Ibrahim Mehleb, the president's assistant for national projects and former prime minister, met with the Minister of Defence Sedki Sobhi and the ministers of interior, agriculture, and local development, as well as with the president of the Administrative Control Authority, to discuss the procedures of handling encroachments of state lands and ending illegal land acquisition. The meeting discussed implementing president Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi's orders for making a plan to count and remove all encroachments and the cooperation between the executive authorities and security directorates by the end of June. Remarks from the governors were previewed during the meeting and procedures regarding how to prevent the return of these encroachments and preserving the land of the state discussed. The meeting asserted firmly the importance of confronting encroachments and ensuring the state's rights, directing it to development efforts. According an official statement, the committee, which is assigned to retrieve the state's land, had received 17,000 requests for legalising land plots, stating that the committee retrieved nearly 70,000 feddans of cultivated lands and 7,000 feddans for the authority of the new cities, in addition to removing encroachments on the Nile and road buffers. The meeting asserted the state's efforts to consider social aspects, as well as facilities for serious investors and small farmers to legalise their positions. In his speech during the inauguration of several projects in the governorate of Qena, President Al-Sisi urged the police and the military to end illegal land acquisition. The president criticised the performance of the government, urging it to improve and forcefully settle the legal status of land taken by force from the state.
