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Don’t point the finger, Rehda tells Kayveas

03/05/2002 The Star

Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk M. Kayveas was taken to task for implying that the Real Estate and Housing Developers Association (Rehda) Penang branch had done nothing to help victims of abandoned housing projects.

“It’s unfair for the deputy minister to point the finger at us,’’ Penang Rehda chairman Datuk Ong Gim Huat said yesterday.

“In the first place, Penang Rehda was not involved in the licensing and registration of developers. This was done by the ministry and Rehda was not invited to be part of the process,” he said.

“Is the ministry trying to run away from its responsibility by pointing the finger at us?”

On Wednesday, The Star reported that Kayveas challenged Penang Rehda to help the government solve the 41 abandoned housing projects in the state.

He was quoted to have asked what Penang Rehda had done to help housebuyers of abandoned projects.

Kayveas also said the 5% discount for bumiputras in the state should be increased to 10% to be at par with other states.

Ong said Penang Rehda was willing to discuss the possibility of increasing the discount to 10% only if Kayveas was willing to discuss the suggestion to reduce the 30% bumiputra quota in housing sales.

He urged Kayveas to set up a meeting among the ministry, Rehda and state authorities to discuss both issues.

Ong said Rehda wanted to put affordable housing in the market, but the many government policies and guidelines made this difficult.

He claimed that some projects were abandoned because of the many restrictions and unreasonable levies.

“Nowhere in the world is the private sector made to build low-cost housing. Yet, in Malaysia, developers are setting aside 30% for low-cost housing,” he said.

SOS secretary Ong Boon Keong said that while groups like Rehda should do more, the ministry, which had been empowered legally to deal with such problems was not exercising its powers.

“The ministry which had the power to wind up errant developers under the Developers Act 1960 had only invoked the Act once in the case of the Majestic Heights,” he said.

He challenged Kayveas to prove his claim that the ministry had “solved” 400 of 500 housing projects.

 

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