Egyptian court prohibits foreigners owning agricultural land

[DJKeefy]

Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court denied the ownership of any agricultural land to foreigners in a verdict issued Tuesday. Accordingly, all land owned by foreigners will be reverted back to the government.

In the ruling, Judge Yehya Noby, vice-premier of the State Council, described Egyptian farmers’ relationship with their lands as “eternal” and “cannot be hindered” in any way.

“History proved that Egyptians never accepted exchanging their land for anything else and never gave it up under any circumstances,” Noby said. He added that legislations issued in 1963 tried to meet Egyptians’ demands to preserve their lands.

It was confirmed by today’s ruling that it is legally prohibited for any foreigner to own agricultural land in Egypt.

Before the revolution of 1952 that toppled the monarchy in Egypt and brought Muhammad Naguib in as the first president of the republic, farmers didn’t have the right to own any of the agricultural lands they worked on. Only nobles, a wealthy faction of the society affiliated with the royal family, had the right to own lands.

Following the revolution, several amendments took place regarding the ownership of agricultural land in Egypt. During the following years, former President Gamal Abdel Nasser issued new legislations that restrained feudalists’ ownership of land and redistributed it to farmers.

Source: https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/1/50 ... tural-land

[HEPZIBAH]

I thought it was always the case that foreigners couldn't own agricultural land in Egypt.

[newcastle]

I was under the impression that foreigners were barred from owning agricultural land under Law 15 of 1963!

So what this is about is anyone's guess.

I wouldn't be surprised if agricultural land on the West Bank at Luxor has been built on and sold to foreigners....so the ruling might give a few people sleepless nights

[Dusak]

One thing the Egyptians in power are comfortable with, is taking land. The Karnak area lost a lot of homes and the land it stood on because a bit of Roman construction was thought to be under the earth somewhere. If this does affect the West Bank it will be interesting to see how many past lawyers are now suddenly too busy to see their former clients.

[Major Thom]

Oh dear that's someone I know that can take an advert off the internet.

[Who2]

That' has always been the case, that's why we were all laughing at MT when he bought his piece of
agricultural land, should have asked us first.....
Ps: The law of 7 'P's....

[Who2]

At least he got a couple of bob out of it, not like the poor fools that bought it.
Oh! well that's democracy for you, I suppose one is never too old to learn new lessons....'mumkin ?....

[Major Thom]

It's hard to know what the difference is for a foreigner to by agricultural land, and a local to buy it and build a villa, cannot see a lot of difference. Our villa was built in the line of Gorf Village right on the edge, all the land on the right hand side was agricultural, we were told this when we went into the planning office, and told we could not extend sideward's because of it.

[Hafiz]

What rot. Prince Talal of Saudi and others owned huge swathes of agricultural land. In his case is was approximately 100,000 acres (could have been 70 or 50) at Toshka and the taxpayer spent probably at least another billion on Mubarak's mad plan to build all the large scale engineering and pumping. The Prince didn't pay for that and got the land at very little. Like a lot of his businesses it was disastrously managed.

The Army recently bought it from him for almost nothing - $US70,000. They haven't paid for the government's capital fixtures either so its a complete capital right off. There are others as well as those commercial interests who break the law on the maximum holding of 200 feddans (in most cases its 50)- including the immense holdings of the army.

Meanwhile for the average Ahmed building a large farm and achieving economies of scale is impossible because of the upper limit on acreage that applies to ordinary people including mere citizens.

[newcastle]

In April (2011), Egypt's public prosecutor was reported as saying that Alwaleed's purchase ( in1998) of the land in southern Egypt had violated the law. Alwaleed signed the agreement with Egypt's Minister of Agriculture Dr. Ayman Farid Abu Hadid. Egyptian Prime Minister Dr. Esaam Sharaf attended the signing ceremony.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadola ... f57b514e8b

It took over 10 years for the illegal purchase to be spotted....but then Egyptian Law is seldom applied rigorously to the mega-rich

[Who2]

I have a friend who purchased feddans of the desert really dirt cheap, she built a hotel which is really
her self's expression. But most visitors never see her house or the olive groves behind.
Al Moudera........... 'Ramadan Kareem!

