Federal Territories Minister Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said the DAP-led Penang government had allowed housing prices to go beyond the affordability of the people and there was no initiative to check the rising prices.
Tengku Adnan, who is also Barisan Nasional secretary-general, said the BN government had been a game changer on real estate prices nationally.
Citing the various affordable housing schemes of the BN government, Tengku Adnan, who is also known as Ku Nan, said these initiatives had checked developers from arbitrarily setting the prices of houses at a high rate.
“If the BN can do it, surely the Penang government can also do so. I am surprised at the DAP reaction,” he said.
He said making Penang a federal territory would provide for equitable development and care for the Malays in that state, besides making home ownership affordable for Malays there.
Tengku Adnan had proposed in a radio interview recently that Penang, Langkawi, and a part of Melaka be made federal territories.
On a related note, he announced that the Federal Territories Ministry is to launch on March 1 a rebranded discount card for consumers in the federal territories to buy essential goods at low prices.
He said today the “Kad Komuniti Ceria” launched in February 2015 would be relaunched as the “Kad Ceria Wilayah” and would let users get discounted prices for goods and services.
“The card in existence has not been functioning well. We will issue it again under a new name and additional functions to enable residents of the federal territories to obtain essential goods and services at reasonable prices.
“We understand the difficulties faced by the people and we feel this is one of the ways we can help to ease their financial burden,” he said at a press conference after launching a Putrajaya fishing competition that drew 2,600 anglers here with RM30,000 in prizes.
The Komuniti Ceria card had offered discounts on certain goods at 2,000 outlets of 70 business partners.
Tengku Adnan said the ministry would also improve the 1WPrice mobile application containing data on the outlets offering fair prices in Kuala Lumpur, Labuan and Putrajaya.
He said that though the card was launched almost three years ago, it had yet to be fully used and so had to be upgraded and relaunched.
“Besides knowing which goods are sold at fair prices, the users can also share information on the location of the outlets offering the fair prices,” he said.