03/05/2002 The Star
Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk M. Kayveas was taken
to task for implying that the Real Estate and Housing Developers
Association (Rehda) Penang branch had done nothing to help victims of
abandoned housing projects.
“It’s unfair for the deputy minister to point the finger at us,’’
Penang Rehda chairman Datuk Ong Gim Huat said yesterday.
“In the first place, Penang Rehda was not involved in the licensing and
registration of developers. This was done by the ministry and Rehda was
not invited to be part of the process,” he said.
“Is the ministry trying to run away from its responsibility by pointing
the finger at us?”
On Wednesday, The Star reported that Kayveas challenged
Penang Rehda to help the government solve the 41 abandoned housing
projects in the state.
He was quoted to have asked what Penang Rehda had done to help
housebuyers of abandoned projects.
Kayveas also said the 5% discount for bumiputras in the state should be
increased to 10% to be at par with other states.
Ong said Penang Rehda was willing to discuss the possibility of
increasing the discount to 10% only if Kayveas was willing to discuss the
suggestion to reduce the 30% bumiputra quota in housing sales.
He urged Kayveas to set up a meeting among the ministry, Rehda and
state authorities to discuss both issues.
Ong said Rehda wanted to put affordable housing in the market, but the
many government policies and guidelines made this difficult.
He claimed that some projects were abandoned because of the many
restrictions and unreasonable levies.
“Nowhere in the world is the private sector made to build low-cost
housing. Yet, in Malaysia, developers are setting aside 30% for low-cost
housing,” he said.
SOS secretary Ong Boon Keong said that while groups like Rehda should
do more, the ministry, which had been empowered legally to deal with such
problems was not exercising its powers.
“The ministry which had the power to wind up errant developers under
the Developers Act 1960 had only invoked the Act once in the case of the
Majestic Heights,” he said.
He challenged Kayveas to prove his claim that the ministry had “solved”
400 of 500 housing projects.
