The Petaling Jaya Utara MP was referring to KL Mayor Mohamad Amin Nordin’s comments during a meeting with opposition MPs yesterday.
“Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng informed me that the KL mayor had said that the ban on high-rise property developments above RM1 million would not be implemented in the Golden Triangle as it would not be feasible.
“This confirms two glaring flaws in the government’s ‘hare-brained’ solution for the over-supply of luxury properties in the country.
“Firstly, it shows how impractical the ban actually is, and secondly, how toothless Putrajaya is with DBKL’s defiance of a cabinet directive,” Pua said in a statement.
He added that this showed an overhaul of government bureaucracy was needed to ensure policies made are carried out to the letter.
“Otherwise, you may have the world’s best policy-makers and the highest paid consultants, but all would be wasted with a government effectively run by politically-entrenched warlords and little Napoleons.”
On Nov 19, Second Finance Minister Johari Abdul Ghani had announced that the government had issued a directive temporarily stopping the development of shopping malls, commercial complexes and condominiums valued above RM1 million from Nov 1.
The announcement was made two days after Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) had released a report stating that supply-demand imbalances in the property market have increased since 2015, with unsold residential properties being at a decade high.
“Ironically the BNM report specifically highlighted that in the Klang Valley alone office vacancy rates had increased from 20.9% in Q1 2015 to 23.6% in Q1 2017.
“The situation is only set to get worse with an incoming supply of additional 38 million square feet of office space,” Pua said.
The DAP national publicity secretary said that the freeze announcement by Johari quickly became a farce when Works Minister Fadillah Yusof contradicted his cabinet colleague by saying the ‘blanket ban’ would actually be applied on a case-by-case basis.
“Federal Territories Minister Tengku Adnan Mansor then added that 1MDB-linked projects, Tun Razak Exchange and Bandar Malaysia, would be exempted from the ban because they were ‘pre-approved’.
“Finally, cabinet made a full u-turn last week when it said that developers could appeal the ban to a ministerial committee comprising Johari, Fadillah, Urban Wellbeing and Local Government Minister Noh Omar, and Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan,” Pua said.
He added that the remark by the KL mayor however, made a mockery of every statement made by the ministers.
“If DBKL can do it, then there’s no reason why all other local councils in the country would need to comply with the directive,” he said emphasising how the situation has reached such a state of “demand and supply imbalance” as mentioned by BNM.
“It is precisely because of the cabinet’s impotence, that whatever policy that has been decided upon, good or bad, are completely diluted, if not ignored altogether like the above, by the its implementation agencies.”