[Hafiz]

The sleazy prince hung on to his hopelessly managed small country after that Forbes report, never paid a fine and 'settled' for a small amount/sold out to with the Worlds Most Victorious Army about a year ago - $US70,000. That's about 70 cents a feddan and about $US3-4 billion of taxpayer funded infrastructure. Will the Army pay for the water supplied? If you really need it I will track down the specific report.

Here is a Talal joke. Forbes now removes him from the billionaires list - because they don't believe a word he says. He sued Forbes in the UK courts for underestimating his wealth. The judge rejected his evidence and the London media a field day. He is a joke - although the Prince of Wales closest friend.

There were 2 other principality sized investors in Toshka - although Mubarak and al Ahram said it was for ordinary farmers - what rot. The land in the Toshka area was/is allocated to four investor groups, namely Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Agricultural Development Company (Kadco), Egypt’s Holding Company for Agricultural Development, the Abu Dhabi Development Fund and a consortium of Egyptian investors including private businessmen, public sector companies and banks and private companies from Libya, South Africa and Australia (the aussies need to be tracked down and humiliated). http://www.gulfconstructiononline.com/n ... tones.html

I can find no report of the others being pursued as with sleaze boy. If they weren't I wonder why.

Here is a map of Toshka.



The huge engineering at Toshka was an Army Engineering Corps achievement - badly designed, expensive, poorly made and not fit for purpose. The farming and commercial practices were insane at the detailed level.

Mubarak planned it to expand to .5 million acres with a $US70 billion price (modern money $US110-130 billion) tag for the taxpayer, 10% of all Nile water, 2.8 million jobs and a population of 16 million. (insane) https://www.water-technology.net/projects/mubarak/. Is there no plan to big for insecure unskilled people to waste money on to communicate their greatness whilst assisted by local consultants/firms that have no idea what they are doing.

The $436 million ($1.5 billion in modern money) Mubarak Pumping Station, completed in 2005 as one of the biggest in the world, can pump as much as 10 per cent of the Nile water in the lake to Toshka through the open-air Sheikh Zayed Canal.

Here is a PR prop for the pumping station which gives you more detail about function than a photo of the completed montrosity – more Disneyland than an engineering project:


Toshka is the 3rd or 4th insane, badly planned and badly executed World's Greatest Farming Project (another post) and Sisi's already faltering 1.5 million feddans will be the fifth. That's three generals that failed/are failing at farming but still stick to the proven failure of army led centrally planned big,big.big project thinking.

There are many other overseas farming investors in Egypt - especially the UAE and a number of so-called local companies with holdings in the 10's of thousands of acres. I need to do more work on this. The farm holdings of the Army are a state secret the exposure of which would lead to an instantaneous invasion by an enemy. Nevertheless their farms seem to be in the tens of thousands of acres, maybe low hundreds, staffed by conscripts, pay no taxes on inputs, pay no company tax and at least one bug one is about 150 miles north of Luxor and on the Nile. One assumes that some of the tractors etc and buildings are paid for by the taxpayer.

Recently the Chinese government was offered in an announcement at a government to government meeting a Long Staple Cotton farm. It was not likely a 50 feddan farm.

The large private sector holdings are probably illegal (but which citizen or small farmer is going to test their safety by taking it to a court and which court in Egypt will ever decide against a rich person. No government agency will take a rich person to court for breaking the law) but the large army holdings are not because all that the army does is beyond the laws of Egypt just as if they were a separate state within a state. They aren't accountable to the courts not the citizens of Egypt.

[newcastle]

I don't know why Prince Talal didn't claim it was desert he bought rather than agricultural land

There was an interesting Egypt Independent piece on the Toshka project :

http://www.egyptindependent.com/toshka- ... slideshow/

Extracts "

"Presented as the solution to Egypt’s demographic and economic issues, and the Arab World’s largest and most expensive engineering enterprise, the Toshka New Valley project has now very little to show except for evidence of ill-informed political decisions."

"A look at some technical requirements show that not everything was taken into full consideration before the first ploughs started digging, and to this day, the Water Resources and Irrigation Ministry — responsible for the project — does not make public the different studies related to Toshka it may have conducted over the years"

"The aura of secrecy extends to the financial aspects of the project. Toshka’s total budget has been estimated from as low as US$83 million (according to numbers from the Egyptian government) to a whopping US$87 billion (according to the US State Department)."

