PENANG Umno and PAS have urged the state government to let the evicted Taman Manggis PPR (public housing) flat tenants to go home. 

Penang Umno chairman Musa Sheikh Fadzir and state PAS commissioner Muhammad Fauzi Yusoff said the people should be allowed to return to their flats before talks resume with the authorities. 

Musa said he could not understand why the state authorities could not hold further discussions with the tenants, who are now living like refugees outside Komtar since they were locked out of their flats on Wednesday.

“How can you just give them three days to go home to pack up? Let them stay for the time being while you talk it out again.

“The authorities can still go house to house after this to check whether they are really ineligible to stay there.

“If they find people with better means, then we support action to be taken against them. Evict those who are better off but not the poor,” he told reporters when he visited Komtar to see the tenants tonight.

Six families have been camping outside Komtar, where the state government offices are located, since Wednesday to protest against their eviction.

They are among the 22 families served notices to return the PPR units to the state Housing Department after they were found to be no longer eligible.

PPR tenants lose their eligibility to stay at the units, where the monthly rental is RM100, when they fail to pay rent and accumulate arrears; when their income has exceeded the eligibility threshold; when they are found to own property or married to foreigners.

Musa said such an incident never happened when BN was in power. 

He urged the state government to take Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin’s advice for the state government to discuss the matter with the affected tenants.

Fauzi said some of the evicted tenants were senior citizens and children, who were locked out of their homes without their medicine and school uniforms. 

“This is not right. Where are our human values?

“In the past, developers tossed out people in this manner, but now it is the state government. Who can the people turn to?”

Fauzi agreed with Musa that the people should be allowed to go home, adding that the state government should consider the difference between the urban and rural poor.

The poor in the city, he said, hardly have money to spare even if their household income was higher than RM1,500, which is the income cap for PPR tenants.

“With the cost of living in the city, households earning RM1,500 will have little to nothing to spare.”

He also blamed the state government for failing to build homes for the poor. 

“You have to build homes for the poor, not evict them to make room for other poor people on the long waiting list. 

“We have seen many expensive homes built. But most locals and Malays can’t afford such properties,” he said.

Earlier today, the state decided to allow the tenants to go home for three days to pack their things. By Monday, they will have to return the units to the authorities. 

But because the state offered no housing solution to them, they declined the offer. 

Earlier today, Tanjong Bersatu division chief Kamal Fairos said in a statement that the tenants were not left homeless after the eviction. 

He said they were offered temporary accommodations at a Penang Islamic Council (MAINPP) hotel but they had turned the offer down. – March 8, 2019.