Plan to allow long-term tenants to own PPR units

At the dewan rakyat
Reports by MARTIN CARVALHO, HEMANANTHANI SIVANANDAM, RAHIMY RAHIM and LOSHANA K SHAGAR 

THE Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry is stu­dying ways to allow long-term te­nants of People’s Housing Projects (PPRs) to own the units in the long run, said Minister Tan Sri Noh Omar.

He said the management and maintenance at many PPR projects were unsatisfactory because te­­nants had no attachment to the rented units.

He said there were two types of PPR units – one with building cost funded by the Federal Government but built on state land while ano­ther is fully paid and built on land owned by the Federal Government.

He said the Government could always find a way to transfer owner­ship of PPR units, funded and built on federal land, to current tenants.

“However, for projects on land belonging to the respective state governments, we will continue to renegotiate with them,” he told Anuar Abd Manap (BN-Sekijang) during question time.

Anuar had asked the ministry to state whether it had any intention to grant permanent ownership status to long-term tenants at PPR units.

Asked on the mechanism to make it easier for the transfer of ownership, Noh said the ministry would conduct a review to determine the real owners of the PPR units.

Noh said as of December last year, the Government had built a total of 84,490 PPR units in 122 projects across the country.

He pointed out the public could either rent or purchase federal government PPR units.

“For rented units, the Federal Government is offering it at RM124 per month while those qualified can directly purchase it for RM35,000 in Peninsular Malaysia or RM42,000 in Sabah and Sarawak,” he said.

Meanwhile, Noh said the one million affordable homes target for the lower income group would be fulfilled by various agencies and state governments.

“As of December 2017, 450,619 units in total have been completed or in the process of being built while a total of 448,028 units are in the planning process,” he told Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Gelang Patah).