President Mohamed Mursi cannot solve the problem of garbage collection within the 100-day period he pledged during his electoral campaign, Rafik Asaad, head of the Garbage Collectors Society, has said.

“We participated in the 100-day plan, but the problem is chronic and it needs at least 300 days on condition that no popular or official effort is spared in addition to increasing the budget allocated for cleanliness,” Asaad told Aswat Masriya.

It is wrong to let the problems with foreign garbage collection companies that have been working in Egypt for 10 years escalate, Asaad said.

These companies have late financial dues that have reached 100 million EGP in Cairo alone.

The contracts with these companies allow them to refer to international arbitration which will rule to compensate huge sums of money that are beyond Egypt’s economic ability to pay at this stage, he added.

“Logic says that we should make use of these companies’ experience to implement the president’s programme instead of engaging in a confrontation we will certainly lose,” Asaad stated.