KPKT minister YB Zuraida Kamaruddin with secretary-general Datuk Mohammad Mantek (left) and Jagdeep Singh Deo A/L Karpal Singh (right) during the press conference.
PUTRAJAYA: The Ministry of Housing and Local Government (KPKT) is planning to combine all existing housing projects by the previous government into a single entity, said Minister YB Zuraida Kamaruddin.
“We are indeed looking at streamlining all the government housing project into one body, and renaming it into something else. We will file the Cabinet papers to coordinate the projects from all government agencies such as PR1MA, SPNB, Rumahwip, PP1M, among others,” said Zuraida during a press conference at Putrajaya yesterday.
She added that the ministry will submit the relevant documents two weeks from now to the Cabinet.
Also present during the press conference was Penang Local Government, Housing, Town and City Planning exco Jagdeep Singh Deo A/L Karpal Singh who brought up the issue of the high-rate of housing loan rejection, especially for the first-time homebuyers.
“The buyers have faced the problem since quite some time ago, and we would like to bring it up to discuss with the minister, and hopefully take action to solve the issue,” said Jagdeep.
Acknowledging that the same problem has been faced by other buyers nationwide, Zuraida said she would be meeting with the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to review the credit rating and lending policies for the housing loan.
She said that the current mortgage application often does not take into consideration an applicant's secondary and tertiary incomes.
“The meeting will most probably be arranged after Puasa,” she said.
Also, the minister is looking to enforce the laws in the government housing projects by tightening the regulation for owners that wish to rent their units to foreigners.
“Inside the PN1 form we do state that owners are not allowed to rent out their units to foreigner but Jagdeep who is also a lawyer told me that inside the Sales and Purchase Agreement (SPA), the requirement was omitted and in this case the SPA was considered as superior to PN1 hence a loophole was created that grant the act," explained Zuraida.
Zuraida added that enforcement should be done immediately to help solve the social issues among the low-cost housing residents.
A PN1 form is a document used to apply to purchase affordable homes in Penang.
