The Urban Well-Being, Housing and Local Government Minister, Dato’ Abdul Rahman Dahlan responded in detail to my allegations that he was a coward in refusing to meet the Penang Chief Minister, Lim Guan Eng on Tuesday evening. The dispute is over the state government’s alleged refusal to approve the affordable housing projects by Federal Government agencies in Penang.
Based on the official reply given by the Minister, I can now with utmost certainty call him an incorrigible liar for misstating numbers, fudging facts and covering up the truth. Here are the list of lies by the cowardly Minister who tried to mislead Malaysians.
Firstly, on 3 May 2015, Dato’ Abdul Rahman Dahlan challenged Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng to approve the 10,000 affordable housing units proposed by federal government agencies that are awaiting planning permission from the state government.
The fact is, the two Federal Government agencies, Penang Regional Development Authority (PERDA) and JKP Sdn Bhd had submitted 15 applications for 9,444 buildings. Of this number, 451 units are commercial outlets while 8,997 units are residential components.
What the Minister further did not tell you in his response, is that approximately 30% of the housing units are priced above RM400,000 and RM250,000 affordable housing pricing limits for Penang Island and Seberang Perai respectively. Hence there are less than 6,300 low cost and affordable housing units “planned” by the Federal Government, and not the 59%-inflated 10,000 which the Minister boasted.
Secondly, the Minister tried to make light of the fact that these 2 federal agencies are building luxury properties by claiming that it’s only 20 bungalows.
Dato’ Abdul Rahman Dahlan, like many of his fellow Ministers, appears to fail their simple arithmetics. PERDA submitted applications to build at least 21 double and triple-storey bungalows for its mixed development project in Teluk Kumbar, Penang Island costing between RM1.0 million to RM1.85 million. The agency also submitted another 69 double-storey bungalows for its development in Pongsu Seribu, Seberang Perai costing between RM378,000 to RM800,000. Any primary school student will be able to tell Dato’ Rahman Dahlan that the total number of bungalow applications is hence at least 90, far from the “only 20 bungalows” the Minister would have us believe.
The Minister also ingenuously forget to mention the more than 1,000 non-bungalow housing units which are priced above the affordable housing range. For example, PERDA submitted for its Teluk Kumbar project 97 units of triple-storey terrace homes priced at RM900,000 and double-storey semi-detached homes priced at RM1.25 million. Or that the project includes 270 condominium units, all costing above RM400,000.
Are these properties “affordable homes”, my dear Minister? Perhaps to him it is, because he actually (unbelievably) cited a private developer with properties priced at RM700,000 as “affordable houses”!
Thirdly, the Minister tried to valiantly justify why JKP and PERDA projects have some “pricier houses”. He said “it was meant to help cross subsidize (in a small way) the prices for the low-cost and low-medium cost units”. He also said that “the profit JKP and PERDA will stand to make from the 9,500 unit housing project is small compared to the outlay of over RM1 billion.”
Hence, by the Minister’s own admission, Penangites will “cross-subsidise” their own housing needs while the Federal Government will still walk away with a “small” profit of RM149 million. If that is the case, what is the difference between the Federal Government agencies and a private developer? Not only will the Federal Government not need to foot a single sen at the end of the day for affordable housing in Penang, Penangites ends up poorer having to further fund these agencies’ profits!
This is in direct contrast with the Penang state government’s policy of outlaying a record RM500 million to build more than 22,000 affordable homes without building “luxury homes” and without any expectation of a profit. The affordable housing fund is the highest allocated by a state government in the entire country.
Fourthly, Dato’ Rahman Dahlan continued to ignore the fact that 11 out of 15 projects which were submitted were to be built on land acquired via the Land Acquisition Act for “public purposes”. The case law and Federal Court judgements are clear that such land must be be used for the “general interest of the community” which will limit the land use to low and low-medium cost housing only.
Under such circumstances, how can the state government grant approval to the JKP and PERDA projects which clearly contravenes the law? Instead, the Minister has the cheek to tell us that it’s “just a lame excuse designed to prevent Penangites from having low-cost and affordable houses”.
Finally, once again despite the lengthy response from Dato’ Rahman Dahlan, he dodges the million ringgit question which is staring at him in the face. Does he have the courage to meet up with the Penang Chief Minister to resolve the above issues, or is he just interested in scoring cheap political points by continuing to lie to the Malaysian public?