Egyptians are disgruntled with President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi

He promised so much. He built a new capital. He cut the Suez Canal through the Sinai desert. He spanned his kingdom with railways and bridges. But pursuit of modernisation bankrupted Egypt. First he had to sell his prized palaces. Then his stake in the canal went too. Finally Egypt lost its sovereignty altogether. All that remains of the grand palace in the old city of Cairo where he was born in 1830 are mounds of rubble hiding stray dogs and youngsters injecting drugs.Today’s Egyptians fear they may be reliving the sad tale of a dictator with a similar . , a field-marshal who took over in a coup ten years ago next month, once declared he would create “a new republic”. He has built a second Suez Canal parallel to the first, as well as two dozen , railways costing $23bn, hundreds of bridges and a shiny new capital on Cairo’s outskirts with a price tag of $58bn. Though Africa’s tallest building is nearly finished, Mr Sisi has been driving the economy into the ground. Debt servicing consumes over half the budget. Food inflation is running at 60%. “We can’t eat bridges,” curses a retired bank manager whose family, like many in the middle class, is sliding towards poverty.