Is the government misleading the public on revival of abandon housing projects?

by drrafick

In the 2010 budget speech, the Malaysian Finance Minister announced that the government is making a one-time allocation of RM 200 mill to revive 41 low and medium cost housing projects. There has been no information forth coming on the actual number of houses to be revived or the success of the revival schemes. Assuming that RM50K is being allocated per house than the government intention is to revive 4000 units of houses.

During the recent budget 2011, the Finance Minister again announced that part from this, through the Abandoned Housing Rehabilitation Program, the Government successfully rehabilitated and obtained the Certificate of Fitness (CF) for 82 projects involving more than 15,000 units. The Government will continue this noble effort with an allocation of RM63 million in 2012 to rehabilitate 1,270 abandoned houses.

Based on the above statement it appears that the government spends about RM13, 333.33 per unit of house in 2011. This is an impossible rehabilitation cost under the current material and labor cost environment. Not to mention the appointed reviving contractor has to make money out of this portion. If each contractor makes 20% profit then the actual available money for project revival is just tipping RM10K per unit.

For the records, the MHLG publish an annual report that covers its activities. Comparing the 2010 report against the 2009, the statistics shows that the numbers of abandon projects increased from 148 projects to 161 projects i.e. 8.8% increase. If we compare the actual number of abandon houses it shows that the number of abandon houses increase from 49,913 to 50,605 units i.e. an increase by 692 units. So where is this 15,000 houses which has been revived by the government with its RM200 mill allocation in budget 2010?

Reliable source from within MHLG says that the RM63 mill announced is not additional allocation but is part of unutilized portion of RM200 mill from the previous year budget. As the Chairman of VICTIMS Malaysia (Abandon Building Owners Malaysia) I call upon the government to come clean with the people. A responsible government must show that the RM200 mill was well spend and actually went into reviving projects and as it does not matched the figures announced and publish statistics. Where did the money actually went to?

Dr. Mohamed Rafick Khan bin Abdul Rahman

President

Abandon Building Owners Malaysia (VICTIMS Malaysia)