Amman, August 9 (Petra) - The Cabinet approved a plan Sunday to fully compensate landowners affected by the Aqaba Railway and Arab Potash expansion through direct payouts or equivalent land exchanges.
Under the plan, land expropriations for these projects will not be subject to the standard "legal quarter" deduction, which permits uncompensated state acquisition of up to 25% of private land under proposed updates to the Real Estate Property Law.
Landowners in the Jordan Valley will be offered either full financial compensation covering the total value of the land and its assets or equivalent swap land. To facilitate land exchanges, the government will allocate and reclaim 6,000 dunams of Jordan Valley Authority land in the region.
For property owners opting against land swaps, monetary payouts will follow the existing 2019 Real Estate Property Law rather than pending parliamentary revisions. Additionally, Arab Potash Company will cover 50% of the total compensation costs for the designated railway route.
The Aqaba Railway requires roughly 1,325 dunams, less than 0.5% of the Jordan Valley's 390,000 dunams of agricultural land.
//Petra// HA
