Who will pay for Egypt's new capital city megaproject?

I had no idea, but Egypt is well underway in building a whole new capital city, about 45 km due east from the chaos, pollution and overcrowding of Cairo. 

A megaproject in the Egyptian mold of the Pyramids, Luxor, Aswan Dam, and the more underwhelming Sadat City, the new city is to be either the "birth of a new state" or "el-Sissi's vanity project" depending on who you choose to believe. One thinks of Brazil's equally ambitious Brasilia capital city project of the 1960s, a surprisingly successful venture, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its splendid architecture, but still beset with ongoing problems of liveability and cultural spirit.

The city appears to be as yet unnamed, generally referred to as the New Administrative Capital. "Egypt" is apparently one possible name, although don't rule out "el-Sissi City", or maybe the tongue-twister "Sissicity". It is being billed as a "smart" and "sustainable" city, wired with 5G technology and replete with energy-efficient buildings and train and elevated monorail networks.

The national Parliament and government complex (34 buildings over 800 acres, in modernistic Pharaonic style) is supposedly already 97% completed, and is rumoured to have cost around US$3 billion. The central business district (20 buildings over 200 acres, built by Chinese contractors, including the 400-metre tall Iconic Tower which will be the tallest building in Africa) is around half finished. Still to come is the residential portion of the city, which is expected to accommodate 6 million of Cairo's 22 million inhabitants (presumably the richest 6 million). Several new mosques are already open, along with the largest cathedral in the Middle East, a sop to Egypt's Coptic Christians who make up around 10% of the population. There is even a Universities of Canada in Egypt campus in prospect.

Sounds nice, eh? Except that Egypt is not the richest or most prosperous country in the world. Neither is it the most transparent or principled of countries. The total costs involved are not known, other than some elements, like US$3 billion for the government buildings, and $2.7 billion for the monorail network. Also not known are the financing arrangements, although one always suspects the finagling of China behind the scenes of such projects.

Anyway, the project is going ahead full steam, and I guess it will be completed some time soon. Whether it will achieve even the mixed success of Brasilia remains to be seen. And also, whether it will bankrupt the country.