a symbol of collective memory and an inherent right of all Egyptians.
