The government refuses to allow any citizen to seize the state's land, Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb has said.In a statement Tuesday, Mehleb said the committee formed to recover state territories held its second meeting on Tuesday. It will take concrete action, "under direct instructions" from President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, to reinforce the state's rights in territories that have been illegally seized, infringed upon or misused. "No one can be satisfied [by the fact] that the government is looking for funding for their projects and the implementation of various services for citizens, and then taking difficult economic actions, while we have billions represented by the rights of the state in the territories that have been infringed upon or have been used for non-assigned purposes," according to Mehleb. A source at the Ministry of Housing, Utilities and Urban Development said: "We warn anyone who has taken what is not within his rights to take from state territories or residential subdivisions, to give back what they've taken unjustly or they will face the law, which is capable of preserving the rights and prestige of the state." The source added that more than 70,000 acres in Sadat City have been infringed upon and farmed since the 25 January Revolution, despite the lack of any water duty for the farming. The source added that "there is an ongoing study for allocating part of this land for social housing". He also said that the National Centre for Planning State Land Uses (NCPSLU) will form a committee to value the taken land at reasonable prices in coordination with the concerned bodies. They will develop standards to determine the value of the offender's activities on the land as well. Mehleb stated that the committee formed to recover state territories will charge state bodies to give legal warnings to all offenders that have taken or are using state land without a license. The concerned state bodies will also determine whether to issue permits or approvals in accordance to the law to allow them to continue their activities. He stated that it is up to the concerned state bodies to remove the violators and enforce security in the state lands after two months of legal warnings. He added that the enforcements will be strictly enacted by the concerned state bodies until all the land is recovered and secured. Mehleb has commissioned Adel Labib, Minister of State for Local Development, to work with the NCPLSU and other concerned bodies and provinces to deal with the matter. The meeting was attended by the ministers of local development, finance, justice, transitional justice, agriculture, investment, and representatives of the Ministry of Defence.
