The Ministry of Housing’s new strategy, in which a new draft was completed this week, includes an article allowing the government to buy undeveloped land that were given as grants to citizens.
The strategy will also see changes in the factors taken into consideration while granting land. Currently, a male above the age of 18 or a widow is eligible for a government land grant regardless of the applicant’s social and economic status.
The new strategy draft proposed to limit granting land to those who can afford to build houses on the granted piece of land.
Not considering the economic status of the grant recipient has resulted in large numbers of beneficiaries not being able, in terms of financial capability, to build houses on the lands granted to them, the draft strategy suggests.
The strategy estimated that the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs has granted about 2.2 million plots of land during the past few decades, and pointed out that there is a lack of statistics showing the status of these lands, or the number of people who actually built their homes on their granted plots. It also criticized the fact there are no statistics showing the difference between land grant applications and the number of plots granted annually.
Govt to buy back land grants
