Co-chaired by minister of Irrigation and Water Resources, Dr. Hussein Al-Atfi, minister of Communications and Information Technology, Dr. Magued Osman and minister of Justice, Dr. Mohammad Abdul Aziz Al-Jundi, the higher committee of the National Project of Automation of Agricultural Land Registration held today its periodical meeting.
The meeting aimed at following up on the progress of the project nationwide, presenting main achievements and discussing its coming phase to maintain calibers trained throughout the implementation phase.
In this context, Dr. Osman announced that the project will be finalized by end of 2011. Moreover, he explained that the current phase aims to localize and enlarge the scale of application of the new registry system nationwide.
According to Osman, the current phase requires launching of media campaigns to raise citizens’ awareness of the importance of land registry, which will consequently protect ownership rights, as well as defining registry procedures and methods of obtaining easily deeds certificates that will include guiding instructions for this matter.
The meeting was attended by Deputy to minister of Justice for experts, forensic affairs and Acting Deputy to the minister for real estate and notarization affairs, Counselor. Hassan Abdel Razek, First Deputy to Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Dr. Hoda Baraka and Head of Egyptian Survey Authority (ESA), General Mohamed Abdel-Latif Abdullah.
Co-chaired by minister of Justice, of ICT and that of Irrigation and Water Resources, such high-level committee reflects the government deep concern for agricultural lands as a main pillar of national importance.
In this regard, the project helps maintain lands ownership that certainly will be mirrored by achieving more prosperity. It will also pave the way for development, investments as well as encouraging credit based on agricultural guarantees.
Looking forward to improve the performance of public authorities, administrative systems and advance methods of work to facilitate transactions for citizens, the ministry of ICT, Justice and of Irrigation and Water resources signed a cooperation protocol to finalize the land registry project in 2005.
In 2007, the first phase of the project kicks off. During this period, 7 regional information centers were built up in the following governorates: Assiut, Kafr El-Sheikh, Damietta, Menia, Giza, Sharkia and Beheira. These centers are to serve 19 governorates where the registry system is applied.
In addition to the above mentioned governorates, the centers also serve Qalyoubia, Sohag, Beni Sueif, Ismalia, Gharbia, Fayoum, Kena, Aswan, Dakahlia, Menoufia, Suez and Port Said.
The unified land registry database which comprises databases for maps and real estate documents was finally created. It encompasses 5.5 million real estate documents and 138 thousands maps covering the 19 above mentioned governorates.
The project includes not only creating a unified database for land registry but also upgrading real estate offices as well as survey authority branches in all governorates, developing two registry offices and two engineering offices in each governorate with an overall 94 location.
One of the main outcomes of the project is the release of automated deeds certificates including legal data of the real estate as well as a sketch of the property, not to mention the one-stop strategy to facilitate procedures for citizens as well as publishing an agricultural registry guide.
