GEORGE TOWN, Nov 13 — As land and affordable homes get dearer in Penang, its Barisan Nasional (BN) whip Datuk Jahara Hamid accused today the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) state government of going against its own policy by approving the building of high-end residential property on land acquired by the state at a low price.
In her argument, the Teluk Ayer Tawar assemblyman pointed to several property projects in Batu Kawan and Bayan Mutiara as examples of luxury homes built on land cheaply bought by the state’s development arm.
“Penang Development Corporation (PDC) bought the land at a low price and sold the houses at a high price,” she said in a news conference at the State Legislative Assembly building here.
According to the state opposition leader, a unit in Batu Kawan’s new Bandar Cassia township, under the Intan Delima project was going for RM306,000 which is above the affordable housing price of RM250,000 for South Seberang Perai.
She claimed the state government has reported to the Housing Ministry the price of the housing units for the project to be at a maximum RM220,000, but it wasn’t sold at that price.
She said another set of 70 terrace houses in the project named Teratai Idaman, also in Bandar Cassia, was being marketed above the ceiling set by the state, at RM468,471 for the priciest unit.
In Bayan Mutiara, she noted that the asking price for a block of 168 units in the D’Residence project started at RM880,000 to a whopping RM3 million.
“This shows that the state government is a hypocrite,” she said.
“It didn’t want to approve federal government agencies projects that it claimed were at prices above affordable housing rates and yet, its own agency is also building houses priced above the affordable housing rate on lands acquired at a low price,” she added.
In an immediate response, PDC general manager Datuk Rosli Jaafar denied that the units at Intan Delima were priced at RM306,000.
“It’s priced at RM220,000 but let me check and confirm this later,” he told reporters when contacted.
He added that he would also check on the details of the two other projects in Bandar Cassia highlighted by Jahara, though he believed they had been in the works before 2008, when the PR took over the state administration from BN.
Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said the PR state government had now ensured all projects planned in Batu Kawan after 2008 are sold at affordable rates.
Affordable rates set by the state government are housing units below RM400,000 on the island and below RM250,000 on the mainland.
At the news conference today, Jahara also disputed Lim’s claims that the state government will lose RM800 million for its affordable housing project.
“There’s no such thing as a RM800 million loss because after they sold the units, they get back the progressive payments from the buyers,” she said, and demanded the PR state government come clean on the actual figures.
She also took issue with the state government, claiming it had given preferential treatment to the private developer, Ivory Properties.
“According to a land sale agreement between PDC and Ivory, the latter is supposed to have paid PDC a total RM667 million but till now, it had only paid RM227 million,” she said, referring to a reply by state executive councillor Jagdeep Singh to her written question.
“Ivory has defaulted by RM439 million so we want to know why they are not penalised and seem to be receiving preferential treatment,” she asked.
