Gamal Essam El-Din explores Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali's ongoing woes Although the People's Assembly agreed to allow Deputy Prime Minister and Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali to testify in a high-profile corruption case, the assembly's approval did not quite fulfil what Justice Minister Farouk Seif El- Nasr had asked for. Acting upon Prosecutor-General Maher Abdel-Wahed's request, El-Nasr had asked that Wali, 74, be stripped of his parliamentary immunity so that a Cairo court looking into criminal charges directed at Wali's ministry could include investigating the minister himself. The charges are part of a high- profile corruption case involving Youssef Abdel-Rahman, Wali's longtime right- hand man. Abdel-Rahman, a former Agricultural Ministry undersecretary and chairman of the Principal Bank for Development and Agricultural Credit (PBDAC), is being tried on charges ranging from influence peddling and profiteering to importing carcinogenic pesticides and toxic chemicals. Wali, meanwhile, was simultaneously facing a barrage of parliamentary interpellations (questions that must be answered by cabinet ministers). One of these, submitted by Hamdeen Sabahi, an independent MP with Nasserist leanings, accused GARPAD (the General Authority for Reconstruction Projects and Agricultural Development -- an affiliate of Wali's Agriculture Ministry) of breaking the law by selling five feddans (acres) near Al-Burullos lake (in the northern Delta governorate of Kafr Al-Sheikh) to a number of police officers, judges and university professors at extremely low rates (LE25 per metre). According to Sabahi, land ownership regulations state that arable lands surrounding Al-Burullos lake can only be sold to poor farmers and ship builders. "Regulations also stipulate that the buyers must be from the Al-Burullos area, those being the only ones eligible for the modest price of LE25 per metre." GARPAD blatantly defied those regulations, said Sabahi, by selling land in the area to four wealthy families who had neither agricultural nor shipbuilding experience. "A university professor got 1,550 metres, a police officer and his son got 6,250 metres, and another academic and his two sons bought 4,060 metres," Sabahi said. He said the families were able to profit handsomely as a result, and that GARPAD received hefty kickbacks and bribes in return. "The wealthy families who bought the cheaply priced land at Al-Burullos have no interest in cultivating it," Sabahi said. "They bought the land to re-sell it at an astronomical price, making use of its strategic location near the newly-built Mediterranean coastal highway linking Egypt with Palestine to the east, and North Africa to the west." Sabahi said GARPAD sold the land for LE25 per metre. Today, its market price is estimated at around LE1000 per metre. As a result, Sabahi said, the state treasury was deprived of some LE20 million. The MP demanded that GARPAD officials be investigated on charges of profiteering and graft. He also concluded that Wali was doing nothing to stem the tide of corruption at the Agriculture Ministry, which Sabahi said had "become so rampant that GARPAD officials were able to deceive Wali into believing the buyers were poor farmers and fishermen". Defending himself, Wali boasted that selling arable land at reduced prices has been a state policy since 1990. "This policy is aimed at encouraging people to reclaim and cultivate land," he said, arguing that the policy has proven itself successful. "It has helped many of those with limited incomes to purchase land near the Cairo-Alexandria desert highway, for instance, which they have turned into productive agricultural areas," Wali said. In the early 1990s, Wali said, GARPAD estimated the per feddan price of arable land at LE10,000. As a speculative market drove that price up to LE96,000, Wali said, GARPAD brought it back down to LE400 per feddan. The minister also disclosed that President Hosni Mubarak had then intervened to further reduce the per feddan price to just LE200. "In so doing," said Wali, "President Mubarak argued that exorbitant land prices make the poor poorer and the rich richer." It was within the framework of this policy, Wali said, that 120 feddans surrounding Al-Burullos lake were allocated to be sold for just LE25 per metre. "This very modest price was set because the reclamation of this land requires a large budget that goes beyond the financial abilities of most this area's farmers," Wali said. One-hundred and fifteen of those feddans were sold to farmers. According to Wali, GARPAD stipulated that the five remaining feddans -- the subject of Sabahi's interpellation -- had to be sold to people who could prove that they were capable of reclaiming it. Although Wali insisted that the buyers did not include police officers, judges or academics, he also declined to name the buyers. He did, however "vow that the ownership deeds would be taken away from the buyers if they tried to use the land for non- agricultural purposes". "I wonder why Sabahi is causing such a big fuss about corruption in Egypt?" Wali asked the assembly. "Is this whole story about just five feddans?" Sabahi's reply was that no corruption was too small to pursue. "The question remains," he said. "Why did GARPAD sell land at such low prices to the wealthy, and at the expense of poor farmers?" Several senior parliamentary figures rushed to Wali's defence. Parliamentary Speaker Fathi Sorour said it was quite clear that the deeds for the five feddans had stipulated that the land must be used for agricultural purposes. Otherwise, said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kamal El- Shazli, the buyers would be forced to pay the market -- rather than the subsidised -- price for their land. Zakaria Azmi, President Hosni Mubarak's chief of staff, said he saw nothing wrong with university professors and police officers owning land near Al-Burullos lake. According to Azmi, "the constitution provides all kinds of citizens with the right to own land anywhere in Egypt." Out of the unprecedented 45 interpellations that have been submitted to the assembly thus far this session, five are still awaiting the beleaguered Wali. These include charges that his ministry is responsible for the import of substandard food and carcinogenic pesticides, and has failed to guarantee Egypt's self- sufficiency in wheat production.
