FED up of being repeatedly ignored regarding the deteriorating condition of their units in the Seri Aman People’s Housing Scheme (PPR) in Kepong, about 40 residents held a peaceful protest outside Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) headquarters on Thursday (June 23) morning.
Demanding that their units be repaired by competent contractors, the residents stood outside the building at Jalan Raja Laut holding placards and banners with photos of the units and shouted: "We want better homes."
The residents, mostly former squatters from Jinjang Utara longhouse, moved into the units in 2017, but soon started finding defects involving cracks, water seepage, leakage, mould and mildew in their units which gradually became worse.
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Many of them have been unable to move in until today because of the problems.
Some dug into their savings to repair the damage, but the problem persisted.
“Every day since 2018, I have received complaints from unit owners about water leakage.
"The number of complaints kept growing and growing until we have over 500 complaints going back three years," said residents association chairman Mohamed Nawaz Koya.
“Contractors were sent by DBKL to look at some of the units but no one was able to fix the problem or even tell us what was happening and the defects just got worse," he said.
“DBKL will send a contractor, but we have no idea what they are doing," Nawaz told the media after presenting their request to the KL mayor’s special officer Norhazirah Mohd Ghazalli.
Batu MP P. Prabakaran raised the matter in Parliament last year, but did not get any response from Federal Territories Minister Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim.
ALSO READ: ‘Leakage at PPR Seri Aman may be sign of serious defects’
“We just want them to fix the problem. Get qualified contractors who know what they are doing," said Roslan Bidin, a resident.
“My unit is leaking. My upstairs neighbour’s unit is leaking, and my next-door neighbour's unit is leaking. This is not an isolated case, it is something serious. So fix it," Roslan said.
The PPR Seri Aman was completed in 2015.
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The four-block, 1,600-unit PPR was built at a cost of RM215mil by developers appointed by the Housing and Local Government Ministry.
Concerned after reading reports of the situation, the American Concrete Institute-Malaysia Chapter (ACI-MY) – an independent select committee under the purview of the National House Buyers Association (HBA) – visited the PPR and shared its findings on the issue.
It concluded that the water leaks or intrusion indicated that the structures are in distress and there is a need to find out the cause so that corrective action can be taken.
