So if the government has no power in enforcing rules on developers, as Abdul Rahman claims, asked Shahbudin Husin, “what power does it have?”
Shahbudin then asked why Umno, Barisan Nasional (BN) and the Ministers appeal to the people to give them power every time a General Election comes if they are do not even have the ability to build houses, especially when the people don’t even ask to have these houses for free.
“If this (a powerless government) is the reality, it’s better to change the government.”
The analyst was commenting on Rahman Dahlan’s response to Sultan Nazrin Shah on the affordable housing issue. “Is he trying to show that the Sultan doesn’t know what he’s talking about?
“Sultan Nazrin is not only a sultan who is respected and loved by the people, he’s highly educated and has a PhD.”
The analyst said that Rahman Dahlan should not have stated, in response to the Sultan, that the government has no power to compel developers to build affordable housing “because Malaysia is not a communist country”.
Rahman Dahlan added that what the government can do was to appeal to developers to build affordable homes as part of their social obligations while simultaneously building expensives houses. “He said that since we are not a communist country, and cannot stop developers from building expensive houses, they could build whatever houses they wanted.”
Shahbudin pointed out that Sultan Nazrin was right about the country’s current situation when he said that developers, it appears, preferred to build expensive houses and did not want to be concerned with building affordable ones. “The Sultan said that affordable homes is the cry of the people, especially among Malays and the Bumiputeras.”
The Sultan, continued Shahbudin, expressed concern that the local people would not be able to own homes if the current situation persisted, and home ownership was monopolised by others.
The Sultan is right, stressed the analyst, and his plea should be taken into serious consideration by the government. “They should not respond with statements like ‘we are not a communist country’ instead.”