For obvious reasons, please do not publish my name as it will affect my rice bowl. But what I am going to relate actually did happen at a meeting Klang Valley housing developers had with Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) on July 31.

The meeting was for the purpose of releasing the overdue bumiputera quotas of houses which had remained unsold after having complied with the stipulated conditions of DBKL. All the developers who attended the meeting had already complied with the condition of publishing in the major newspapers the bumiputera units for sale and in addition we were told to book a space at a designated place for a further campaign to sell the bumi units.

The above exercise does not come cheap. Advertising space in the major papers and rental of space at a major shopping complex can cost us close to RM20,000. Can you imagine our frustration when we were told to repeat the whole exercise when we could not sell the bumi units?

In exasperation, I told the DBKL officials that even if we were to give a 20 percent discount to the bumis, they would not buy our houses because it was located in Salak South, Sungai Besi, a middle-class enclave of the urban Chinese. Nearby there is a market selling pork and a Chinese school. Also in the vicinity is a food court selling non-halal food. So would any Malays want to buy them?

The official just said, 'You have to advertise in the papers again and do the campaign at Mid-Valley Megamall again," without any compromise.

We are a small housing developer and the total units built was 40 with the bumi allocation at 12. We had complied with all the stipulated conditions and now after more than a year of waiting, DBKL still does not want to release the bumi units to be sold to the non-bumis.

At the meeting, DBKL dropped a bombshell. If we could not sell the bumi's units, then we would now have to now pay the bumi discount quantum direct to DBKL. In our case, since we gave a 7 percent discount, the quantum for each unit was RM29,400. For the 12 unsold bumi lots, we would have to pay RM352,800 to DBKL.

All the developers who attended the meeting protested vehemently at this atrocious policy and refused to pay and the meeting ended without any resolution. Meanwhile, the approval to release the bumi units remains suspended since no decision was made.

Instead of abolishing altogether the bumi discount for houses, DBKL has deemed it fit to demand that the bumi discount instead be paid to them. We would like to ask DBKL what rationale is there to give a discount to bumis who could afford to buy a RM420,000 house? This is clearly an abuse of the NEP.

Further, if DBKL is so adamant that the units be sold to bumis, why doesn't DBKL buy the units from the developers and sell them at their own leisure to Malay buyers. Why should developers bear the cost of implementing their bumiputera ownership policy. It is thoroughly unfair to expect developers to even bear the cost of advertising and conducting roadshows in order to comply with DBKL's social engineering schemes.

Finally, we as businessmen are entitled to an explanation from DBKL whether this is government policy or is it merely DBKL acting on its own whim and fancy. As businessmen, we have to factor this into our costing and any spontaneous and arbitrary change in policy is certainly detrimental to investors expectations.