PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) today called upon private sector employers to provide a subsidy for the housing loan interest to help lessen the burden on the workers.
Its Secretary General N Gopal Kishnam said this would complement the government’s efforts in providing affordable housing for low- and middle-income workers.
Servicing the housing loan is one of the core expenditures of the workers and if this could be reduced via the subsidy it would go a long way to ease the workers’ financial woes, he told Bernama here.
Gopal was commenting on the recently launched First Home Deposit Funding Scheme (MyDeposit) by the government which would provide 10 per cent or a maximum of RM30,000 (whichever is lower) to first-time house buyers to buy houses costing less than RM500,000.
MTUC represents more than 500,000 workers both in the public and private sectors.
Gopal also supported the call by its affiliate the National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE) in seeking interest-free housing loans for its clerical and non-clerical members.
The NUBE had submitted a proposal to the Malaysian Association of Banks (MAB) to consider providing interest-free loans for its employees for houses costing between RM300,000 and RM 500,000.
According to the NUBE, the banks should consider housing provision as their corporate social responsibility and assist their employees.— Bernama