Initially, the plan was to set aside 50% of new homes for bumiputras
THE government of Malaysia’s northern Kedah state has deferred the introduction of controversial policy requiring developers to set aside 50 per cent of new homes for bumiputras – largely Malays.
The policy was announced soon after after the opposition Parti Islam SeMalaysia (Pas) swept into power in Kedah following last year’s general election. The state’s chief minister Azizan Abdul Razak said that the government would increase the bumiputra housing quota from the current 30 per cent to 50 per cent from Sept 1, 2009.
Mr Azizan said the reason was that Malays comprised 79 per cent of Kedah’s population – 1.5 million out of 1.9 million.
The decision caused disquiet among non-government organisations and especially developers, who said they could not even sell homes with the 30 per cent quota.
The state executive councillor in charge of housing, Phahrolrazi Nawawi, said yesterday that the move to raise quota had been deferred after a meeting with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other political parties that represent all the races.
‘We have to (defer the decision) because there are some parties who are not happy with the proposed policy,’ Mr Phahrolrazi said. ‘We will find a more amicable solution.
‘We do not want the people to be unhappy and we do not want people to claim that such a policy is not fair and that it favoured only one group.’
He said that the policy was put forward because the state government found new housing projects in Kedah were usually occupied by one race only.
Housing quotas have been a fact of life in Malaysia since the New Economic Policy was articulated in 1971. This policy seeks to raise ethnic Malays to economic parity with richer non-Malays and targets a 30 per cent share of everything – from wealth to employment and housing – for them.
In the case of housing, 30 per cent of new homes in any development have to be set aside for bumiputra buyers. In addition, individual states have made developers give bumiputras discounts for houses. In the Federal Territory and Selangor, the bumiputra discount is 7.5 per cent. But it can go as high as 10-16 per cent – in Johor, for example.
This has caused a lot of unhappiness. Many groups, for example, have pointed out the inherent unfairness in giving a discount to well-heeled Malays. And developers have repeatedly griped about problems of unsold homes because of the limited number of Malays coming forward to buy them.
Developers can convert homes for sale to non-Malays, but only after satisfying the local authority that they have done their utmost – newspaper advertisements, for example – to sell the properties. Even then, developers have to wait between one and two years to gain permission to convert.
A major problem is that many Malays do not even want to buy homes reserved for Malays because it is difficult to sell such homes going forward – it is the non-Malay market that drives house prices.
Source : Business Times – 8 Dec 2009
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