GEORGE TOWN: A 3% property transfer premium tax on non-locals buying or selling property in Penang has been proposed to curb speculation and protect locals from being priced out of the housing market.
Ong Ah Teong (PH-Batu Lanchang) said Penang’s housing affordability was becoming increasingly worrying due to limited land availability, speculative demand and outside investors treating the state’s properties as wealth instruments.
“Penang properties have become speculative commodities, triggering a wealth transfer from local residents to outside investors,” he said during his debate speech at the Penang State Legislative Assembly sitting on Monday (May 11).
Ong said speculative purchases orchestrated by developers and brokers could force Penangites into renting homes while properties were owned by outsiders and left vacant.
“We are not poor, but impoverished by greedy speculative investors from outside the state,” he said.
He proposed amendments to the state land enactment and regulations to enable a 3% property transfer premium tax on buyers or sellers who are not Penang-born, not permanent residents in Penang and not registered Penang voters for at least three terms.
“The tax revenue can be channelled into the Housing Trust Account for Rumah Mutiaraku projects and rent-to-own schemes for the B40 group and local youths,” he said.
Separately, Ong questioned the governance and role of InvestPenang following findings highlighted in the Auditor-General’s Report 1/2026.
He claimed the report revealed weaknesses in monitoring and internal controls, including salary and bonus increases for the chief executive officer allegedly approved without board approval.
“Before this, assemblymen had raised questions regarding GLC salaries and bonuses, and almost all GLCs provided information to the House except InvestPenang, which said the information was under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA).
“The question is, NDA is not the Official Secrets Act (OSA). What makes InvestPenang different from other GLCs that it can sideline the checks and balances of the House?” he said.
Ong also said the Auditor-General’s Report found InvestPenang did not provide complete overseas trip reports despite spending more than RM500,000 on mission trips while receiving RM18.5mil in state allocations.
He further questioned whether InvestPenang’s achievements accurately reflected its own performance, claiming the report showed the investment figures were sourced from the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA).
“MIDA carries out the same functions as InvestPenang, and it is MIDA that provides licences, incentives and tax exemptions for foreign direct investments (FDIs) to attract investments, while InvestPenang does not perform those roles,” he said.
Ong said the overlap in functions raised questions over whether InvestPenang still needed to be maintained, especially while the state government continued operating under a deficit budget.
