SPNB revives 1st abandoned housing project in Sarawak
17/03/2006 theedgedaily.com

Syarikat Perumahan Negara Berhad (SPNB) has successfully rehabilitated the housing project for employees of Bintulu Port Sdn Bhd, making it the first abandoned housing development project in Sarawak revived by SPNB.

The 426 housing units comprises of double-storey detached, semi-detached and detached houses, spread over 70 acres. The project came to a halt in 2003 after the previous developer faced financial mis-management.

SPNB was requested by the Ministry of Finance to acquire and revitalise this housing project which was launched in 1997. SPNB is a unit of the Minister of Finance Incorporated (MOF Inc)

SPNB managing director Datuk Mohd Amin Mohd Salleh had on March 17 officially handed over the site to Bintulu Port senior manager of human resources Omar Salleh.

“We have taken over this 0% to 80%-completed project without any additional costs to the purchasers and at the same time we had to absorb the deficit incurred,” Mohd Amin said.

“Costing more than RM33 million to rehabilitate, the rehabilitation work for this project started in January 2004 after SPNB had received consent from the relevant parties.”

He added SPNB would continue to work towards reviving stalled housing projects in Malaysia.

To date, SPNB had rehabilitated and delivered 11 abandoned housing projects comprising 3,527 housing units with a total estimated value of RM114 million throughout Malaysia.

This year, SPNB had targeted to rehabilitate 13 abandoned housing projects worth more than RM196 million.

Currently, SPNB is revitalising 12 housing projects comprising of 6,026 houses with construction cost of RM207 million, of which nine projects are expected to be delivered before year-end.

Since the MoF had appointed SPNB as the implementation agent for rehabilitation of abandoned housing projects in 2001, SPNB had been entrusted to undertake and rehabilitate 177 abandoned housing projects comprising 52,271 units of houses with an estimated project value of RM4.3 billion.