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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 28 January 1999 Issue No. 413 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 21 - 28 January 1999 Issue No. 413
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Focus Economy Opinion Culture Features Living Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Raw deal on the land
By Mariz TadrosIf you happen to pass through the luscious green landscape of Sidi Salem in Kafr Al-Sheikh Governorate, it would never cross your mind for a second that this was once arid land. Yet, ever since 1917, countless farmers have taken it on themselves to reclaim the good earth from the desert, and the fruits of their toil have been passed on from one generation to the next.
In the first half of the century, the French and the English both claimed ownership of the land of Sidi Salem, but in 1956 the area was brought under the control of the Land Reclamation Authority, before being passed on to the Land Reclamation Holding Company, a public sector enterprise.
Farmers, anxious that they might one day be asked to leave the land they had toiled on for so long, sought to buy out their patches. While today some have long finished paying off their mortgages, others still have many instalments to go.
Originally, the farmers were required to pay only for that land they were cultivating, not for the small desolate plot beside the Borolous irrigation canal on which each of them had built his home. Recently, however, the Land Reclamation Company has demanded that a fifth of the inhabitants of the 43 villages of Sidi Salem -- between 30,000 and 40,000 people -- should pay for the land on which their homes stand too. Not only that, but the Company insisted that they pay for each square metre at today's price, not the price it would have commanded when they first moved there. As a result, the bill each farmer may have to foot is enormous.
An agreement was subsequently reached in the People's Assembly, according to which each farmer should pay 10 per cent of the amount due now, and the rest in instalments over ten years. While the company believes the deal to be fair, in the eyes of at least one MP, their conditions are blatantly unjust.
Mohamed Abdel-Hamid Hashem argues that not only are the farmers being forced to pay for land which by right is theirs already, but that even after the People's Assembly decision was announced, the company has continued sending the farmers letters threatening them with eviction.
"When the people started working on this land, it was desolate and of no use to anyone," says Hashem. "They sweated it out on this land so that they could make enough to live on. The land on which they built their homes was desert, too. Where was the company in the 1950s? Why did it not ask them to pay for it then, when that land was worthless?"
Hashem suggests that if the company really must charge the farmers for the land which they already own, then it should charge them for its value when they first laid hands on it, as the law dictates. Many of the farmers can prove that they have been on the land since 1917. At that time, one feddan was worth just LE1.
The PA has asked the company to stop harassing the farmers at Sidi Salem, but Hashem, who is their MP, maintains that he continues to receive complaints from his constituents about letters from the company warning them that they will be evicted. Hashem has argued that it is in any case illegal for a holding company to be sending out threats of that kind. The farmers, however, unaware of this point of law, have been living in fear that the company will start to move them out. Most of them are not even aware that an arrangement has been reached over the payments. Even those who have heard that the situation has changed are too scared to go to the company to ask about the due amount, since they have no money to make the first down payment.
Mohamed Mahmoud and his seven children live off a three feddan patch of land. The rice and cotton harvest this year did not bring in much. Mahmoud wonders how he would be able to pay for the land on which his home stands in the current economic conditions. Nessim Khalil, too, has seven children, but he has no land to farm, and works instead as a fisherman, earning about LE3 a day. Most of the time he and his family live on whatever help people can offer, a little spare food picked up here and there. He wonders how he is supposed to find the money to pay the company which has sent him several eviction notices.
Sidi Salem resident Mohamed Adli Wassef adds that the people here should be receiving money, not handing it out. The disposal of sewage and solid wastes directly into the canal mean the water is heavily polluted, and this is believed to contribute to the high level of kidney failure among local residents. "Almost every household has one member who is receiving dialysis treatment. This is a great financial burden", said Wassef.
