The Penang Housing Unit should deploy more officers who can converse in Hokkien and Mandarin to handle queries from the public, says Jelutong MP Jeff Ooi.
He said this would be of great help to those who cannot communicate effectively in Bahasa Malaysia or English.
“I also feel housing officers should go more on the ground to brief the public on how to apply for low medium-cost (LMC) units.
“They should get outdoors instead of staying in air-conditioned office and wait for the public to approach them,” he told reporters after giving a briefing to LMC applicants from his constituency at the Penang YMCA.
Ooi said the briefing focused on 229 people who had sought help from his service centre before July 19 on the status of their LMC applications.
“Many of these people were hoping to be allotted a unit at the Central Garden LMC flats in Batu Lanchang.
“There were more than 1,300 applications for the 195 units there,” he said.
Ooi said he had asked his people to get the list of successful applicants for the flats but there was lack of co-operation from the housing unit officers.
“So, I asked my people to photograph the list and reproduce it at the YMCA for public display. The people can then inspect the list to find out if they are successful,” he said.
Ooi stressed that unsuccessful applicants need to update their particulars especially their correspondence address with the housing unit so that they could be contacted at all times.
He said successful applicants need to be present at the developer’s office to draw lots within a specific period to determine their unit for the execution of sales and purchase agreement.
Successful applicants who want to reject the offer can appeal through a pink form for their application to be considered for other LMC projects.
“If they fail to do this, their names will no longer be considered for new projects as they are deemed to be successful applicants based on computer records,” he said on Saturday. - By The Star
No comments