All housing agencies to be under Housing and Local Government Ministry

KUALA LUMPUR: All government housing agencies will be placed under the Housing and Local Government Ministry to ensure that they are in compliance with the country’s affordable housing policy, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Its Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin said that the move was aimed at fulfilling the people’s needs through the construction of People’s Housing Project (PPR) and Rumah Mesra Rakyat under Syarikat Perumahan Negara Bhd.

“We are adjusting everything (housing agencies) under one policy and provide housing according to the people’s needs because the government seeks to build one million houses within the next 10 years.

“With the allocation and ongoing construction projects with collaboration with state governments and private sector, we would be able to achieve the target of building 100,000 houses in a year.

“Besides that, the ministry is setting up a data system in regards to housing needs to ensure building of houses in the country achieves its target.

“The data would be helpful in overcoming the current situation, such as number of houses which exceeds (number of) buyers, housing prices that are not suitable (with its category) and non-strategic housing locations,” she said during the question-and-answers session.

She was answering a supplementary question from Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan (BN-Umno-Pontian) who wanted to know whether the government had plans to place the various housing programmes like 1Malaysia Civil Servants Housing Scheme (PPA1M) under a single ministry.

In reply to the main question from Datuk Christina Liew (PH-PKR-Tawau) over prices of affordable houses in Sabah, Zuraida said the prices were set under the Type II category of between RM150,000 and RM300,000.

“For rural residents, affordable housing prices are in the Type I category which is RM150,000 and below,” the minister said.