PH assures of commitment in solving housing woes of ordinary citizens
KUCHING: Newly minted federal Minister of Housing and Local Government Zuraida Kamaruddin is committed to finding solutions towards enabling more ordinary people to own a home.
According to Parti Keadilan Rakyat ( PKR) national Women vice chief Voon Shiak Ni, the difficulties to get housing loans due to stringent requirements were among the main reasons ordinary working people were unable to buy a house, especially those built under Prima or the people’s housing projects.
“Our minister ( Zuraida) has discussed with Economic Affairs Minister ( Datuk Seri Mohamad Azmin Ali) about this problem and we shall see if Bank Negara could relax the loan requirements,” she told a press conference at the party headquarters here yesterday.
Voon pointed out that the problem with getting loan approved was aggravated by the restrictions imposed by Employees Provident Fund ( EPF) in releasing EPF funds from Account 2 as financial aid for the purchase of affordable houses under Prima.
“Applicants for Prima homes had raised the issue with us that they cannot withdraw their funds from Account 2 to pay for the deposit for the purchase of houses under the scheme,” she shared.
She noted that account 2, could be withdrawn for the purchase of houses under commercial housing projects.
“We don’t understand the rationale behind this policy but this is one of the reasons why a lot of applicants got stuck in their efforts to purchase and own a house,” she added.
“Also, there is another setback for Prima house applicants. The issues of taking the basic income as the financial requirement without the consideration that many jobs today are working on shift basis for instance airline and workshops or even hospitals where half of their salaries are actually from overtime and allowances,” she continued.
Voon said that many ordinary working people will be deprived of the opportunity to buy an affordable home if only the basic pay was used as the financial requirement.
While the PH government worked on the improvements, she reiterated that Zuraida and PH government were committed to uphold the promises made in the manifesto to deliver one million affordable houses to help the people especially youths to own their first home.
“The PH in its manifesto has promised to improve the country’s housing policy which includes having special housing loan scheme,” she assured.
While expressing gratitude to the state government for lifting the ban on many PH leaders to visit Sarawak, Voon said she would invite Zuraida to visit Sarawak and give updates on her plans moving forward.