Housing Dilemmas

In my line of work, I see many cases involving land and houses. Many Bruneians have neither. We are speeding up the building of subidised houses but that is nowhere near to providing a house to everyone in the near future. But then there are a handful of cases which goes the other way. These people were already given their subsidised houses and have land and their problems are interesting.

The other day one soldier came to see me. He applied for a TOL land a few years ago but that was not approved because he had already been given a house in Rimba under the National Housing Program (RPN). He came to see me to ask whether he could appeal for the land. Apparently he had divorced and that house was surrendered to his ex-wife and four children. He has since remarried to a non-Bruneian and had additional children. He is now staying in an army rented house. He is worried as he is going to retire in a few years time and because his wife is a non-Bruneian, his family would be homeless if he does not build a house for his new family.

Another application given to me by my minister was this appeal from a landowner in Tutong whose house is sandwiched between the Layong and Tutong Rivers. His house was flooded in the recent flood. He was not staying there as he is living in a government rented house. His land was originally a TOL land but was given a proper land title under Skim Penggeranan TOL. He appeal to surrender this land and ask for a new one. I checked and found that he is part owner of another two pieces of land, one was 7 acres and another was 4 acres, he owned a combined share of both in the region of 1 1/2 acre.

A third case involved a person whose was land and house was flooded partly because of government infrastructure development. He was living in a TOL house. When we checked, we found out that he is divorced. His new wife had an RPN house but not living there - her children with her former husband are staying in that house. The man applied for a land to replace his flooded TOL land. We found that he is part owner of a 12 acre land in Manggis - his share is about 4 acres.

In the first case, he was already given a land and a house completely subsidised by the government. Is he entitled to another one? In the second and third case, should they be given another land? What would you do in these cases?

Comments

Anonymous said…
i was wondering, is there any way for bruneian like us to change our LAND (which near limbang and is another island but belong brunei) with government to other land which in brunei muara district? or where should i enquiry about this issue?
Thanks
isac said…
Great infos and brilliant thoughts sir. Unfortunately, not many ppl know about this until the news of "dropping Limbang claim" broke out.

My thought.. nothing should have been signed until ALL matters pertaining to land/maritime demarcations are cleared by both sides. Politics and economics aside, both sides should had been more tactful. :)

An Observer

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