Gratitude

The article below is reproduced from my favourite daily digest The Daily Brunei Resources, 22nd July 2006.

The major subsidies include:-

(a) Subsidy in fuel meaning the fuel that you buy for your cars - diesel carries the higher subsidy and slightly lesser subsidies for the other types of fuel (so everytime you drive your 3000cc+ SUV with its superturbo and using diesel like water, think of how much subsidy is in your car);

(b) Subsidy in LPG - that's the gas that you use for cooking; [(a) and (b) account for the $176 million per year]

(c) Subsidy in electricity - two major forms of subsidies here, one is the cheaper than world price for the gas that is pumped and used by the generating power plant as well as the subsidised electricity rates (unchanged for about 40+ years);

(d) Subsidy in water - same thing as electricity, unchanged for some long period of time as well;

(e) Subsidy in rice - both types of rice (the plain and the fragrant) are subsidised - the government buys the rice from Thailand and sells it to the distributors and retailers at about the same price - as well as lots of subsidies to the rice farmers and other farmers in Brunei through land, fertiliser and other things;

(f) Subsidy in sugar - where the government buys and sells cheaply to the consumers;

(g) Subsidy in education - government provides free education up to university level (about $470+ million per year);

(h) Subsidy in medical and health care - government provides free medical and health care including travelling overseas for treatments if need be (about $500+ million per year);

(i) Subsidy in housing - the housing that the government built for the resettlement and national housing are all subsidised - the house itself is, the infrastructure that goes with it, the land etc;

(j) Subsidy in day to day living - no personal income taxes or any other taxes and charges levied;

(k) Subsidy in pensions - old age pensions received are completely subsidised as the receivers never put anything in the pension fund to begin with;

and the list can go on. There are many things to be thankful for in Brunei Darussalam.

We are blessed to have a caring monarch and Government. What else could we ask for?
"...ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" John F Kennedy (1961)