The Welfare Trap in Brunei
Sometimes my mind wanders. The other day, one of my officers was telling me a story about one of his relatives having 4 wives and 25 children - all living in the same house. I thought that was an extreme example of tolerance about people being able to stay together especially the spouses under one roof. Unfortunately we were talking about poverty, about his relative's children who had difficulty in daily sustainance. Despite our $42,000 GDP per capita , there are people in Brunei who are in the unfortunate category and the Brunei authorities have done their utmost through whatever schemes under the Community Development Department to provide them with financial assistance. However financial assistance can only do so much - they cannot live on financial assistance forever and neither does the authority want to support them forever. However, I was told that according to one study (unpublished) done by the Religious Ministry which also provided financial assistance through Baitul Mal ...