Cairo: Egyptian postal authorities have halted the official launch of stamps commemorating a new waterway after they were found to have mistakenly featured an image resembling the Panama Canal.
The state-run Egypt Post drew online rebuke and sarcasm after the stamps were leaked. The controversial stamps show a map of the Suez Canal and its building along with an image of a green area in which a two-lane waterway is seen looking like the Panama Canal that links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The mix-up has in the past few days been the butt of sharp criticism on local TV stations and from artists.
“This is an extraordinary scandal!” said celebrated TV host Amr Adeeb on his popular show Cairo Today. “The head of the postal authority must be sacked or step down to show regret over this disgrace. The man didn’t notice that the stamps show greenery on both sides of the canal while the Suez Canal runs in the middle of the desert!”
To Mohammad Abla, a prominent artist, the blunder is “an artistic, ethical and legal crime”.
“Stamps are very important because they publicise the country that issues them. This crime shows that those carrying out such designs at the postal authority are bureaucrats.”
Urgent investigation
He added it showed their “cronies lacked professionalism.”
The Ministry of Telecommunications, of which Egypt Post is an affiliate, said it would open an urgent investigation into the incident.
Meanwhile, Egypt Post admitted the mix-up in what it called an “initial design”. “The initial design of the stamps will be revised and modified so that the new stamps will be officially launched in the next few days,” the agency said in a statement.
The stamps are aimed to celebrate a 72-kilometre-long waterway, which Egypt is building parallel to the existing Suez Canal.
The route, launched by President Abdul Fattah Al Sissi, is part of a multi-billion-dollar project to develop the Suez Canal zone and establish Egypt as a major global trade and industrial hub. It features the establishment of facilities for refuelling and repairing ships, a high-technology hub, and plants for chemicals, lumber, textiles and car assemblage, resorts and vast expansion of land reclamation in the area.
