Almost 1.2K municipal employees in Egypt referred to investigation

CAIRO – 20 February 2024: Minister of Local Development Hisham Amna revealed in a statement Tuesday that the Inspection and Follow-Up Sector had referred 1,184 employees at municipal authorities to investigation between September 2022 and February 2024.

The breakdown is that 199 were referred to the Public Prosecution, 642 others to the Administrative Prosecution, and 343 were subjected to internal investigation.

Minister Amna announced in July the conclusion of the 21st campaign of restoring state-owned lands from squatters and that was executed between April 19 and July 28.

The campaign resulted in recovering 3.9 million square meters after the demolition of 16,317 unlicensed buildings, and 16,000 feddans (one feddan equals 4,500 square meters) of agricultural lands after the removal of 4,857 violations. Further, 2,779 feddans were taken back in Port Said alone after the elimination of 349 encroachments pertaining to fisheries.

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) indicated in a report Tuesday that the number of constructions on agricultural lands dropped by 93 percent from 276,400 to 19,200 between 2014 and 2021. 

The peak of such violations occurred in 2012 and 2013 so as the figure hit 365,300 and 331,800, respectively. Although the number declined to 194,900 in 2015 and 176,100 in 2016, it went up again to 186,100 in 2017.

That was the year President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi launched a nationwide campaign to remove encroachments on state-owned properties and constructions on agricultural lands.

That is why the number of agricultural land violations dropped sharply the following year to around 89,500, then, to 44,700 in 2019, 55,600 in 2020, and 19,200 in 2021.

The report noted that the government had removed 63.6 percent of the violations committed between 2011 and 2021, and that amounted to 560,700 lying on a total of 31,500 feddans.

The year 2018 witnessed the largest number of removals as they hit 118,500, followed by the years 2017 (99,000), 2020 (44,100), and 2021 (1,161).

The top five governorates in terms of constructions on agricultural lands in 2021 were Menya (3,976 violations on 166 feddans), Sohag (2,391 violations on 96 feddans), Beheira (2,248 violations on 106 feddans), Asyut (2,013 violations on 75 feddans), and Fayoum (1,688 violations on 77 feddans).