State Housing and Town and Country Planning Committee chairman, Jagdeep Singh Deo said the matter had been agreed upon at a meeting of the monitoring working committee on the implementation of the National Housing Council’s decision.

“Hopefully, once the notification of the acquisition of land for the purpose (of public housing) is given to the federal government, it should keep its promise to serve the interests of the people, including the people of Penang,” he said at a press conference, here, today.

He said building PPR housing was under the jurisdiction of the federal government.

“The state already has various affordable housing projects with the prices of units ranging from RM42,000 to RM300,000, and totalling 22,512 units so far,” he said.

Jagdeep also said that there should be a directive or new policy from Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to ease the tight credit conditions of commercial banks for housing loan applicants in the low-income category.

He said these included, among others, lending of up to 100 per cent, extending the loan repayment period, reintroduction of the Developers Interest Bearing Scheme and allowing flexible payment according to the payer’s ability.

He said in a series of discussions with BNM at the beginning of last year, it was informed that the rejection rate of bank loans for the low-income category had reached 60 per cent.

– BERNAMA