The enforcement department would be tracking down former tenants, and those who have fees that remain unpaid would be blacklisted.-Filepic
KUALA Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) is demanding that former tenants of people’s housing projects (PPR), public housing projects (PA) and DBKL markets settle the few million ringgits owed to it in unpaid rent.
The enforcement department would be tracking down former tenants, and those who have fees that remain unpaid would be blacklisted. Eventually, legal action would be taken against them, said DBKL Socio-Economic Development executive director Datuk Ibrahim Yusoff.
“We found that there are 16,634 former PA and PPR tenants who have failed to settle their rental fees, and we are giving the one month from today (Aug 15) clear their debt.
"In the tenant’s terms and obligations, they are still required to pay the overdue rental fee amount and cannot run away from it because we will take action at the blacklisting stage.
“We will also take court action to impose the appropriation action on the basis of the laws that we have.
“DBKL already has 2,600 court judgements on PPR and PA tenants, which means that we can already take action against them.
Ibrahim also appealed to all current PA, PPR and market tenants to settle their rental fees and water bills immediately every month to avoid facing the same kind of consequences.
“Right now, we have only vacated 504 premises used by foreigners, but have not moved against any of the other tenants – we will start by issuing notices, followed by the shutting of their water source and finally going to court.
He added the same course of action would be taken with DBKL’s former market tenants.
“We will take the same actions against former market tenants to settle their debt, as a total of 8,105 former tenants failed to settle their overdue fees.
Ibrahim added that the cost of renting a market unit ranges from RM150 to RM250, with maintenance subsidised by DBKL.
Therefore, he said, they should not use the excuse of not being able to pay due to a lack of profit.
DBKL’s emphasis on collecting debt stems from the need to use funds that are redistributed to facilitate maintenance costs on public facilities.
Ibrahim also announced the appointment of a separate company, BPO Distributions Sdn Bhd, to carry out meter readings for water bills at PA and PPRs.
“BPO was appointed on Aug 1 and will manage meter readings and collections on DBKL’s behalf. Residential premises are charged 98 sen per cubic metre and businesses or commercial premises are charged RM2.24 per cubic metre.
BPO Operations general manager Mohd Fazil Mustaffa said the company would oversee a total of 63,000 accounts under DBKL in 45 areas.
“We will start meter readings at the end of August, and it will be done monthly. The method we are implementing uses an automated system by spot meter reading, so tenants will receive their bills on the spot,” he said.
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