"The publicly available state budget does not mention the Toshka project."

"Deputy estimates that, as of 2010, Toshka has irrigated about 16,500 feddans, but she concedes that her numbers might be too high. Conflicting government figures show that about 1,000 feddans have been reclaimed in all of Egypt from 1996 to 2010."

"Conservationist Mindy Bahaa Eddin considers Toshka an example of “disaster planning” in Egypt. She said that there is a greater need for stakeholder consultations when working out details of such large-scale projects, so that potential problems can be understood and resolved ahead of time."

Wow!! Strong stuff

It was , of course written in April 2012, in the heady days after the revolution when some thought Egypt might be headed for transparency....democracy even.

I don't think such critical words would pass the censors nowadays!

[Hafiz]

Thanks. I have difficulty organizing my thoughts on this massive disaster except for the following. The actual disaster and financial loss is likely much,much larger than admitted or known. The Government managers of the fiasco, in typical Egyptian fashion, lacked any relevant knowledge, skills, experience, training or education. The farming objectives were unclear, well there was never a plan let alone a cost benefit analysis but I was shocked at primitive and inappropriate farming techniques by the Prince, stupid choice of crops, poor transportation infrastructure to connect with domestic or international markets, no deals with end market wholesalers or retailers either in Egypt or Europe, no analysis or research on plant species specific to soil and climate, no analysis of demand for product etc.

An example. An undistinguished Zamalek 'Worlds Greatest Consultancy' got the job (no competitive tender) of planning and implementing the project (no specifics given on the ambit of the job). Its a company that has never had a big job, never got a job outside Egypt and is a pathetic minnow. It had no skills or experience relevant to this job. Typical Egyptian awarding of contracts. Can find the name of this firm if you want.

In short the thing was launched by a fool and run by government and private sector fools. There was no planning or identified need. Talal's managers had not a scrap of relevant experience - except the licking of princely boots - something he desperately needs and likes.

(my brief knowledge of large farmers/exporters in Egypt is little better than the above except they regularly poison their customers and their quality control is appalling)

The army, which pays no taxes, will now benefit from the taxpayer funded billions and billions of infrastructure with their 100,000 acres and then pay no tax on their profits. I'm still wondering about the three other groups, who hides behind them and why they haven't got the stick - you guess.

Found some specifics on land price which I had stored ages ago:

"The Prince paid 50 Egyptian pounds (8.40 dollars) per acre when the government was selling similar land to Egyptian university graduates for 22,000 Egyptian pounds (3,700 dollars), the panel said. (Australian desert farmland sells for less, is subject to drought, has no access to river water and absolutely no potential for intensive high profit irrigated farming. Such farmers receive no free government infrastructure let alone in the billions or tens of billions. Such farms make good money because they are run by smart, enterprising, tough and hard working people)

Mubarak’s regime said the plan to sell so cheaply was for Prince Bin Talal’s company, Kingdom Agricultural Development Company, to reclaim and cultivate the desert land to produce food for Egypt. (the graduates were obliged to do similar things)

The legal panel said “the government has so far offered no evidence that the land has been cultivated despite the fact that the contract was signed 13 years ago.”
http://www.ipsnews.net/2011/03/corrupti ... contracts/

The graduates didn’t get taxpayer funded state of the art infrastructure including sealed roads, concrete lined irrigation channels, homes, schools and hospitals for workers etc. I think that graduate farming program failed as do all Egyptian social/farming programs over 70 years.

I will try and sort my thinking/evidence out - but it will take time and the public data is scarce for very good reason. This and at least a dozen other super projects make me sick - all have failed and tens of billions have produced nothing in a poor country that needs a lot. I am not aware of any Minister, Governor, consultancy, general or bureaucrat who has been publically blamed for this waste. I am not aware of any parliamentary investigation into it. I am not aware of any auditor-general type report into it. The brief media criticism is interesting. Even in the free days they avoided like hell mentioning those responsible. Its an Egyptian trait. There might be 'mistakes' but no one is responsible.