Single entity on affordable housing by year-end

KUALA LUMPUR: The establishment of a single entity to oversee the provision of affordable homes will be completed by year-end, said National Housing Department director-general Jayaselan Navaratnam ( pix).

“We are working to sort it out by this August then we will do due diligence and hope it can come into execution somewhere around the end of this year,” he said at the Affordable Housing Conference 2018 yesterday.

Jayaselan said six agencies namely 1Malaysia People’s Housing Programme (PR1MA), UDA Holdings Bhd, Syarikat Perumahan Negara Bhd, Federal Territories Affordable Housing (Rumawip), Housing Project for the Hardcore Poor (PPRT) and the 1Malaysia Housing Project for Civil Servants (PPA1M) will be streamlined under the entity as a start.

“We are also working with Bank Negara Malaysia, National Property Information Centre, Real Estate Housing Developers Association (Rehda) and other groups specialised in the real estate industry,” he added.

Jayaselan said the department, which comes under the Housing and Local Government Ministry, will need time to study the structure of each agency, after which it will decide whether to merge or segmentise them into different types of development.

He said there will not be any retrenchments of government employees in these agencies but some may be redeployed to other areas. However, it will review the need for contract staff.

Meanwhile, the ministry is coming up with a price threshold for affordable homes based on different regions.

“We are suggesting RM300,000 as the threshold while Rehda is suggesting RM500,000, but let us work and see which one is the most suitable one. We are looking at a mechanism based on region instead of state,” according to Jayaselan.

He said it will study various factors including household income, debt level and affordability level in coming up with the price threshold. At present, the ministry considers houses priced RM300,000 and below affordable, applicable nationwide.

Rehda recently recommended a price threshold for affordable homes based on states, with RM500,000 being the ceiling for affordable homes in Kuala Lumpur.

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