Building on Egypt's arable land is an honour crime

[DJKeefy]

Egypt's ministries have agreed on the final version of a draft law protecting the country's arable lands against violation, the agriculture ministry said on Tuesday.

Following a meeting between the ministers of agriculture and local development, building on green lands will be considered an honour crime, which deprives convicted offenders from practicing their political rights or joining the state's cooperatives.

The two ministers approved legal sanctions for those who raze just one feddan* of land, with the penalty consisting of five years in jail, a fine starting from LE200,000 and confiscation of the building equipment used to violate the land, according to the ministry's statement.

Under the draft law, the agriculture minister will be authorised to stop all forms of state subsidies from going to the violators.

However, the recent draft law – yet to be approved by the cabinet – exempts those whose construction work on arable land is aimed to improve the land or livestock.

In April, Egypt's interim government stated that it had demolished 120,000 unlicensed structures that were built on 7,000 feddans since the 25 January 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

According to the official statistics, there have been a whopping 1.2 million cases of violations on arable land in the last three years, leading to the loss of 47,000 feddans

In November 2013, minister of agriculture Ayman Abu Hadid stated that the government would impose a LE500,000 ($70,000) fine and a three-year jail sentence on all parties involved in building on agricultural land.

*The feddan is a unit of area used in Egypt, Sudan and Syria. 1 feddan = 1.038 acres

Source: http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/103379.aspx

[Chocolate Eclair]

Will not happen in Luxor nobody seems to care, building rules and regulation in Luxor is a joke, if you have the money you can get what you want, pay the money you will not get a receipt known as backhanders build where you want no ones bothered. I saw a house going up the other day in a field used for bananas and maize when its finished some bleeding European will pay way over the price for it.
A good place to build is the Nile Flood plains, already many houses under water cess pits flooding into the Nile, kids swimming close by. lovely, but the people granting these homes got the money why should they care?

[Who2]

Think your wrong there 5 years ago the bulldozers army and police were very busy knocking down illegal builds and probably will start again when President SiSi can get it together, so don't think your out of the equation just yet, remember they might have burnt down the records office but by then everything was computed with GPS recording...
Ps: I think Britain and Britons are classed as 'bleeding Europeans.

[carrie]

I remember them going along the Ramla too Dr, people only get away with things for so long.

[Dusak]

I remember them going along the Ramla too Dr, people only get away with things for so long.

And some get away with things much longer than they should.

[Glyphdoctor]

These threads about building on agricultural land are always so amusing. One would never get the impression that most of the participants are probably actually sitting on top of arable land themselves. There's never any self-reflection going on.

[Who2]

Not me baby-doc. 1966 when they built the high dam and that lovely Mr Nasser helped poor people they built the village behind me and my house..We are cool till some 'nutter wants to use it as a motorway twixt two canals t'was an urban legend for a bit, like the tourists are coming back after Ramadan..

[carrie]

I understand that some land can be redesignated from arable to building after getting all the permissions.

[Glyphdoctor]

Not us either. There's been a house on the exact spot where our house stands since the 1930s or 1920s when my husband's grandfather bought the land. And it was barren before that from what we understand.

[Chocolate Eclair]

Cannot see anything happening to houses built on arable land at all, i know they razed over 100,000 in the Nile Delta earlier on in the year, but this is Luxor, money rules!!! and nothing gets done....They might just leave the Nile gates closed a little longer so new owners get their feet wet but that will be the extent I think.

[Glyphdoctor]

I remember them going along the Ramla too Dr, people only get away with things for so long.

And I just saw an interview that a was aired last night with the Minister of Irrigation and a video of them blowing up a massive tower along the Nile in Benha that was illegally built. He threatened people from Alexandria to Aswan that they would be coming after them and provided a short phone number to report violators. So if I was in Ramla, I wouldn't be smug.

[Glyphdoctor]

Cannot see anything happening to houses built on arable land at all, i know they razed over 100,000 in the Nile Delta earlier on in the year, but this is Luxor, money rules!!! and nothing gets done....

Oh they have been razing like crazy in Luxor too for more than a year now, not sure how you missed that news.

[Chocolate Eclair]

Just have not seen any evidence of it GD, mind you I must admit I don't look around for it. Certainly on the West Bank, they razed some buildings 2 years ago on wasteland near the New Africa but within a couple of months the footings were in again. this land is a land fill site and the chances of methane and other toxic gasses may well be present.

[Brian Yare]

Plenty of buildings have been raised and razed along the Luxor Bridge Road over the past few years.

[Chocolate Eclair]

Your correct Brian, they razed some 3 months ago, but they are all rebuilt now.