CAIRO - Citizens are in two minds over whether the caretaker government of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq will manage to stop the encroachments on agricultural land, which have been in full swing in the absence of the police since the Egyptian revolution, launched on January 25. According to the press, 55,000 acres of fertile land were destroyed to be replaced by housing, between January 28 and February 16. The press reports, which claim that most of the stolen land belonged to the State, accuse affluent families in different governorates of being behind this massive land grab. Their efforts to construct buildings on the stolen land, before the caretaker government knuckles down to work, has led to an outrageous increase in the price of building materials. Cement has now hit a staggering LE1,500 (about $255) per tonne. The Premier says that his caretaker Government will not tolerate land grabbing or the destruction of agricultural land, but the public are still worried that the nation's fertile feddans (acres) are disappearing. The fact that municipal officials, not just the police, disappeared in the early days of the revolution has complicated the Premier's task. Municipal officials stood by powerlessly, as they watched skyscrapers rising on agricultural acres. Thousands of homes and animal farms have been built on State-and privately owned agricultural land. Whistleblowers have appealed to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) to stop the rot. The SCAF has been urged to issue a military decision, to ban any kind of construction on agricultural land. Ex-Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri was the first official to ban such construction, but the suspects were happy to exploit the recent chaos to steal land left, right and centre. In an apparent bid to allay the public's fears, the Governor of Daqahlia in the Delta has issued a staggering 8,000 decisions to stop the land grabbing that's been going on, adding that these decisions will soon be implemented in collaboration with the Army and police. According to Al-Ahram semi-official newspaper, about 33 acres of fertile land in the Upper Egyptian City of Qena were destroyed by their owners and replaced by high rises in just three weeks. The owners apparently decided to stop growing crops on the land, because they were making huge losses due to the meteoric increase in the price of fertilisers and pesticides. Worse, officials at Al-Azahr University (the highest seat of Sunni learning) say that land grabbers tried to steal more than 100 acres owned by the university in the absence of police. Meanwhile, Qena Governor General Magdi Ayoub says that they are determined to stop the encroachments.
