www.thejakartaglobe.com - The Ministry of Public Housing has pledged to build 12,000 homes that will retail for less than Rp 70 million ($7,700) in underdeveloped areas across Indonesia, according to a memorandum of understanding signed with the Ministry for Underdeveloped Areas this week.
“Based on the budget available, the Housing Ministry will build 60,000 homes in 2012 and some of it will be earmarked for underdeveloped areas. But the figure is still far from [Indonesia’s] housing needs of 4.8 million units,” Public Housing Minister Djan Faridz said on Tuesday. (source)
The homes would provide housing for low-ranking civil servants and low-income residents, Djan said. Each house would measure about 36 square meters and sit on 60 square meters of land.
Similar homes built by the ministry in the Greater Jakarta area retailed for Rp 70 million, the minister said, meaning that the price would be lower for houses outside of Jakarta, particularly in underdeveloped areas.
Djan said the ministry had worked together with state-owned lenders Bank Negara Indonesia, Bank Mandiri, Bank Tabungan Negara, Bank Rakyat Indonesia and BRI Syariah to lower interest rates from 9.95 percent to 7.5 percent, making the monthly installment less than Rp 575,000.
“We are also trying to get the houses to be PPN [value added tax] free,” the minister said.
Underdeveloped Areas Minister Helmy Faishal Zaini said that 200 locations had been chosen to build the 12,000 homes in 27 provinces excluding those such as Jakarta, Bali and Yogyakarta which are considered more developed.
Impoverished provinces East Nusa Tenggara and Papua will receive 1,440 and 1,260 homes respectively, while Central Sulawesi and West Kalimantan will get 660 each.
No homes will be built in Riau, Jambi and Central Kalimantan. Although those provinces have several remote areas, housing demand has been low there.
F. Teguh Satria, the advisory board chairman at Real Estate Indonesia, said that the government must ensure that only low-income families benefit from the program.
Critics have said that similar programs in the past, including apartments for the poor, had flaws because the units were purchased by more well-off individuals as investments.
“[The government] must ensure that only those who earn less than Rp 3.5 million per month and do not already have a home are eligible to join the program,” Teguh said on Tuesday.
He added that problems in the past were due to a lack of proper supervision from the government.
Djan said that the government had imposed strict requirements for people buying apartments for the poor and other public housing programs. Buyers are also not allowed to resell their units for at least five years.
Ineligible people can still buy units, but at non-subsidized prices that must be paid in full. Those unites will be subject to a 10 percent VAT.
It is unclear whether privileged people can still buy the houses through the non-subsidized scheme.
Djan said the ministry was also racing to meet today’s housing needs of 4.8 million
“We have reported to the president so that we can build 500,000 next year,” the minister said, adding that another 500,000 would be built in 2014.
Source: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/business/ministry-eyes-thousands-of-homes-for-poor-families/502951 - March 7, 2012
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