Ministry Of Housing Or Ministry For Housing Developers?

The Housing and Local Government Ministry is one of the few heartless ministries in the country which does the least for the people. Its very existence is to facilitate and ease the problems of the housing developer and to hell with the public. Sometimes I wonder if the correct name of the portfolio held by Ong Ka Ting should be Minister For Housing Developers.

Take the Build-And-Sell Concept for housing which the ministry first touted with fanfare. After some time and perhaps because of the intervention of his abang2 in the housing industry, Ka Ting and his deputy minister, Azizah Mohd Dun hemmed and hawed while lamenting that houses under this concept wil be more expensive. Of course I won't blame the deputy minister who cannot contradict the boss. That buyers would not need to withdraw their savings and apply for loans to buy houses which were still under construction under the build-and-sell concept did not figure in their calculations, speaks volumes of the ministry's caring attitude for the people.

Now Ka Ting has more or less given the death sentence to the concept, when he piously said that the government has yet to set the launching date of the build and sell concept as a lot of developers still do not have the 'financial capability' to carry out such projects, adding that if the concept was implemented hastily it could jeopardise housing development, especially in the urban areas. So he is clearly on the side of the 'impoverished' developer and not the mega wealthy average Malaysian buyer.

You can read about Ong Ka Ting's conciliatory (to the developers) speech in Parliament HERE.

You can also read about the earlier obfuscation by his ministry in a July 5th post in this blog: Houses To Cost More Under Build-And-Sell Concept.
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