In an on-air call last month with Amr Adeeb on the Al Qahera Al Youm channel, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared his plan to complete the building of an integrated urban community in the Sinai Peninsula within the next year and a half.
“I have allocated 10 billion Egyptian pounds [$1.1 billion] to develop Sinai. There is no room for trifling, neither with ourselves nor with the Egyptian people. Eighteen months from now, you and the Egyptian people will see a fully developed area in Sinai, starting with a creation of a 1,500-kilometer [930-mile] network of roads and bridges, the development of main axes and the building of Bedouin compounds, each comprising 150 houses and 500 agricultural acres. We aim to create an integrated urban community for our children, whether in the north or the south,” Sisi told Adeeb March 7.