Egyptian PM orders firm action against building violations

CAIRO - 5 April 2020: Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli has said that the government will take firm actions against building violations, adding that the lawbreakers will be referred to the military prosecution under the emergency law.

Madbouli's remarks during a Sunday meeting with Local Development Minister Mahmoud Shaarawy, Interior Minister Mahmoud Tawfiq, Cairo Governor Khaled Abdel Aal and Giza Governor Ahmed Rashed.

Madbouli called on the bodies concerned to intensify security campaigns and immediately remove all building violations, adding that no leniency will be shown towards violators at this critical period.

Local Development Minister Mahmoud Shaarawy and Interior Minister Mahmoud Tawfiq expressed their readiness to implement the premier's directives.

Since January 2015, the ministry has launched a campaign to remove violations detected by the government on the Nile banks.

According to the ministry’s latest data, which was announced in July, a total of 26,322 cases of encroachment on the Nile banks have been removed and since March 2017, a total of 12,425 cases of encroachment were removed.

Egypt’s agricultural lands covered 10 million feddans (one feddan equals about 1.038 acres) in 2015, compared to 9.6 million feddans in 2010, the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) noted in a report issued on September 19, 2016.

Since the January 25 revolution in 2011, a total 80,000 feddans were encroached but most cases were upheld, the Ministry of Agriculture’s Spokesperson Hamid Abdel-Dayem previously told Egypt Today.