Dato’ Yap Pian Hon, President of Confederation of Associations, Serdang Comments to Questions raised by NST Reporter of Real Estate & Décor (RED) on 2013 National Budget dated 30th August 2012 as follow :
1. Question 1 : What is your wish list for Budget 2013?
1. In my opinion, I wish a better control of prices of essential goods and services so that a balanced inflation rate can be achieved to reduce the burden of the low-income group.
2. Prices of Housing must be controlled to a reasonable level so that the low-income group are able to own affordable houses, achieving the target of house ownership policy, and urge Selangor Pakatan Government to repeal the policy of imposing “Development Charge” Rules 2010 (Kaedah-kaedah Caj Pemajuan2010) of 30% within all municipal councils and 20% in District Councils to curb housing price hikes.
3. Thirdly, it is hope that the Master Development Plan for 452 New Villages in Peninsular Malaysia must be implemented accordingly to achieve Social- Economic objectives and uplifting the standards of living amongst its 1.8 million population.
Question 2 : Has any of your Budget wish list for Budget 2012 been fulfilled so far?
1. The SME (IKS) has fulfilled loans, funds and actually taken measures to help the small and medium industries to further develop its competitiveness.
2. Rural Transformation Programmes had been undertaken to improve basic living amenities and infra-structures,access to banking facilities etc for citizens in rural areas of West and East Malaysia.
3. Provisions of basic and easily accessible health services with the setting up and upgrading of hospitals, community clinics and 1Malaysia Health Clinics as announced in the Budget.
Question 3 : What do you think is the single most important thing the Government can do to help the property industry in Malaysia?
1. The Government and Ministry of Housing and Local Government should come up with tighter fiscal policies and guidelines to prevent excessive property speculation to achieve affordable house prices for the low and medium income groups and State Governments to set aside state lands for public housing schemes with reasonable housing prices so as to curb price hikes.