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18th March, 2010
KOTA KINABALU: The housing developers in the country have issued a four-point joint communiqué for the state and federal governments to consider during their 12th Malaysian Developers Council (MDC) meeting recently.
The tripartite meeting held in Kota Bharu comprised Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association Malaysia (REHDA), Sarawak Housing and Real Estate Developers’ Association (SHEDA) and Sabah Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (SHAREDA) led by its president Datuk Susan Wong.
The three organizations chaired the meeting on rotation and issued the four point joint communiqué as follows:
1. MDC placed on record its appreciation to the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak for his commitment to the Property and Construction sector by mandating the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (PEMANDU) to review and propose transformational steps to the delivery system via the ongoing lab sessions. The Special Task Force to Facilitate Business (PEMUDAH) has also successfully launched its Guidebook on registering property in Malaysia recently.
2. MDC appealed to the government that the responsibility of providing low-cost housing as a social engineering tool be fully reverted to the Government via Syarikat Perumahan Negara Berhad (SPNB) and its other mandated Government-Linked Companies (GLCs). Not only is the provision of low-cost housing a public responsibility, recent rises in cost of doing business around the country has resulted in severe difficulties in doing so. And we hope that SPNB should focus on doing low-cost housing instead of competing with private developers in doing the medium cost and high-end property development projects.
3. MDC also appealed to the Sabah State Government to review to waive the deposit of 5% of the total development cost in the form of banker’s guarantee in issuance of the developer’s licence for the housing development project, similar to Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia in order to have a “1Malaysia 1Policy” concept. Also because this sum is not a determent to any abandonment in a housing project. Statistics show that there are about RM300 – RM400 million worth of such banker’s guarantees sitting idle. The release of all these amounts to the industry will stimulate the economy. In its place, MDC also propose that the Sabah State Government considers adopting a Home Completion Guarantee Scheme as proposed by REHDA.
4. MDC appealed to the Sabah Electricity Sdn. Bhd. (SESB) and Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation (SESCO) to reduce the electricity capital contribution imposed on Sabah and Sarawak developers to a contribution structure comparable to Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) in Peninsular Malaysia for all types of housing. At the present moment, the Consumer Connection Charges (Capital Contribution) of SESB and SESCO is ten times higher than TNB’s rate in Peninsular Malaysia.
The meeting was co-chaired by REHDA president Datuk Ng Seing Liong and SHEDA by its president, Zaidi Ahmad.
Besides Datuk Susan, SHAREDA was represented at the meeting by vice president Wong Ten An, secretary general Chew Sang Hai, council members Datuk Ir. Chong Hon Len, Willie Wong Chik Hing, Jenar Lamdah, adviser professor Francis Wong, executive secretary Salina Lee Abdullah and admin/research officer Chong Chen Hau.
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