THE government cannot afford to continue programmes that also subsidise housing for high-income earners, said Khazanah, the national strategic investment fund.

Suraya Ismail, director of research at Khazanah Research Institute, said housing assistance programmes have now reached the top 20% income-earners of households. 

“It’s too much burden on the government, fiscally,” Suraya told reporters after moderating a forum on low-cost housing today, which was organised by Khazanah.

“Fiscally, it is a burden to the government to continue subsidising houses for the bottom 40% to the middle 40% and now to the top 20% of Malaysian households,” she said.

Suraya said the private sector should be allowed to become more efficient to allow better housing prices for lower-income groups. 

The income threshold for the households are: bottom 40% (B40) below RM3,860; middle 40% (M40), RM3,861-RM8,319; and top 20% (T20), RM8,320 and above.

“In no other country does the top 20% get assistance from the government. We shouldn’t do that.”

Deputy director-general of the National Housing Department Jayaseelan K. Navaratnam said assistance for top earners was not part of the initial plan. 

“When we designed the housing property assistance scheme, we never thought about T20 because the salary structure Dr Suraya talked about, was taken from 2014,” he told reporters after the forum.

“This is already 2017. What we designed was for B40 at the beginning but along the way, the M40 started to ask (for affordable housing). 

“What we found was that the T20 at the salary of RM8,229 were also unable to purchase houses,” Jayaseelan said. 

The government is looking into why top income-earners could no longer afford a home at the cost of RM300,000 and above.

“What are they doing with their incomes? Are there other problems that are preventing them from buying these houses? We will be communicating with Bank Negara on this. But our focus will remain on B40 because they are our priority.”

Earlier, Jayaseelan told the forum entitled “Housing as habitat: A case of market failure or institutional limitations?” that his department does not have enough hard data on housing. 

“We do not have the right data at this moment to gauge and make proper decisions. And we are making decisions based on hypotheticals.”

Malaysian home ownership stands at 72.5%, according to the 2010 census. – August 23, 2017.