SEREMBAN: Frustrated house buyers have called on the government to restart the 1Malaysia People’s Housing Scheme (PR1MA) project in Rantau here.
The housing project has been left abandoned since September last year.
House buyers said the project, which includes 1,103 units of single and double story houses, should have been completed by Jan 31 after construction began in 2017.
“The developer never explained why the project could not be finished. Currently, the project is about 50 per cent complete,” said one of the house buyers Azezam Shah Zambri at a press conference near the construction site at Bandar Ekar in Rantau today.
Azezam, 35, said many home owners were frustrated and beset by financial difficulties as they had to not only repay their housing loans but also pay rent for their current places of residence.
“We have to pay between RM1,000 and RM1,300 in instalment every month. The price of each home is above RM230,000,” he said, adding that about 50 per cent of the affected home owners’ sales and purchase agreements had also expired.
“The money spent on the monthly instalments and rent could have been used to purchase a house worth RM400,000,” he said.
He also said a notice was put up at the construction site in December, which said construction work could not continue as the developer, Bina Terbit Sdn Bhd, had stopped receiving payment from Perbadanan PR1MA Malaysia.
Azezam, who works as a corporate communications executive at private university in Nilai, said house buyers sought an explanation from the then Rantau assemblyman Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan, but to no avail.
Present were fellow house buyers K. Thinesh, 31, and Kamarul Zaman Awang, 29.
The issue of abandoned housing projects under PR1MA is not exclusive to Rantau.
Last August, it was revealed in the Dewan Rakyat that the Barisan Nasional federal government only completed 8,475 units of PR1MA homes out of the 500,000 promised since 2013.
Deputy Housing and Local Government minister Datuk Raja Kamarul Bahrin Shah Raja Ahmad Shah had said most of the PRIMA housing projects were abandoned believed to be due to poor project supervision.