T20 group benefits from govt assistance for home ownership, says institute

KUALA LUMPUR: The government-assisted programmes for home ownership has reached the top 20 per cent ( T20) of the Malaysian households, to according to findings by the Khazanah Research Institute ( KRI).

KRI said the income threshold for households included Bottom 40 per cent ( B40) – RM3,860; Middle 40 per cent ( M40) – RM3,860- RM8,319; and, Top 20 per cent ( T20) – RM8,320 and above.

Research director, Dr Suraya Ismail, said this should not happen because it was too much of a burden for the government to start helping the B40, M40 and now the T20 households qualify for certain affordable housing programmes offered by the government.

“Let the private sector be more efficient and have better housing pricing to let them cater to the M40 and the B40,” she told reporters on the sidelines of KRI’s ‘Housing as Habitat: A case of market failure or institutional limitation?’ public talk, which provides a critical ref lection on the role of housing in cities and how players in the industry could make housing better.

Suraya said the government must provide options for households to buy from the private sector.

The private sector needed to help to bring house prices down so that T20 and M40 could afford to buy them, she said.

“In no other country will the T20 gets assistance from the government,” she said.

Meanwhile, deputy director general, National Housing Department, Malaysia, Jayaselan Navaratnam, said there was no thought about T20 when the department designed assistance for property purchases.

“We designed it for the B40. Along the way the M40 started to request and eventually the T20 with the salary of RM8,320 are not able to purchase the houses,” said Jayaselan.

He said the department would be communicating with Bank Negara Malaysia and others to understand the realistic views.

“Our focus still remains on B40 and we will never change it as M40 and T20 were designated for the open market,” said Jayaselan. — Bernama