Egyptian rulers have been outstanding at building world-class projects for posterity - witness the pyramids at Giza, the Aswan dam and the Suez canal, to name but three.

President Hosni Mubarak's gigantic scheme, known as the New Valley project, to move millions of Egyptians out of the fertile, but overcrowded Nile valley, into the country's desert regions, is seen by him as his chance to secure his name in the history books.

But since the departure last October of prime-minister Kamal el-Ganzouri, the man next to the president himself most associated with the push into the desert, many of the so-called mega-projects have suffered a blast of criticism.

Opposition politicians, banks and development specialists have attacked them for being grandiose, impractical and a severe drain on limited government resources.

Fear of a demographic and food security time-bomb lies at the heart of the argument in favour of two of the most controversial mega-projects:

* the $2bn first stage of the Toshka canal project in the great western desert;

* the $1.8bn-plus Al Salam irrigation scheme, east of the Suez canal, in the Sinai desert.

In the last 25 years, Egypt's population has almost doubled to about 65m and food imports have soared. Most of the country's inhabitants have remained confined to less than 5 per cent of the country's land area in a thin strip either side of the great river Nile and along the shores of the Mediterranean.

Some population experts predict that by the end of the estimated lifetime of the New Valley project in 2017, the country's population could be approaching 100m.

The government dreams of boosting the inhabitable area to 25 per cent of the country's landmass, increasing agricultural and industrial output and reducing pressures in densely populated cities like Cairo and Alexandria.

Although never officially mentioned, security concerns may also feature in the thinking of the country's military leadership. These involve:

* the perceived need to maintain its share of Nile water now rather than later;

* creating a more highly populated buffer against the country's greatest enemy, Israel, in the Sinai desert;

* a similar occupation of a large area close to Sudan.

Visits to these schemes produce mixed thoughts. In a lunar desert landscape of Nubian sandstone that is one of the most inhospitable places on earth, where temperatures in the summer can soar to 125F, a giant moustachioed slave-driver stands glowering at scores of Nubians who are working throughout the night to complete on time one of the world's biggest pumping stations.

The $448m station, which will eventually be submerged under water, is designed to pump 5.5bn cubic metres (BCM) of water a year - one tenth of Egypt's allowable annual Nile out-take according to a treaty with Sudan - out of Lake Nasser, above the Aswan dam, into the Shaikh Zayed canal and along its four lateral tributaries to irrigate an area of about 550,000 acres.

The Kingdom Agricultural Development Company, (Kadco), owned by Al-Waleed Inbn Talal ibn Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, the billionaire Saudi prince, has agreed to invest about $300m in around 100,000 acres of the land and also set up agro-industries.

He has appointed Sun World, a subsidiary of Californian desert agriculture experts Cadiz, to help. The aim is to grow cotton and melons, grapes, citrus and tomatoes for sale to Europe in the winter.

But critics question just who will be prepared to live and work in such an inhospitable area. The nearest town is more than 100km away and has little surplus labour.

Question marks also remain over the quality of the soil under the desert sand and the great distances (it is 1,200km to the Mediterranean port of Alexandria) required to ship the goods.

According to Mohammed Sayid Said, of the Al-Ahram centre for Strategic and Political Studies, the project illustrates an outdated preoccupation with big agricultural schemes to green the desert.

An emphasis on increasing trade, tourism and high-technology could be more cost-effective and create more employment for the estimated 500,000 new people coming on to the job market every year.

Flemings, the international investment bank based in London, in March downgraded Egypt to "underweight" after judging that mega-projects were putting an unbearable strain on the government's finances, helping to create unacceptably high interest rates, a deteriorating balance of payments and putting pressure on the currency.

A trip to the other main desert project also raises concerns. The Al Salam canal project aims to irrigate over 220,000 acres of land in the Sinai desert.

But lack of attention to detail means the project could turn out to prove more expensive and take longer to implement than originally thought.

A senior engineer at the scheme says: "We never took into account the fact that over a century of dredging on the canal has left the desert land along the east bank deeply salinated. Farmers have to wash the salts out for two years before the land will become useable."

Enormous pictures of the president, a start button, and a giant slogan saying "God bless Mubarak" are already up at Pump station No 5.

The hope is that the Egyptian leader will officially open the scheme this month, but he may choose to wait until crops can actually be grown there.


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