The Auditor-General discovered that many ineligible applicants managed to obtain affordable houses (PPKR units) in Penang, reported Bernama.
According to its latest annual report, between 2014 and 2016, there were 208 households that were granted low-cost flats despite earning over RM2,500 per month. Similarly, 162 families got these flats regardless of their monthly income ranging from RM2,501 to RM3,500.
The report stated that “there were four cases of applications which were approved involving applicants earning more than RM8,500.”
On the other hand, there are 490 applicants for PPKR units and 666 applicants for the Public Housing Project (PPR) units who are still awaiting their houses even though they have already applied over 15 years ago.
The delay in providing houses to these applicants is mainly attributed to issues in transferring data from the old system to the new one.
Moreover, the Auditor-General alleged that there is zero planning for the construction of affordable housing developments in the state despite having large funding. As of August 2016, accounts for these projects have a total balance of RM121.99 million, while the Penang government has not yet used its receipts since 2013.
It also found out that 436 PPR units remain vacant even though there are 3,747 applications. “The unsatisfactory management of house distribution was due to the failure in offering some of the housing units,” it said.
“This resulted in the state government losing rental income. The process of filling up the vacant units was also slow despite the fact that there were applicants on the waiting list.”
Furthermore, it discovered that some unit tenants and buyers are still occupying PPKR and PPR units despite owing maintenance arrears of up to RM6,240 and RM43,748 in the selling price.
“The subsequent audit analysis on the hire-purchase arrears on the PPR houses for 2,900 units revealed there was an increase of RM2.85 million from 2013 until October 2016 involving arrears of between one and 186 months.”
Thus, it reminded Penang’s housing division that they are allowed by contract to seal the flats of tenants who fail to pay their arrears for three straight months to force them to fulfil their financial obligation.
“The Audit Department felt that the management of collection and arrears was unsatisfactory and the Housing Division must take more drastic measures to collect the arrears so that the amount of arrears did not continue to rise,” it added.
Image sourced from FMT
Radin Ghazali, Content Writer at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact her about this or other stories email radin@propertyguru.com.my
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