Via Foreign Policy, commentary on the Egyptian President’s spending on projects of questionable value while his people are suffering:

On Sunday, a horrific fire at a Coptic church in greater Cairo’s Imbaba neighborhood killed 41 people, including 18 children. It was the latest in a string of disasters that have recently befallen Egyptians. Since January 2021, Egypt has experienced building collapses, train accidents, and a variety of other misfortunes with alarming regularity, resulting in many deaths and injuries. These incidents echo the wave of catastrophes that Egyptians endured in the last years of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s long rule that were invariably the result of some form of official malfeasance.

If the calamities of the late Mubarak period contributed to Egypt’s instability, could similar preventable tragedies do the same? Absolutely. And if that instability contributed to Mubarak’s fall from power, might it do the same to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi? It could, but it probably will not. That may sound odd, especially because analysts often infer that rulers might find themselves out of a job when instability becomes a feature of politics. Yet, in Egypt at this moment, that does not seem to be the case.

Against the backdrop of entirely preventable catastrophes, Egyptians—like many living in middle- and low-income countries around the world—are confronting a food crisis caused by forces beyond their own government’s control. They are also grappling with a financial crisis that is entirely of Sisi’s making. As his predecessors discovered, it is hard to generate prosperity in Egypt. The number of people who enter the country’s workforce each year is vast, and a variety of structural challenges—notably an enormous bureaucracy and a military that crowds out the private sector—serve as barriers to foreign investment that hamper broad-based and inclusive economic growth.

Confronted with this reality, Sisi and his advisors have opted to create the impression of growing societal affluence. Sisi has made enormous investments in a Suez Canal bypass, weapons systems, a nuclear reactor, and, of course, Egypt’s New Administrative Capital. The photos of what has been completed and the cost of this mega of mega-projects underscore the scale of Sisi’s efforts to convince Egyptians that Egypt is on the move and can still do great things.

Yet these projects are mostly a scam. Sure, the new Tahya Misr Bridge just north of central Cairo—the widest suspension bridge in the world—along with new interchanges and flyovers that have popped up in Egypt over the last decade are important, if sometimes controversial, improvements that can contribute to economic development. But other projects have gone forward with little study and little economic justification.

The return on investment in what some erroneously referred to as the “New Suez Canal,” which mostly widened and expanded a 21-mile bypass along the northern section of the waterway, cost $8.5 billion. It was supposed to speed up transit through the canal and thus increase revenues for Egypt, but it remains unclear whether the record amount of money the Suez Canal Authority is making is the result of this lane or a just a function of increasing fees the authority has levied in recent years on the ships that bear the 12 percent of global trade that passes through the canal.

Egypt does not need a nuclear reactor—it has a surplus of electricity. And what is the justification for a new capital that costs in the neighborhood of $60 billion? Yes, Cairo is a traffic-clogged mess, and its infrastructure is creaky at best, but the new city is not being built for average Egyptians. It is set to be an exclusive compound for government workers, senior officials, and other elites. A more prudent approach would be to devote those resources to fixing some of Cairo’s most glaring problems. Measured against Egypt’s significant needs, a new city from scratch should be in the category of “would be nice to have” as opposed to “we need to break the bank to get it.”

And break the bank is precisely what Sisi has done. Egypt’s balance sheet is ugly. It is one of the most debt-ridden countries in the world. The Egyptian government is borrowing money just to service the interest on its existing debt. As a friend from Cairo recently relayed to me, “Everyone in Cairo is now an expert on the U.S. Federal Reserve bank. When it will raise interest rates and by how much. People are scared.”

They should be. Another interlocutor told me that the “only thing people seem to be talking about these days is how expensive everything has become and the presumed upcoming second round of devaluation.” In 2016, Egypt’s Central Bank devalued the country’s currency to comply with the International Monetary Fund’s conditions for a loan. As a result, overnight everything became more expensive. No wonder Egyptians are dreading further devaluation. Egypt’s deteriorating financial condition may be why its Central Bank chief resigned—or was forced to resign—on Wednesday.

The bill is coming due. Goldman Sachs recently concluded that the Egyptian government needs $15 billion in financing just to fund its operations. Sisi’s Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari patrons in the Persian Gulf are worried enough that they have committed $22 billion over the last few months. Government officials contend that Goldman’s number is way too high, but they acknowledge that Egypt will be seeking another IMF loan in addition to the one it received in 2016 and two other infusions of money from the fund in 2020.