5
Cairo is threatened with pollution
Cairo’s cleaning corporation in association with three other foreign companies responsible for gathering the garbage in Cairo namely “ “ have canceled the contracts between them and some of the garbage collecting contractors from the housing facilities in Cairo, as “ “ has canceled 8 contracts for each of the following: (Ahmed Imam Ahmed, Shathly Mohammad Ibrahim, Yamany Sayed Ali, Abo Bakr Sief, Mohammad Abdel Hameed Mohammad, Ibrahim Khidr Ahmed) Without previous warning and without caring for the fact that hundreds of employees and their families will be left without any source of income as a result of these arbitrary and law violating decisions and without organizing the way of collecting the garbage from houses or from Cairo’s trash cans.
Many of the previous employees, and the contractors in the northern district of Cairo came to the LCHR complaining about their current situation after the application of the law, and its noteworthy that Cairo is divided into four sections :eastern, western, northern , and southern, and in the northern area there are 30 contractors as stated in the complaints.
The Center sees that the contracts that the forien companies have signed with the contractors for collecting the garbage from the houses are against the law and contained extremely unfair conditions, whereas the company and the cleaning corporation have the right to cancel the contracts at any time and without any advanced notice, and moreover the contracts contained other items that violated all international laws, covenants and conventions of human rights, and yet the companies have even violated those contracts by imposing fines on the contractors and forcing them to remove the accumulated garbage from the streets and to clean the trash cans, although these tasks are the company’s responsibilities. in addition to that they unjustifiably use the contractors cars in deferent activities.
Mr. Abo Bakr Sief states that the company actually assigns one thousand apartments for each worker per day which is beyond any man’s ability, and in case he doesn’t fulfill this task, the company will impose fines upon the contractors who eventually subtracts that value from the workers fees, for instance, in the northern district which consists of 7 neighborhoods where a very limited number of workers are assigned for collecting the garbage, such as the Zaytoon neighborhood with a total of 140 thousand apartments and only 6 contractors to collect the garbage, Shobra neighborhood with a total of 38 thousand apartments/6 contractors, Hadayeq El Qobba with a total of 120 thousand apartments/14 contractors, El Sahel with a total of 160 thousand apartments/18 contractors, El Zaweya with a total of 140 thousand apartments/ 12 contractors, Rod El Farag with a total of 70 thousand apartments/7 contractors, El Sharabeya with a total of 80 thousand apartments/ 6 contractors.
We wonder how is it possible for such a limited number of contractors and workers to clean the streets and collect the accumulated garbage from those apartments which are well above half a million, and we also wonder is one worker is enough for one thousand apartments as decided by both the company and corporation.
Mr. Mohammad Abdel Hameed Mohammad has stated that “although we have agreed to all of the previous conditions and signed contracts with the foreign companies, but they have canceled the contracts and fired us without previous warnings and regardless of the items mentioned in our contracts, claiming that the corporation is the one responsible for these actions, but the name of the corporation wasn’t even mentioned in the contracts”.
LCHR requests the cleaning corporation to reconsider the articles of the contracts signed with the foreign companies where the corporation applies all of its’ commitments without any guarantees to the companies commitment to collect the accumulated garbage from apartments and the streets.
Despite the incompetence of these companies which is clearly obvious from the citizens’ repeated complains about the piles of herbage in the streets of Cairo’s three main districts, yet the companies have fired more than a thousand worker in Cairo alone in an un explained action in collusion with the corporation whose officials have stated in a meeting with the workers that they don’t know anything about these decisions.
LCHR requests the respectable Cairo governor and the officials in the corporation to reconsider the hasty and unfair decisions against the workers and contractors in Cairo’s three districts, and it also requests the reconsideration of the contracts articles signed with the foreign cleaning companies, as some of these articles are invalid (against the law) that don’t guarantee collecting the garbage from houses and streets.
The Center has came forward with the complaints of the garbage collectors and contractors to Cairo governor and the prime minister demanding to cancel the arbitrary decisions of firing the garbage collecting workers, guarantee their rights in adequate working chances and protect the Cairo streets from pollution and guarantee citizen rights in a clean, healthy and safe environment.