FOR CHARITY CAUSE…Susan (right) presenting a mock cheque of RM10,000 to Ben Lim representative from Kota Kinabalu High School while Hajiji (centre) and SHAREDA council members look on.

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (SHAREDA) wants to work closely with the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture to promote the Sabah property by way of joining all the tourism promotion trips either locally or internationally.

Its president, Datuk Susan Wong Siew Guen, believed that by working together they could bring Sabah property out to the world and get more foreign investors, and in turn to enhance the ‘Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme.

“We assure you that we will build quality and comfortable with innovative design houses at a reasonable price with clean and green environments to attract foreign investors,” she said at the SHAREDA Night 2009 with a theme ‘Building Towards a Green Future’ cum 31st anniversary of SHAREDA at a resort here on Saturday night.

She believed that with the support from the Tourism Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun it will definitely strengthen its stand in the property industry and bring SHAREDA to a new era.

She also thanked all SHAREDA council members and described most of them as ‘heavyweights’ and ‘big taukes’ as well as being cooperative, committed and dedicated in contributing their best to the association.

As the new president of SHAREDA for the first 120 days, Susan noted that the State government had been proactive in helping the housing industry particularly in addressing matters related to the regulation and housing policies in the state.

Among the progress that had been achieved so far was the prompt action taken by Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Hajiji Noor in expediting the approval of the development plans process by directing the Central Board to hold more meetings to clear the backlog.

She said the minister also responded promptly to the call by SHAREDA to review the policy of the building setbacks for Sabah by forming a special committee led by its permanent secretary Datuk Abidin Madingkir whereby its first meeting was already conducted and SHAREDA is hoping to get a good news soon.

She said SHAREDA is still looking forward to a response from the Housing Ministry on its request to consider relaxing the conditions in the housing developer’s licence in order to allow developers to start site preparation works first, before the issuance of the licence provided that no sales and marketing activities are involved.

Susan said SHAREDA was also grateful to the Kota Kinabalu City Hall (KKCH) Mayor Datuk IIiyas Ibrahim for giving his assurance that he will look into the residential setbacks in Kota Kinabalu and toTelekom Malaysia Sabah general manager Sukkuriya Masri for entering a smart partnership with the association to abolish the payment of capital contribution effective May this year.

Susan also reiterated her call to the State Government to address three of its issues that SHAREDA has raised namely to maintain the original lease term of 999 years after subdivision and change of land use; to solve the acute shortage of river sand in Sabah; and to convey SHAREDA’s proposal to the Federal Government to introduce a RM20,000 one-off grant to first time house buyers.

Meanwhile, she announced that SHAREDA will be hosting the 11th Malaysian Developers’ Council meeting on August 14 next month at Le Meridien here during which it will present a paper entitled ‘SHAREDA Perspective Points of View on Good Governance Towards Quality Housing & Services’ in the Sabah Housing Conference 2009 organised by the Ministry of Local Government and Housing from August 18-19 next month at Magellan Sutera Harbour Resort.

She also urged all its members to give strong support for the SHAREDA PROPEX 2009 to be held in October this year.

In the mean time, SHAREDA contributed RM10,000 to The Sabah Society for the Blind, Sabah Anti Tuberculosis Association (RM10,000) and Kota Kinabalu High School (RM10,000).

Source: http://www.newsabahtimes.com.my/nstweb/fullstory/30318

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