Affordable housing is for all, there’s no quota for political parties, Dewan Rakyat told
KUALA LUMPUR: There is no policy requiring a percentage of low-cost housing to be reserved for political parties to distribute as rewards to loyal members, says Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ismail Abdul Muttalib.
The government practises equitable distribution of affordable housing, he said, with units only distributed to qualified applicants from the B40 and M40 income brackets without taking their political affiliation into account.
Ismail also said he had never heard of such a policy requiring a percentage of affordable housing to be reserved for intermediaries with political connections, as claimed by Khalid Abd Samad (PH-Shah Alam).
“During my time in the ministry and even before, I have never heard of this policy. As for the implementation of the affordable housing programme, when we distribute these houses, we never look at political parties, religion, culture and so on.
“Those who are qualified such as the B40 and the M40 will get the opportunity to own a house,” he said during question and answer time in Parliament on Wednesday (Mar 23).
Earlier, Khalid had asked Ismail his opinion about the “Kuota Menegak Kerajaan” (KMK) scheme in Johor, which involved an affordable housing quota reserved for applications through Barisan Nasional component parties.
Khalid said the scheme was abolished by the Pakatan Harapan state government in 2018 but Barisan’s former mentri besar Datuk Seri Hasni Mohammad had talked about bringing it back if the coalition won the March 12 election.
He claimed that Umno division chiefs had been known to receive low-cost housing despite already owning other homes.
“In the KMK scheme, 20% of low-cost houses are distributed through the party as an effort to reward loyal members by giving them low-cost houses even though they might already have their own houses.
“What is the minister’s opinion on the policy and is the government willing to guarantee that (it) will end?” asked Khalid.
Ismail reiterated that he was certain no such policy was in place and furthermore, there was no data on it.
Earlier, Ismail said the government had begun a Big Data analysis in February last year, expected to end this June, to understand the actual position of the real estate market and overcome the problem of property overhang (where excess residential units remain unsold for a certain period after completion).
He also said there was a need for a repository so that major players in the housing industry could use the same data related to housing supply and demand, home ownership ability, financing availability, projected housing needs and more.