A RECENT news report in a local newspaper said the Ministry of Justice had referred a land deed to the Court of Appeals to rule on. According to the report, the deed belonged to a former senior executive who allegedly encroached on a piece of land on which a public park should have been built. The executive, who was heading a government department, issued the deed by himself for himself. A large number of comments were made on Twitter on this news story. One of the tweets was from the former head of the department of technical maps in Makkah province. He claimed that about 80 percent of the land earmarked for the establishment of public parks in Jeddah had been turned into private properties. I will not be surprised if more such plots of land are discovered in the very near future. The discovery may come as the natural result of a recent decision making it imperative for notaries public not to approve any land deed if it is not issued in electronic form. In order for any new land deed to be electronic, it has to first be approved by a judge. Before giving his approval, the judge will have to make sure that the deed is authentic, flawless and cannot be contested. Will a day come when the government will regain all its land along the seashore that has been converted into private properties? In this connection, I would like to thank Jeddah Municipality for its decision not to renew the contracts of restaurants established on the Corniche.
