The Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs has revealed that some mayoralties and governorates in various parts of the Kingdom are not clamping down on people stealing government land. An informed source said that the ministry has found cases where the land allocated for schools, health centers, mosques, philanthropic societies and kindergartens have been turned into plots and sold to the public. In the Jeddah Governorate alone, over 200 square kilometers of government land has been illegally grabbed by “land thieves,” said Abdul Aziz Al-Khudairi, Deputy of Makkah Emirate on Monday. The Makkah Emirate has started its war against the land thieves, he said. The regional mayoralties are to blame for not enforcing the rules on handing over the plots allotted for public utilities to the authorities concerned, the source said. Prince Mansour Bin Mit'eb, the Minister of Municipal and Rural Affairs has instructed the mayoralties not to issue any license for building fences or temporary or permanent buildings on land already approved for public utilities. Prince Faisal Bin Abdullah, the Minister of Education, has recently objected to a request made by an owner of a planned district to fence land allocated for the construction of a girls' intermediate school. The minister said that the mayoralties should not grant permission for any fencing to be constructed on land belonging to the Ministry of Education. This is because land developers build rest houses on it. An informed source added that the ministry also has to deal with land owners who exaggerate prices on land needed by the Ministry of Education. The source stressed that the quick procedure of transferring ownership of plots of land for public utilities to the government, serves to prevent people from stealing the land.
