The House audit committee on Thursday examined the case of a plot of land which was seized by the state in 1996 for the purpose of building a primary school, but where, in the intervening 29 years, nothing has been built.

The committee heard that the original owners of the land, which is located in the Nicosia suburb of Lakatamia, have since complained about the matter, while it was also said that adjacent plots which had earlier been seized were later released back to their original owners because they belong to “persons of note”.

Committee chairman and Diko MP Zacharias Koulias said that despite “repeated efforts” on the part of the land’s original owners, “the state, with various acts and alchemies, has illegally retained this property to this day, without giving them a penny, and in violation of the constitution”.

“The legislative regime must change, and we will change it, so that people’s property is respected,” he added, before going on to decry “arbitrary moves” being made on the matter by both the education ministry and the urban planning department.

“These superpowers should be taken away from them. If we as a state wish to build schools, we should build them as we want and where we want them, but we should pay for them,” he said.

He told the committee that the education ministry will soon “send a note” regarding the situation, “so that it can be approved”.

Meanwhile, Akel MP Irene Charalambides told the committee that “this land grabbing must stop” and pointed out the issue of the “persons of note” who were given their land back.

“When this issue was first raised in the audit committee in 2010, the then Edek MP Giorgos Varnava had said that they belonged to well-known individuals,” she said.

She also said the committee has received eight complaints regarding similar cases, before saying, “I hope the owners of the land in Lakatamia will be vindicated”.

Dipa MP Alekos Tryfonides said the committee had asked the urban planning department to “send us the reasons the plot had not been released”.

“The major issue is how for 30 years and more, the state has seized and kept people’s property, depriving the owners of the right to use their property, while the projects for which the property was seized remain at a standstill,” he said.

He added that he had submitted proposals “to correct the current situation” and had even put forward a bill which would allow the government to “proceed with the immediate purchase of land for public utility purposes” and exempt the land’s owner from capital gains tax.

Volt MP Alexandra Attalides said that on the matter of land expropriations, “the state is omnipotent and has very strong mechanisms, while the people are weak”.

At the same time, she said, “when you take land and then choose to release it to people in positions of power, there is also an issue of corruption”,

As such, she said that the matter of “which prominent names were exempted from the seizure of property, and why”.