Target of 1mil PR1MA homes off by 983,318

KUALA LUMPUR (August 16): Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister Raja Kamarul Bahrin Shah Raja Ahmad told Dewan Rakyat yesterday that only 16,682 units of 1Malaysia People’s Housing Programme (PR1MA) homes have been completed out of the targeted one million by 2020. 

Only 1.6% of targeted housing units were completed within the past 5 years, reported Free Malaysia Today (FMT).

The PR1MA programme aims to build quality houses for the middle income group. This includes households with an income of between RM2,500 and RM15,000 per month. 

“The overall target by 2020 is one million. That is in two years’ time. But only 1.6% has been completed.

“We have also discovered that, the total allocation used is RM8 billion. This situation raises many doubts, because so much money has been used, but so few units have been completed.

“We will look at the problems being faced, and see how we can restructure to tidy up the implementation,” he said, as quoted by FMT.

Perak has been on receiving end of the most number of units thus far, at 6403 PR1MA homes, followed by Kedah with 3,341 homes.

In 14 states, there were currently 130 projects under construction, with 131,000 units. Units totalling 268,000 were approved at policy stage.

The government is currently in the midst of studying successful housing models in other countries to emulate.

“We will try to find a formula to build more comfortable housing of at least 1,000 square feet, whether it has two rooms or three rooms,” he said, as reported by FMT.

He was speaking in response to a question by Siti Zailah Mohd Yusoff (PAS-Rantau Panjang.

Efforts to lower the affordable housing price from RM300,000 to RM250,000 were also ongoing

“The government has been trying to lower construction costs of affordable housing by exempting some of the building materials from the Sales and Services Tax (SST).

“But this alone will not guarantee construction costs will go down. For instance, the state governments need to play their role concerning land premiums.”