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Villages of the fresh graduates deteriorate: people are thirsty and the earth is threatened by drought
The graduate by permission from the minister costs 240 thousand pounds
And normal graduate costs 11 thousand pounds!!
Land Center received complaint from some young graduates in Suez, states that they are affected by water shortages, rising production costs and the absence of the role of the state organs that support their rights. Moreover, they are threatened in the ownership of their land. One complainer said: "We won the piece of land and received five acres and a house from the reconstruction and agricultural development. There are hundreds like me, but majority of the poor low income people, from Suez or other provinces, received two acres and a half acre, and a small house of one room . Also, an acre and a half were, and a small home in the village, were distributed among returnees from abroad.
The complainers stressed that many graduates have sold their land because of lack of irrigation and drinking water and the deterioration of living conditions and failure to provide public services, particularly as most of those who sold their lands have lost the ability to spend on agriculture, and his family suffered a famine.
And another says that the villages of graduates is made up of four villages, including villages where its peasants live in neighboring villages, and these villages are suffering a lot of problems due to lack of drinking water; where the water cuts for more than five days since the last Ramadan, and we suffer from this problem, whereas we have asked for help from the officials but no avail. We still rely on neighboring villages to supply us with drinking water and other services, which causes suffers to us because we paid more than ten pounds for the purchase of drinking water daily to the family. Other complainant says: "I had graduate since 1980, and I received land within the project of graduates. In the past, drinking water came to us by containers vehicles that we go through and we buy jerry cans of water to 10 pt, but governorates cars stopped suddenly and it started to come every 15 days, and finally it cut off completely after establishing the station in the village, but the station is useless, because the canal, from which the station takes its water, does not receive water except for only two days a month. Even our land, in which we grow vegetables and we use a spray and drip for its irrigation; the fruits of the land had died out for lack of water, and the land turned to desert again.
He added that the share of irrigation water is stolen by the International Company for Land Reclamation because its share is not enough for their lands on the railway due to expansion in land reclamation. Unfortunately, irrigation officials know about this situation, but they do not do anything because of bribes and favoritism. Some graduates mention that they are subjected to another great problem related to the High Commission of assessing the land belonging to the Ministry of Agriculture, which divided the graduates into two departments: Postgraduates who regular repay the amount of 11 thousand pounds in return for ownership of house and land, and the other is a graduate by a permission from the Minister who has to pay 240 thousand pounds for the house and land, most of us here acquire the Minister, but, unfortunately, we do not have 240 pounds because the land is not cultivated and houses without drinking water, which threatens thousands by Displacement and the setting aside of the land.
Other graduate says that the design of the company that reclaims the land of the graduates showed substantial errors, where the sewage used to get rid of the water is higher than the level of the land and canals by six meters, and up to nine in some areas. When there are water in the canal and water level rises, electricity that operates all the lifting machinery cut off, and parts of the canals and its ramifications collapse, water descend in low-lying areas, so agricultural drainage water mixes with drinking water, where there is a large pool of water that threatens the road, which starts from the villages of the District Faisal until it reaches the tunnel for the martyr «Ahmad Hamdy», and with high water exchange day after day.
According to another complainant, "the canal specified for irrigating the land, from which the drinking water is extracted, suffers leakage of Oil and Gas. It consists of wastes of irrigation pumps, and filled with birds and dead animals, in addition to weak security controls, where we are exposed to theft of many of the population of the surrounding mountains as a result of the clear absence of security."
Another graduate says that the village and its electricity poles, transformers for lighting and operation of irrigation pumps are stolen every day, where the number of stolen converters so far is more than 100 adapters, in addition to the theft of motors and power pylons. What should we do towards neglect and lack of role of government institutions?
Another complainant mentioned that the project of the graduates is controlled by four blocs, which are responsible for irrigation, mechanical, electrical, control and body for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of land, and there is no coordination between them, which exposes more than 7500 acres reclaimed for setting aside, not to mention the 4500 acres in the neighboring villages, cost the state huge sums of money. No one knows why this neglect that government shows in wasting money and displacing thousands of families.
The centre stresses that these villages have no facilities and is suffering from neglect, from a lack and contamination of drinking water, which threatens with the spread of diseases. In addition, this will cause displacement of the graduates because of the lack of coordination between different agencies, and due to the spread of corruption and government's attempts to trade the rights of poor farmers instead of supporting them, trying to burden them with more debt and obstacles, so as to get rid of them and sell the land in the end to the big companies with a view to more profits at the expense of the rights and lives of farmers.
The Centre calls upon the responsible authorities and Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation to maintain the provision of clean drinking water to people of their shares and stop the theft of irrigation water to cultivate their lands and livelihoods by providing decent public services to thousands of families living in Suez and the villages of graduates, to ensure their rights to safe agriculture.
The center calls upon the institutions of civil society and members of the People's Assembly and Shura Council to be in solidarity with the demands of farmers, graduates Suez support and backing of their rights to safety and decent living properly.