Paulina Quintao – The government has been criticized for failing to properly control communities building permanent homes on state-owned land and for issuing warning notifications too late.
According to law no. 1/2003, the government has the power to prevent communities from occupying state land, but National MP Manuel Guterres said authorities were not intervening early enough to stop people from building permanent homes.
"The notification should [be given] before not after construction," said Guterres at a Plenary session at the National Parliament. He called for the competent body to investigate local authorities who granted permission to communities to build their homes on state-owned land.
He therefore urged the Secretary of State for Land and Property to establish a team, together with the Ministry of Public Works, to calculate the building costs first before asking families to vacate their property as some of the homes cost more than $20,000.
Meanwhile, Dili resident Jose da Silva agreed that the government's intervention always came too late after the houses were already built. "The local authorities should stop the communities before they start to build their house, so they don't waste their money," he said.