State can only end construction on agricultural lands with Egyptians’ awareness: Sisi’s messages on Saturday

CAIRO – 16 October 2021: Inaugurating 13,800 housing units as alternative for those living in unsafe areas, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has made strong remarks regarding illegal building on agricultural lands.

“For every person who wants to build on agricultural land, you are devouring your own land, the green land that gives production and brings money to you, to others, and to the country,” Sisi said, warning against current large-scale construction on agricultural lands.

 

Egypt Today displays the most prominent remarks Sisi gave to the government and citizens on Saturday regarding unplanned construction while inaugurating a number of housing projects in the Sixth of October City, Giza:

- We will benefit from the lands belonging to the government, a governorate, or various ministries. We will take them and build projects for people, and there will be housing and services. It will possible also to have artisanal areas.

- It is our country that we want to change.

- The housing units being built and that have been inaugurated until today are all made from Egyptian funding. No one have us something. This is from us and to the country.

- When we built this, we did not use agricultural lands at all. We have built them on desert lands.

 

- You are wasting the precious agricultural lands by building over them while leaving the open desert.

- Egypt’s desert land represents more than 90 percent of the total area. You leave it and build on the lands that you work on and live from.

- Who is to blame for construction on agricultural lands? Is it the state, people, or population growth, or all of these together? Say whatever you want but we cannot treat this without the awareness of Egyptians.

 

- I want people to speak and to express their opinion. I want whoever speaks to understand the cause.

- The construction on agricultural lands are the issue of the government, the citizens, and all of us.

- If you want our state to be high standing, media professionals, thinkers, intellectuals, and relevant universities to study what we are in and tell us what we should do with.

 

- If we construct planned buildings and houses, we can do a healthy system to remove waste from them.

- When I address an issue with you, I do in order for us to understand it. You should be knowing the magnitude of the issue and how we resolve it.