Friday, May 16, 2008

I want my old Omar Effendi back

Today I visited Omar Effendi Ahmed Orabi branch and I could not believe myself how empty it became after the privatisation, I could not believe myself how this huge department store which I used to be afraid of losing my mom's hand when I was child during her shopping became so small and narrow.

I remember Omar Effendi when it was a public owned , it was like a real department store and here I am not speaking about clothes , but I am saying that you could find all what you could find in it stuff like Home appliances from A to Z , Kitchen stuff , bathroom stuff , some furniture , my computer desk I am setting on currently was from there , carpets , bed sheets , the cotton products section there was always full of Arabs from the Gulf. They even had a pet section , they used to sell pets from tiny turtles , fish and birds there. It was not that bad before the privatisation.

Yes it was a public sector department store and yes it was not for Class A ,Yes it was not the most advanced or chic department store , yes its employees were not the sharpest one in the market nor the sophisticated Beymen Style !! Yes its administration was corrupted and the CEOs used to steal millions from it !!

Still I believe it crime what the Government did from selling this department store to Saudi group Anwal , seriously ,look I am not leftist nor socialist but what I saw today made me so so so sad.

Since the beginning as soon as they announced they are going to change the historical logo I knew that they are intending to destroy it , Mohammed Al Fayed did not change the logo of the Harrods' in London , you know I wished that Al Fayed would have bought Omar Effendi !!

There is a magazine magazine published by the new Omar Effendi called O Glam , a fancy magazine in English for Upper Classes , oh yes in English for Upper Classes , who already are so sophisticated to buy from Omar Effendi in the first place , these classes buy from City Stars and First mall !!

Believe it or not in the electronics section most of the brands there were unknown Chinese brands , the only two recognizable brands were Philips and JVC , in the past you could find almost all kinds of TVs in the market from familiar brands !!

This is beside the big disaster you can rarely find Egyptian products at least in the Kitchen stuff, most of it Chinese , yeah I know globalization :(

Look Omar Effendi can be profitable to the country ,to the public sector; yes it had bad days thanks to corruption , which can be fought if the Government wants to.

Already the experts put a wonderful solution which is to make Omar Effendi as public company and let the Egyptian people buy its stocks !! I do not need to tell you that how stinky the smell of corruption in Anwal deal was , the independent and opposition newspapers are still speaking about till now , not to mention the problems of the early pensioners from the workers and employees that were laid off after the acquisition.

Do not be surprise but I feel that they want to destroy Omar Effendi for the sake of foreign department stores.

I want my Old Omar Effendi Back !!

Updates : I read that Anwal will sell Omar Effendi to some Jewish investor !!

3 comments:

  1. yes, we want it back as it used to be, its a part of Egypt history, now its a disaster made by the new managmets leaded by a pimp

    ReplyDelete
  2. 100% agree on that despite I do not know that its new management led by a pimp

    ReplyDelete
  3. It was started by Jewish people and called Orosdi-Back (after its Austro-Hungarian Jewish creators, Leon Orosdi and Hermann Back).
    You can only wish jewish people owned it since you might have a real department store with real stylish clothing an maybe workers who smiled and knew world class service : )

    ReplyDelete

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