A disagreement has erupted between the governor of Minya and stockholders of the el-Fateh for Land Reclamation association, after the governor ordered that trees grown by el-Fateh on state-owned land be removed. The association allegedly encroached on 6000 feddans of state-owned land originally earmarked for a state project to create forests to be irrigated with 90,000 cubic meters of treated sewage water. Thirty-one stockholders filed a complaint with the attorney general to investigate whether the state's claim to these 6000 feddans is legitimate. The association was originally allocated 14,000 feddans at the price of LE280 a feddan when former Agriculture Minister Youssef Wali was in office. However since the land allocations were considered too large for a single entity to possess, the association was split up into three--el-Fateh, el-Fateh II and el-Fateh III. Two of the associations received 5000 feddans and one received 4000, upon authorization from the Holding Company for Agricultural Development, according to Hamed Mohamed Mostafa, el-Fatah's chairperson. Investigations revealed that the association has not so far obtained final approval for its registration, and consequently the land allocated to it is still considered state property, according to a Minya governorate official. The association has also not yet paid the full amount of money for the land it purchased, according to Mostafa. Translated from the Arabic Edition.
