Compensation for low-rent property owners

One presumes that anyone with an ounce of common sense would appreciate that the current ridiculous annual rents averaging Lm16 per annum, for property being "let" (or rather appropriated) under the outdated rent laws, do not constitute anything approaching adequate compensation to landlords.

As a first step to rectifying this sad state of affairs, could the Government (and/or the Housing Authority) therefore indicate what measures are being taken in the 2005 Budget to provide some form of decent compensation to property owners who have been, albeit unwillingly, providing such ultra-low-rent housing to their fellow citizens for decades, and in particular where such property was requisitioned by Government in the first place?

This compensation may perhaps be in the form of a straightforward tax concession, equal to the amount of a fair annual rent, or alternatively, the government might be considering the application of a significant reduction in duty/tax payable when the landlord is purchasing property.

There are, no doubt, many other possible measures that could be (or possibly have already been) thought up with a little bit of goodwill and a positive approach to this issue.

It should, however, be emphasised that any such measures could only be considered as temporary, pending the eventual return of the property to the rightful owners, since anything less would simply be a case of sugar-coating the prevailing injustice.