By Rana Yehia
The Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation has directed 4000 warnings to companies that violated their contracts with the ministry, by changing their activities from agriculture to urban and tourism along desert roads such as Cairo-Alex, Cairo-Suez, Cairo-Ismailia and Ain Sokhna road.
The warnings were sent in order to retrieve EGP 80bn of the state’s dues for the violations, said the General Authority for Rehabilitation Projects and Agricultural Development (GARPAD).
The government is taking serious actions to retrieve its dues; 60 warnings are being sent daily since the deadline granted to offenders to adjust their status by the end of 2014. Government actions include freezing all violators’ assets and travel bans until payment, executive director of GARPAD, Ashraf Abdel Aziz ,revealed Sunday in statement.
Abdel Aziz declared that some of the violators began repaying the government and that, once the state’s dues are proven as paid, the government will lift its freeze on assets.
He announced that all the violations on the lands of “1m acres” have been counted using aerial photography via satellite and the Remote Sensing Authority.
However, legal actions are applied only on violations counted on the ground, which guarantees the right of the state while not affecting companies’ investments, Abdel Aziz affirmed.
