My mother competed her IC application at 9pm. Yes, Evening time, 9pm. My baby daughter’s passport was completed within 1 hour on a Saturday. I remembered how long my wife queued to apply for a new IC after she lost her wallet. I queued for over 40 minutes for my passport application in Penang many years ago. In fact, even longer time ago, if you were willing to pay runners, you get your passport earlier than others. Today, if the difference is just 1 hour, would you PAY anyone? My ex boss complained online about his passport application taking over 2 weeks and there were still no response. He’s a British. Today, Urban Transformation Centres (UTC) are open until 10pm, even on weekends. If you have not heard of it, better google it and start using it.
REHDA Real Estate and Housing Developers Association Malaysia) is suggesting for a central National Affordable Housing Delivery Centre to handle all the issues on social housing, especially for affordable and low-cost housing. I hate to say this but until today, I still have friends who said that if you are willing to pay, there are still chances for you to get the unit you want. I think this may be a reason why this has been suggested. This is what its chairman of its board of trustees Tan Sri Eddy Chen Lok Loi said about the proposed centre, ‘to ensure timely and cost efficient supply’. He wanted the centre to be established under the Housing, Urban Wellbeing and Local Government Ministry and urged all parties should look at it objectively and based on a bipartisan approach. Main objective is only to ensure the smooth delivery of social housing.
Total new affordable and low cost housing that he is worried about includes 159,019 units under the following agencies: 1Malaysia Civil Servants’ Housing (PPA1M) (16,000 units), 1Malaysia People’s Housing Programme (PR1MA) (80,000 units), Syarikat Perumahan Negara Bhd (SPNB) (37,000 units) and National Housing Department (JPN) (26,000 units). These 159,000 units do not include yet those pledged by the various state governments, which varies from 15,000 to 45,000 units per state. To be added to this would be the mandatory affordable and low-cost houses imposed on private developers,” estimated at 50,000 units. He said the probability is there that those who intended to buy a PR1MA house might also qualify for others, all of which are subsidised units. The central agency would prevent a potential misallocation of already scarce resources.
I seriously hope these suggestions may be taken seriously even if the chances of this happening is slimmer than slim. I think all of you would know why.
written on 16 Oct 2014
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