Govt mulling rent and own housing scheme for civil servants

KUALA LUMPUR: The government is mulling the idea of implementing a "Rent and Own" scheme to enable civil servants to own a property before they retire.
Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Ali Hamsa (pix) revealed that the scheme is among the options the government has in mind to solve the prolonged issue faced by most civil servants - the inability to own a home after retirement.
"Currently, most of the soon to be retired civil servants would request the government to extend their stay in the government quarters by transferring the ownership of the government quarters they currently reside in to their children who are also civil servants due to their inability to own a home.
"However, because of the high demand of government quarters and the long waiting list, we have to reject them," Ali said to reporters after officiating the Jalan Cochrane Civil Servant Living Quarters yesterday.
To illustrate the high demand for the quarters, Ali revealed that in Putrajaya alone there were some 22,000 civil servants waiting for a vacant unit.
Ali explained that under this scheme, the government would allow new civil servants to rent the house first and later on provide an opportunity for them to purchase the unit.
"This is what the government has in the pipeline apart from continuously providing government quarters as the latter is only a temporary measure in helping civil servants with the high cost of living.
"The long term solution for it would definitely be helping the civil servant to own a property so that it can be their residence after they retire," he said.
Meanwhile, Ali advised all civil servants not to "Bite the hand that feeds you" as the government is constantly looking after their welfare via various incentives and benefits.
"Even during the economic downturn, the government continues to think of ways to increase the civil servants' wages or their incentives as a means to alleviate their rising cost of living.
"For that, I truly hope all civil servants will not easily believe all the propaganda by irresponsible individuals meant to tarnish the image of the government," he explained.