Kota Kinabalu: The State Government plans to allocate 10 per cent of units in People’s Housing Programmes (PPRs) in Sabah for fresh graduates, said Deputy Chief Minister II Datuk Seri Dr Joachim Gunsalam.
He said this is to reduce the financial burden of fresh graduates who have just been employed and have to rent rooms or houses.
“This proposal is still at the discussion stage. We are currently talking to relevant parties such as local councils and the Sabah Housing and Urban Development Board (LPPB).
“We have about 1,000 PPR units that are ready but 10,000 people are applying for them. Thus, it is not easy to select who should be given the houses,” he told a press conference after launching the Shareda PropEX 2023 at the Sabah International Convention Centre (SICC), here, recently.
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“We need more PPRs but sadly allocation is not coming from the sky, we have to look for the allocation.
“We are still depending on the Federal Government to build PPR projects in Sabah as they are costly.
“In the peninsula, a PPR unit costing RM150,000 to build is sold at RM50,000 and the Government has to subsidise RM200,000. When we talk about 1,000 PPR units, the total cost is RM200 million, so you can see that it is not easy,” he said.
Every year, Dr Joachim said, the State Government applied to the Federal Government for funding to implement PPR projects.
“For this year, of three applications submitted to the Federal Government to build PPR at identified sites in Putatan, Kinabatangan and Kuala Penyu, only the site in Kuala Penyu was recently approved for 100 units.
“Actually, the State Government applied for 200 units to be built in Kuala Penyu but due to a feasibility study that has been carried out, only 100 units were approved.”
Dr Joachim said he recently met with the Federal Local Government and Housing Minister who raised some issues on housing development in Sabah, including the need to conduct feasibility studies before getting the funds.
“So maybe we have to look at this more positively so as to avoid having projects becoming ‘sick’. We have to look at all the contributing factors in order to avoid our past mistakes,” he said.
On the Sabah Maju Jaya (SMJ) housing programme, he said the State Government could only allocate 20 units for the hardcore poor in each state constituency (DUN) which he acknowledged is not enough.
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