The government has set a December deadline for a technical committee formed by the Agriculture Ministry to present its final legal recommendations concerning past violations of state-owned land, official sources said on Monday. The committee is mandated with regulating the legal status of both squatters and those found guilty of violating land-reclamation contracts. The committee, sources say, hopes to draw on the the experience of other countries in this regard. Egypt's Council of Ministers, meanwhile, is currently thinking about applying the provisions of Law 89/1998--which allow for the sale or usufruct of state-owned land by direct order--to known violators. The council is reportedly mulling the retroactive application of the law on land acquired from 1998 to 2006. Trade and Industry Minister Rachid Mohamed Rachid is known to oppose the resale of state-owned land to investors who have breached their sale contracts. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
