GEORGE TOWN, Aug 3 ― The federal government should be audited on its performance in delivering public, low cost, low medium cost, and affordable housing in Penang, state executive councillor Jagdeep Singh Deo said today.
He challenged the Auditor-General to check if Putrajaya had adequately provided for low-cost housing in the state.
“Don't just audit us and pluck figures from the air,” he said in a press conference here in response to the Auditor-General's Annual report 2016 Series 1 released Monday.
He said the previous Barisan Nasional state administration had built 5,124 low-medium cost and low-cost housing in Penang between 2000 and 2007.
“In comparison, a total of 20,887 low cost and low medium cost housing units have been built between 2008 and 2016 under the Pakatan Harapan state government,” he said.
According to the Auditor-General's Annual report, there is a total of 3,747 applications for housing schemes in Penang still on the waiting list for Public Housing Project (PPR) units, and 436 units of PPR were still vacant.
It stated that Penang's management of house distribution was unsatisfactory due to its failure to offer the housing units and that the process of filling up the vacant units was slow despite having applicants on the waiting list.
The report pointed out that 490 low cost housing applicants and 666 PPR applicants had not received any housing unit although they had registered for more than 15 years.
The audit also found there was no planning for the development of new housing although the Various Trust Accounts For the Financing of Low-Cost Public Housing Projects had a high balance of RM121.99 million and receipts since 2013 had not been spent.
In response to these, Jagdeep said there are 2,370 PPR units in Penang with 320 vacant.
“There are PPR projects with vacant units because these units are specially for the temporary relocation of those from Mak Mandin Block Three, whose units are being renovated and also for disaster victims,” he said.
He added the eligibility for applicants to rent PPR units are still at below RM1,500 unlike the federal government's eligibility which is below RM3,000.
The report also highlighted that there were four cases of applications which were approved involving applicants earning more than RM8,500.
To this, Jagdeep said these could be under the squatters category who are given priority.
“We give priority to squatters who have been evicted and do not take their income into consideration because they are suddenly left with no houses and priority should be given to them,” he said.
Jagdeep explained that the state government looked at the net income of the applicants to ensure they didn’t take home more than RM2,500 for category A and RM3,500 for category B.
“Since banks don't look at gross income but net income, these applicants can also appeal using their net income after deductions of other loans, EPF and Socso,” he said.
Jagdeep said they have formed a special committee to resolve this issue and implemented ways to resolve it such as opening counters on Saturday to make it more convenient for renters to pay their rent.
“We will also stop all Astro services to units with arrears because how can they keep paying for Astro and yet not pay their rent,” he said.
He added that the state government will only employ the “human touch” to collect the arrears owed and not take drastic measures to evict the residents.
