The Housing Ministry is preparing a new contract for the Madinaty urban development project with Talaat Mustafa Group (TMG), in accordance with a Council of Ministers resolution to resell the project's land to TMG for a minimum of LE9.9 billion. Representatives of the ministry and TMG will meet to devise the final contract and avoid any loopholes that could prompt more lawsuits against the project, especially after Hamdi al-Fakharani, the man who filed the first lawsuit against the government, announced that he has filed another one, accusing the government of circumventing the law with the new contract. A government official said the total amount of the contract was based on LE297 per square meter, for a total area of 33.6 million square meters. In a related development, Shura Council member Ahmed Shaaban, at a meeting of the council's housing committee on Monday, also described the resolution as a circumvention of the law, and called for a total revision of all state-owned land agreements. MP Mohamed Abdel Wahed blamed businessmen for abusing the government's open-door economic policy to serve their own interests. Ismail Nasr Eddin, also an MP, called for state-owned land to be offered to investors only on a usufruct basis. However, committee president Amr Azzat said he supported the government's resolution. “It aims to protect the rights of the state, the investors, and the project subscribers,” he said, adding that selling the land in an auction would bring in more parties and complicate matters further. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
