PETALING JAYA, 22 Oct 2008: The Real Estate and Housing Developers Association (Rehda) in Kedah wants to meet Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Razak over the state government’s 50% bumiputera quota policy in housing schemes.
Ricque Liew, chairman of Rehda in Kedah and Perlis, said the association must explain to Azizan the consequences of the new housing policy.
Azizan implemented the new scheme on 1 Sept and urged Rehda to build affordable homes instead of profiteering.
Liew said that many developers would suffer losses with the new policy as it would not allow them to release any unsold units to non-bumiputera.
He said under the previous housing scheme, developers were only compelled to ensure 30% of their property sold to bumiputra at a discounted rate. But they were allowed to sell unsold units to non-bumiputra after six to nine months with the approval of a state executive councillor.
He added that it was not necessary to increase the quota to 50% as a move to make houses affordable as most of the property in Kedah was sold under RM200,000.
“We want to explain to him (Azizan) the actual scenario in Kedah and we want to show him the statistics of actual units sold to bumiputera and the real selling prices of all the units.
“Property prices here are affordable because more than 80% of property in Kedah are priced lower than RM200,000, with most of them sold at RM100,000,” he told The Nut Graph in a telephone interview.
Liew also said that many developers would move out from the state to survive if the policy was not revoked and this could affect the economy.
He said many bumiputera would also be out of job as they made up 80% of the workforce in property development industry.
He said Azizan’s contention of the policy, which was to enable more bumiputera to own property, would not be fair to the other 50% of house buyers as they would end up subsidising them.
When contacted, state housing and local government committee chairman Datuk Mohamad Taulan Mat Rasul said Azizan would hold a press conference to give a lengthy statement about the matter after he returns from Australia on 24 Oct.
Wehdah, a non-governmental organisation representing 23 associations in Kedah, also slammed Rehda for not being professional when they threatened to pull out from the state. 
