SPNB plans offices to push housing promo

SYARIKAT Perumahan Negara Bhd (SPNB) plans to open satellite offices at all of its projects to enhance promotional efforts to the community.

Managing director Dr Kamarul Rashdan Salleh said at present the promotion of housing projects developed by SPNB was still at an unsatistactory level.

"By building satellite offices, the people within the area can obtain further information on projects being undertaken by SPNB," he told Bernama in a recent interview.

Apart from that, Kamarul Rashdan said SPNB was also in the process of establishing a call centre to deal with all applications, grouses and complaints from customers.
He said that to date his organisation had received a lot of queries, mainly on the rumah mesra rakyat.Under this programme, SPNB is offering home ownership for those with income not exceeding RM18,000 and those facing difficulties in obtaining a housing loan from financial institutions.

According to Kamarul Rashdan, SPNB will also introduce a special package in the near future to attract the public to purchase homes developed by it.

Established on Aug 21, 1997, SPNB is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOF Inc). Its aim is to develop quality, affordable housing for every family in Malaysia.

SPNB offers four key products, namely, affordable homes, the rumah mesra rakyat,rehabilitation of abandoned projects and charity homes as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme.

Kamarul Rashdan said SPNB had completed building a total of 8,853 units of affordable homes involving 17 projects in Kedah, Pahang, Selangor, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan, Sabah and Sarawak over 134 hectares.

He explained that at the moment, SPNB was undertaking 35 affordable homes projects throughout the country and involving 35,583 houses.

On the rumah mesra rakyat, he said SPNB had approved a total of 17,839 applications from 35,642 applicants with an allocation of RM1.1 billion.

In the case of abandoned projects, he said SPNB had been directed to rehabilitate 74,652 units of houses involving 257 projects with a deveopment value of RM5.6 billion.

"To date, SPNB has succeeded in completing 75 projects involving 23,185 abandoned houses throughout the country at a development cost of RM433 million," he highlighted.

On the charity homes, Kamarul Rashdan said SPNB had built 149 units of homes throughout the country to date.

He explained that the charity homes was a scheme where SPNB built or repaired homes for the poor for free, through an allocation from its annual profits.

Meanwhile, Kamarul Rashdan said in conjunction with the 12th anniversary of SPNB this year, there were plans to organise programmes such as dialogue sessions and exhibitions, to bring the company closer to the public. - Bernama