Rahman: Guan Eng lied to shirk blame on affordable housing

comments     Published     Updated

Minister Abdul Rahman Dahlan today insisted that Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng had lied about the threshold for affordable housing, to shirk blame.

The Local Government, Housing and Urban Well-being minister said states set their own affordable housing thresholds and can choose to set it lower than the federal government.

Instead, he said, Penang had sneakily used the top threshold of the 1Malaysia Housing Project (PR1MA).

Abdul Rahman argued that while PR1MA’s top threshold is RM400,000, 84 percent of homes under PR1MA are priced at below RM300,000.

Further, he said, the 16 percent of PR1MA homes costing between RM300,000 to RM400,000, are 1,200 square feet in size.

“This is far larger than the homes offered by the Penang government , which are 900 square feet in size,” he said in a statement.

The spat between the ministers started when Abdul Rahman called Lim "lied" when he said Penang was only following federal guidelines on affordable housing, when it priced the homes at RM400,000.

Lim today defended himself by citing a 2013 news report and the PR1MA Act.

However, Abdul Rahman in the statement said the Penang exco for housing had attended a meeting with his ministry on January 18 where it was agreed that these details were yet to be finalised.

He said the Penang government are yet to get back to his ministry on its proposed thresholds for price, floor space, buyers’ income, minimum specifications, re-sale moratorium and area density.

Abdul Rahman said the information is needed so a national policy can be discussed at the National Housing Policy meeting in August.



Malaysiakini
news and views that matter


Sign In