Name and shame the miscreants who deceive society

 

“She is chauffeur-driven in an official four-wheel drive on duties and states her address in official documents as a double-storey corner terrace house in Kota Damansara. But she is also the owner of the low-cost apartment in Ara Damansara and happens to be a divisional director in the Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ).

“By her own admission, she is not the only director who owns a low-cost flat. Questioned by a councillor, she charged that there are other ‘directors and deputy directors’ who own such properties.”

The above are excerpts from an investigative report published on May 20, 2010.

Subsequently, an internal investigation by MBPJ noted that the low-cost apartment was allocated to her as “a reward” by the previous exco member in charge of housing, Mokhtar Dahlan, for her role in the state government’s Setinggan Sifar (zero squatters) campaign by the BN government a few years earlier.

She was cleared because “she was not involved in any wrongdoing”, but what emerged was startling - a quota system in which BN assemblypersons were allocated units to be assigned to their deserving constituents.

This is where the rot set in and instead of constituents, the recipients were friends and cronies, most of whom lived in million-ringgit houses.

Getting started

Against such a dubious past where the units were used as political patronage, any effort to correct the system is long overdue.

In 2018, current Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad was a back-bencher, he suggested that Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) audit the income of its People’s Housing Project (PPR) tenants.

He claimed the audit was necessary as some tenants were from the high-income group and not eligible for the PPR houses.

“The audit will also ascertain if the income of the tenants has increased or if they obtained the housing units through improper ways,” he said when debating a motion on the 11th Malaysia Plan Mid-term Review in Parliament.

The government has since changed twice but six years later, there is good news. On Thursday, the Housing and Local Government Ministry announced it would launch a large-scale nationwide operation to identify PPR owners who illegally rent out their units.

The minister, Nga Kor Ming, said that the ministry had found numerous tenants in breach of their contracts by renting their properties to migrants, including undocumented ones.

While he specifically mentioned PPR, a government programme for relocation of squatters and meeting the dwelling needs of the lower-income group of which the ministry is the implementing agency, the same problems exist and are prevalent in similar schemes under the purview of state governments.

In all schemes, there have been signs of abuse and deceit when applications are processed and approved but the authorities, especially from the state, adopted a tutup mata (closed eye) policy - ostensibly because of political involvement.

Nga warned that the ministry would take firm action against those who violate the agreement, adding that such an operation was vital to solving the ongoing shortage of PPR housing.

What can be done?

What firm action? What is going to be done?

Yes, they would have breached a clause in the sale and purchase agreement that prohibits the leasing out of units. Evicting the tenants would be the least of the problems but what happens afterward?

Will the units owned by unqualified owners be “seized” and reallocated to deserving people?

The owners can still have a legal claim to the property per the sale and purchase agreement except that they would not be able to rent them out.

But there may be a solution in sight. If they had provided false information about their income and status at the point of making the application, would it not be a reason to nullify the contract and seek remedies in the civil courts?

This is the way to go but make an offer of amnesty to unqualified buyers to surrender their houses voluntarily.

Phrases like “stern action” and “final warning” are over-used cliches that many wrongdoers choose to ignore.

Or once identified, the ministry ought to name and shame them by publishing their names in a rogues gallery. There is no necessity to protect those who have abused the system and taken the rakyat for a ride.

Those who had bought the houses at RM45,000 each had been making monthly payments of about RM350 towards the bank loan.

But they had been and continue to collect about RM600 to RM800 in rentals (which more than covers the servicing of their loans) and many of them have settled their loans and are now enjoying fixed monthly income.

Every right-thinking Malaysian will support the ministry’s actions which will once and for all cleanse the system of miscreants and cheats who milk the system to line their own pockets. - Mkini

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R NADESWARAN is a veteran journalist who writes on bread-and-butter issues. Comments: citizen.nades22@gmail.com.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.