CAIRO: Egyptian Housing Minister Fathi Abdelaziz el-Baradei said the government will adhere to a court ruling to void the sale of state land to developing company Palm Hills, el-Baradei said in a statement on Monday. According to an Egyptian court ruling last month, state agencies approved an illegal, no-bid contract that conferred Palm Hills propriety of a large plot of state land in Eastern Cairo. The contract has therefore been scrapped. Palm Hills Development, the second biggest listed developer in Egypt, plans to realize Palm Hills Katameya, a “contemporary” neighborhood of “uniquely designed clubhouse[s], encompassing an array of amenities and features such as a gym, swimming pool and dining options,” as advertised on the project's official website, is now in the dumps. Palm Hills Katameya is only the last of a line of other similar projects for new housing districts not far from the outskirts of Greater Cairo, known as Palm Hills Sukhna, Palm Hills 6th October and Palm Hills New Cairo. “Property firms in Egypt are reeling from a string of legal challenges to their land holdings,” wrote Dina Zayed from Reuters. Earlier in April, a Cairo court ruling sanctioned the expropriation of 100,000 feddans (420 millions square meters) in Egypt's southern region of Toshka. The plot was acquired by Saudi Prince Waleed Bin Talal in 1998 following plans to carry out a main development project to convert 540,000 feddans (220 millions square meters) of desert land into arable areas. “Investigations revealed that the contract contained unknown provisions that violated the law and gave the company unjustified benefits,” said public prosecutor's spokesman Adel al-Saeed. Also the country's biggest developer, Talaat Mustafa Group, lost part of its properties, as another court ruling last year ascertained that the plot was sold directly to the firm instead of by auction. Many consider such expropriations as part of a new attempt by the court to return Egypt's land and wealth to the people, spoiling Hosni Mubarak and his close financial collaborators of what they unlawfully obtained during his reign. BM
