Take over affordable housing projects, Putrajaya urged

KUALA LUMPUR: Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) has urged the federal government to take over all affordable housing projects from private developers to overcome housing woes in the country.
Speaking at a press conference, PSM National Committee member Dr Michael Jeyakumar said low and medium-cost houses should be built by the federal government without collaborating with private developers in order to control prices.
"Private developers aim for profit but the government should build the affordable housing for the needy without taking any benefit from them.
"About 40% of Malaysian households' monthly income is less than RM3,000.
"Most of them cannot afford to own a house which may cost between RM150,000 and RM450,000," he told reporters at the PSM office here today.
In conjunction with World Habitat Day today, Jeyakumar, who is also Sungai Siput MP, added PSM had also made some proposals to the federal government to overcome housing woes in the country.
One of these was the setting up of a non-profit People's Housing Authority (PHA) to build low and medium-cost houses on government land and sell these to Malaysian couples seeking to buy their first house.
"These houses should be sold to these first-time house buyers at just above the price of construction, with the proviso that the owners can only sell this house back to the PHA itself, the organisation can then re-sell the house to another eligible family," he said.