KUALA LUMPUR, June 9 — Only 33 new houses have been built for the Kelantan’s 1,900 flood victims so far, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim told the Dewan Rakyat today.

He said the government was well aware that the number of units built still lags behind the intended target but said Putrajaya was committed to see it through.

“There were claims that only five houses had been built so far.

“This is not true. In the span of not more than two weeks, 33 permanent units had been built and 309 are in the process and 238 in the pre-construction phase,” he said during Question Time.

Previously, Putrajaya had said that of the 261 units of new permanent houses to be built by the federal government for flood victims in Kelantan, 168 will be handed over before Aidilfitri, in late August.

The 261 units are part of the first phase of 1,255 housing units to be built by the federal government for flood victims in Kelantan.

The remaining houses will be built by the Kelantan government.

Both the Federal and Kelantan government have been criticised for allegedly moving slow in delivering the promised houses.

Anthony Loke was quoted by news portal The Malaysian Insider on May 25 as claiming that Putrajaya could only build five houses for the Kelantan flood victims before Ramadan, compared with 22 houses built under the project ‘Impian Kelantan’ by the party (DAP) in collaboration with non-governmental organisations and that these were expected to be handed over to the owners on June 11.

There were also the issue of price discrepancy between houses built by Putrajaya and the Kelantan government.

Critics claim the federal government was charging Kelantanese more by selling the new houses for RM50,000 while the Kelantanese government was selling theirs for RM30,000.

But PAS Kuala Krai MP Dr Hatta Ramli said the allegation was not true and the houses built by the PAS state government costs roughly around RM48,000.