Ministry website lists out those who committed serious offences
29/03/2007 The Star

ERRANT housing developers are listed on the Housing and Local Government Ministry website.

According to the ministry's monitoring and enforcement division director Dr G. Parameswaran, these 453 developers have committed various offences under the Housing Development (Control and Licensing) Act 1966, as of December last year.

He said 163 developers failed to comply with the directives of the Housing Tribunal, while 290 did not compound for failing to submit Form 7F, a report containing information on the project status.

Parameswaran said that for the first offence, 461 directors of the 163 housing development companies were also blacklisted.

He said the developers could not renew their new licences and advertising permits until they had compounded or complied with the tribunal’s decision.

“The division had organised several dialogue sessions with 80 problematic developers, and we have explained to them their responsibilities and obligations as a licensed developer, in protecting the interest of house buyers.

“With amendments being made to the Act, we hope to plug up the loopholes to further boost the housing industry,” he told a recent press conference at the division’s office in Kuala Lumpur.

Parameswaran said in line with the call by the Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan to government departments to compete and challenge themselves in upgrading their services, the ministry was going all out to solve as many housing project cases as possible.

He said the division emphasised on protecting house buyers, preventing projects from falling behind schedule or being abandoned, and on playing the role of mediators or facilitators to revive or speed up projects.

He said from 1990 to last year, the ministry approved 14,262 housing development projects, with the construction of more that 2.6 million houses.

From the total, Parameswaran said, 64.6% or 9,216 housing projects had been completed and handed over to the buyers and 4,547 or 31.9% of the projects were progressing smoothly.

“There are 207 delayed, 158 abandoned, and 134 projects that have not achieved the 25% progress level for the first six months after the sale and purchase agreements are signed.

“Selangor tops the list for having the most housing projects that are delayed and that have not reached the 25% progress level. The state also has the highest number of complaints from the public.

“Last year alone, 2,029 complaints on housing-related matters were from Selangor and they made up 45% of the complaints received,” he said, adding that from 4,542 complaints received last year, 1,591 cases were solved.