News

Perbadanan PR1MA lauds govt's decision to let programme continue

Last update: 08/05/2019

KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 (Bernama) -- Perbadanan PR1MA Malaysia (PR1MA) lauds the government’s decision to continue with its housing programme, carrying forward PR1MA's main objective of building quality houses in urban and suburban areas and making them affordable to the people, particularly the middle-income (M40) group.

To better fulfil its mandate and adapt to market conditions, PR1MA is currently undertaking a transformation exercise and is well on its way to make its turnaround a success, the public housing agency said in a statement today in response to Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin's recent announcement on continuing PR1MA with a focus on M40 instead of the B40 (low-income) group previously.

The business transformation is a part of the strategy to ensure that the organisation is better aligned with the Government’s national housing agenda. A due diligence is currently being undertaken and is expected to be concluded next month.

 Last month, Zuraida said there was a possibility of dissolving the “ill-managed” PR1MA scheme pending the due diligence report. It was reported that PR1MA, which was targeted to deliver 500,000 homes by last year, had only managed to build 11,484 houses.

In today's statement, PR1MA’s acting chief executive officer Mohd Nazri Md Shariff said as a Government entity, PR1MA is committed to ensure that its obligation with stakeholders including homebuyers is honoured.

“At the same time, we are also embarking on a transformation exercise that will enable PR1MA to maximise the effectiveness of the change effort that is taking place within the organisation to further improve our business and operations,” he said.

The response to PR1MA developments remains positive from potential home buyers.

In fact, through the ongoing Home Ownership Campaign (HOC 2019), PR1MA has achieved sales bookings of around 10,200 homes with a sales value of RM2.56 billion in less than three months of the launch of the HOC, he said.

Previously, government-aided housing programmes were focused only on the lower-income group and this makes about half of middle-income Malaysian households unable to afford a house in the key market centres. As such, PR1MA was formed with the primary objective to serve as a catalyst that provides fairly-priced quality homes for the M40 income group in the urban and suburban areas.

Furthermore, PR1MA’s development projects are also set to create a multiplier effect on the local economy as it helps to create value from the land while opening up more jobs and business opportunities for the local communities.

“These and many other new initiatives are in the pipeline to deliver on the national housing agenda, in line with the Government’s aspirations to uplift the quality of life for the rakyat,” PR1MA said.

It said it remains focused on building houses and developments that create harmonious community living for homeowners, with quality features and amenities suited for the modern Malaysian lifestyle, such as multipurpose hall, playground, surau, childcare centre and, where possible, swimming pool.

Currently, a total of 43,137 PR1MA units are in active construction, it said.

-- BERNAMA