15 affordable housing schemes in question

Jagdeep: The price of the housing units should be more 'people- centric' as profit should not be part of the equation to provide affordable homes to the people

FEDERAL Government agencies managing the 15 affordable housing projects here are set to gain a total profit of about RM148mil.

State Housing, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo said the prices of each unit set by Penang Regional Development Authority (Perda) and JKP Sdn Bhd were as high as RM575,000 on the mainland and RM1.85mil on the island, while ceiling prices for affordable units fixed by the state government was at RM250,000 each on the mainland and RM400,000 each for the island.

“The prices set are only supposed to ‘break-even’ the cost of construction. However, the total profit from the information given on the 15 housing projects amounted to RM148.9mil. 

“From the eight housing projects by JKP Sdn Bhd, seven projects will be on acquired land and only one will be on land that was purchased. The lands were acquired or bought from 1995 to 2008. 

“The same goes with Perda, where four of the seven projects will be through land acquisition, while the remaining will be on land bought from 1992 to 1993,” he said during a press conference in Komtar yesterday. 

Jagdeep said he had obtained the information on the 15 projects from a letter sent by Penang Federal Action Council chairman Datuk Zainal Abidin Osman to Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng on Sept 30. 

He said the profit obtained by the Federal agencies should be reduced in order for the prices of the units to be lowered.

“The price of the housing units should be more ‘people-centric’ as profit should not be part of the equation to provide affordable homes to the people. 

“I will raise this matter in the next State Planning Committee (SPC) meeting and write to the Penang Federal Action Council to seek clarification on the matter,” he added. 

It was reported that Zainal Abidin had claimed in September that the housing projects for some 9,444 units of affordable units were in limbo because of SPC’s indecision in granting approval for the projects. 

Jagdeep had responded that the lack of information on the unit prices and land acquisition matters were the cause of the delay. - The Star