ON the 10th anniversary of the opposition taking Penang, the state government today said it had made huge strides in offering deserving Penangites affordable housing.

Penang housing exco Jagdeep Singh Deo said the state government has offered over 41,000 housing applicants low cost (19,284 units), low-medium cost (7,884 units) and affordable (13,946 units) homes.

He said although there were still 30,000 names on the waiting list, many applications had been cleared.

“We are walking the talk. We are selecting applicants and offering the units to those eligible,” he told reporters at Komtar.

The state housing department control the sales of low cost (RM42,000), low-medium cost (RM72,500) and affordable homes (up to RM300,000) to ensure the units are sold to deserving buyers and not speculators.

The waiting list for affordable housing is vented by the department’s Selection Process Enhancement Committee (SPEC).

“SPEC had made good progress. Its officers deserve praise. There is no backlog for low-cost home applicants in northern and central Seberang Prai.

“The backlog for the other districts has been cleared up to 2012. There are still some 30,000 on the list,” said Jagdeep, who was appointed housing exco in 2013.

The DAP rep for Datuk Keramat said the long waiting list that stretched for many years was partly because there was low stock in affordable homes since the previous administration.

He said between 1999 and 2007, the Barisan Nasional administration only completed 5,154 low and low-medium cost homes.

Jagdeep said the Pakatan Harapan administration had seen the completion of 24,227 low and low-medium cost units from 2008 to 2017, across all five districts in the state.

He said 17,686 low cost, low-medium cost and affordable units are being built.

“In the pipeline are 32,248 more units in the three housing categories. The projects have been approved.

“Add up these numbers, Penang had, is and will build 74,161 homes in these three categories,” he said.

Jagdeep said there were quarters that often claim Penang had not built affordable homes for the people but the numbers showed otherwise.

Property prices are among the highest in Penang, the second smallest state but one of the most developed ones in Malaysia.

The rising property prices and the lack of affordable homes were big issues used against the administration in the 2013 general election.

Recently, an anonymous video that went viral showed an unnamed woman claiming to live in Penang complaining about high property prices and the lack of affordable homes in the state for regular folk. – March 8, 2018.