KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (Shareda) urged the state government to intervene and have utility services monopoly holders reduce the capital contribution they charge on housing developers in Sabah.
Its president, Francis Goh, said the high rate of capital contribution paid to Sabah’s sole power provider, Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) and communication company Telekom, contributed to the high cost of houses in Sabah.
“For effective approach to keep price hike of properties in Sabah on check, we strongly suggest that the state government restrains monopoly service providers such as SESB and Telekom from imposing unreasonable departmental and outrageous consumer capital contributions on developers,” he said.
Speaking at the launch of Sabah Property Exhibition (PropEx) 2013 at Sabah Trade Centre here yesterday, Goh said the consumer capital contribution for electricity supply in Sabah was 700 per cent higher than that in Peninsular Malaysia.
He said this, together with the high logistical cost caused by the Cabotage Policy, were among the issues that the government needed to look at if it was serious in making the price of houses in the state more affordable to the lower income group.
Goh also reiterated Shareda’s call to the state government to speed up the approval process for housing development projects, saying delay in getting the approval would result in increased holding cost for developers.
He said these three factors contributed to an increase of at least 15 per cent to the prices of housing properties in Sabah.
Another major factor that was causing the prices of properties in the state to sky rocket, he noted, was the rapid increase of land prices, especially in town and its surrounding areas.
In this respect, he suggested the government expedited the construction of new roads and other infrastructures to open up new lands for housing projects, saying this would help stabilize the land prices.
He added that the government could also consider stopping foreign companies from buying vacant lands in Sabah, as competition for the remaining available site for development projects with these companies contributed to increasing price tag on lands.
Alternatively, he said the government could encourage foreign investors, and peninsula-based listed companies to purchase only first hand properties from local developers.
Goh said Shareda was looking forward to a stronger partnership and collaboration with related government agencies to build more affordable homes in Sabah.
Without revealing any details, he informed that the association was pitching for a joint-venture with Jabatan Perumahan Negara (JPN) for four different projects involving 2,791 units of affordable houses in Sabah.