THE POOR, EPF AND THE DUMMIES IN PAKATAN RAKYAT - PART 1

These past few weeks, there has been a lot of talk and criticism by the opposition regarding the announcement made by PM Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak on the implementation of a scheme for poor city residents to own the Project Perumahan Rakyat (PPR) flats. The bone of criticism by the opposition are as follow, which i have picked up from various blogs around:

1. Government to impose an interest rate of 2% for those purchasing the Public Housing Project (PPR) flats using funds from the Employees Provident Fund (EPF). - Nurul Izzah
2. There are many uncertainties linked to EPF's RM1.5 billion loan to the government.- Baru Bian
3. Employee Provident Fund will be extending RM1.5 billion in loans directly to those who failed to secure commercial loans to purchase their houses. - Tony Pua

I will be addressing these three (3) statements done by the opposition (PKR and DAP), I wonder if PAS had anything to say or they are now merely a political party that is in charge of only Islamic/Religious and Malay custom affairs? So like those days before independence where the Sultan was in charged of these portfolios whereas the British took control of the economy and what not. But that i will touch on another day.

First of all, before i proceed with breaking down the arguments of these so called Yang Berhormat (YB's) and Economic experts, lets have a look at the history of the urban poor and this scheme:

A BRIEF HISTORY

1. Request by PPR tenants to purchase the house they are currently residing in.
2. Government agreed to the request, on 11 July 2009, YAB Prime Minister DS Najib Tun Razak announced the sale of 44,146 unit of PPR houses.
3. However, the financing for these units were dependent on the application of purchase by residents, and approval of their respective bank loans.
4. No special scheme was there for this residents.
5. Out of the 44, 146 units, 4,988 had successfully bought their homes (approx 15%) with 716 using personal loans, and 4,272 paying with either their savings or using up the EPF monies.
6. Upon identifying that many of the residents did not managed to get bank loans, the government initiated and developed a special scheme to assist these residents.
7. On the 7 October 2011 the scheme was approved by the cabinet with minor amendments. Note that it took two (2) years for the relevant ministry to do their homework, and to obtain the Cabinet approval. Therefore allegations that this was an ad-hoc scheme to buy voters is utterly baseless.
8. 18 January 2012, the final approval from the Cabinet was received. Note: Up till now, from the first announcement by the PM to the development of the scheme took approximately 2 and a half year.
9. 28 January 2012, the Prime Minister announced the implementation of this scheme.

In Part - 2, i would talk about the objective of this scheme, and the approach/process taken.

Berkhidmat utk rakyat, dan kepada ALLAH swt kami berserah.

@kabir_akram

Source: The Kuala Lumpur Chronicle

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