THE National House Buyers Association (HBA) lashed out at the Housing and Local Government Ministry for trying to absolve itself from the growing problem of errant developers abandoning their projects midway.
“Every minister that takes over the portfolio blame the insufficiency of the Housing Development (Control & Licensing) Act (HDA) and tweets about the law. The next minister will continue to do the same.
“It’s their mentality. Always blame the law and not themselves,” its honorary secretary general Datuk Chang Kim Loong told FocusM.
Earlier today, Bernama reported Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Zuraida Kamaruddin as saying that the Government would amend HDA, to help house buyers who had their projects abandoned by developers.
She also said that the amendment would include stiffer penalty against developers who fail to complete the housing projects launched.
“Right now, our laws are weak. It only allows us to blacklist errant developers,” she was reported saying.
An unimpressed Chang claimed the real problem was the ministry lacking motivation to enforce existing laws on errant developers.
“It’s the enforcement measures that is lacking. The laws are good and sufficient. Problem is the safety nets and pre-emptive measures were not fully and intelligently implemented.
“Just look at the numbers of problematic projects. Though project abandonment was criminalised, none were prosecuted so far,” he retorted. – July 5, 2021.
