KOTA KINABALU:
Lembaga Pembangunan Perumahan dan Bandar (LPPB) manager PS Wong has assured that she is prepared to help make it easy for the occupants of the flats at Taman Jaya Diri in Sepangar to pay their rental arrears. She said there is no need for any of the more than -700 tenants to resort to borrowing from loan sharks to pay their outstanding rent. “I would surely help them if they come to my office, make a proposal on how they could settle their outstanding rent, or tell me how I could help them to overcome their burden,” she said. “I pity them too when they turn to AhLong. . .it is not solving their problem because if they do not have a fixed income, how could they be able to pay the rent in future. Besides, they are burdening themselves with having to pay a high interest to Ah Long?” Wong was asked to comment on the revelation of the tenants’ plight by CASH Deputy President, Nordin Thani, who said numerous desperate residents there turned to Ah Long for loans to pay their rental arrears after they were told to vacate the flats if they failed to pay. “As a human being, I understand their situation, no fixed income, hardly pay their rent on time... but they must also understand that we are also doing our duty to collect rent here,” said Wong. “The problem are some tenants who failed to pay their outstanding rents and did not approach us here or see us to make a proposal how they could pay their outstanding rents,” she said. “If they discuss with us, they could pay by instalments.., let us know why they could not pay the amount we have asked, we still could consider as long as they want to pay. “However, some of them did not respond at all when we issued the notices and are not paying the outstanding rents at all, so we have no choice but to issue a notice for them to vacate the flats. Furthermore, we have a long waiting list of new applicants, so if the existing tenants could not pay, we have other applicants ready to rent the flats.” According to Wong, should the tenants come to LPPB office to see her or her officers in charge of rent collection, they would be asked to pay at least 50 percent of the outstanding balance. “However, if they could not pay that amount, they could pay a minimum of 30 percent. If they still could not do that, we would consider their proposals ….. we still can negotiate. The important thing is they undertake to pay,” she said. Asked if she received instructions from any authority to issue an eviction notice to the tenants who failed to pay, Wong replied, “No, I did not; this is a routine for us to solve the problem.” Asked if she was aware that some of the tenants have claimed they received promises from their former BN candidate that they would stay at the flats temporary and could return to their former houses which they were asked to leave, she said: “As far as I am concerned, if the tenants are genuinely unable to pay the rent, there is a scheme for them to apply last year from the Federal Government, through Kota Kinabalu City Hall, whereby, if approved, they need not pay their rents for a year.” Meanwhile, a City Hall spokeswoman said they have received many applications for over a year, not only from Taman Jaya Diri tenants but also from Taman Bukit Setia, which is also a housing scheme run by LPPB. “All the applicants are having difficulty paying the rents and feeling the burden of having to pay the outstanding rents, especially when they do not have a fixed income, have large families and having to cope with a high cost of living,” she said. “We have submitted their applications to the Federal Government, but we do not know why the latter has not replied. We could not do anything further but to wait.”
