7,000 more affordable houses next year
KOTA KINABALU: A total of 7,000 affordable houses will be constructed in Sabah next year.
Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Jaujan Sambakong said that the funding would come from the Federal Government.
The affordable houses will not be concentrated on one particular site such as the state capital, but will instead will distributed throughout the State, he said.
He added that the need for affordable housing is not confined to urban areas but also in the interior such as Sipitang and Semporna where the incidence of squatters was also prevalent.
Nevertheless, Jaujan said this was far from adequate to meet the housing demands of Sabahans.
He said that there were three million people in Sabah and the recent sales of application forms in Putatan indicated that there were high demands for low-cost housing in the State.
He was speaking at the launching of property expo, Shareda Propex 2018 at the Sabah Trade Centre here yesterday.
Jaujan also said that the government would bring development to Sabah’s interiors in order to reduce the migration of rural folks to urban areas in search of jobs. He added that once the interiors were developed, the locals there would have better spending power.
“There is no use to build houses when people cannot pay,” he reminded.
He also urged Shareda to encourage its members to look at Sabah’s interiors as their future development focus.
In a statement provided by his ministry, it was mentioned that the ministry through the National Housing Department has built 19,491 units of houses under the People’s Housing Programme Scheme (PPR) since 2005 till today.
It was mentioned that 4,138 units were in the midst of construction.
PR1MA is also constructing 5,603 units of houses while the civil service or PPA1M is constructing 2,800 units of houses.
With regards to affordable housing, Syarikat Perumahan Negera Berhad, a Finance Ministry-owned company, has constructed 3,588 houses at urban locations since 2012 till present.
It was also mentioned that Sabah has 26,395 squatter houses occupied by 143,539 people.
Jaujan explained that those residing at squatter areas were mainly interior folks who migrated to cities in search of a better livelihood.
Also present at the event were Innovation and Education Minister Datuk Dr Yusof Yacob and Shareda president Chew Sang Hai.