Young Adults cannot afford Housing in Sabah

KOTA KINABALU, March 2, 2011: Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) has put the entire blame on the Barisan Nasional (BN) government, with a typically low starting salary, young adults, professionals and semi-professionals alike are experiencing an unfair disadvantage compared to their counterparts in other, if not most states in Malaysia, especially that of the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. This is so, even when Sabah has one of the highest costs of living of any states in Malaysia.

Below, is an example of the basic needs and expenses per month of a typical a young adult who earns RM 2,000.00 a month:-

Descriptions	Amount (RM) per month
Income	2000.00
MINUS EPF (11%)	220.00
SOCSO	15.00
Car Loan for MYVI (9 years) Car Price: RM45000.00	430.00
Mobile Phone / House Phone	50.00
Petrol	200.00
Public Utilities (Water & Electricity)	80.00
Foods & Drinks	600.00
Personal and Car Insurance	105.00
Room Rental	150.00
Balance	150.00

The above is only a sample of expenses and does not even include costs of vehicle maintenance, Astro and Streamyx subscriptions, cooking gas, shampoos and soaps, house maintenance and miscellaneous.

Let's say with a saving of RM 150.00 per month, our young adults will need to save for at least 25 years ( RM 45,000.00 ) just to have enough to make a 10 % deposit to buy a house costing RM 400,000.00 Bearing in mind that I have not mentioned the added costs of a married couple with dependants and children.

In addition, the young adults are not entitled to the low cost housing scheme provided by the BN government.

This, and the ever escalating property prices will undoubtedly deal a double blow to fellow Sabahans looking to putting a roof over their families and loved ones. Yet, the typical take home annual salary has not experienced such similar and parallel increments. In the few instances of increments, they usually don’t commensurate with such high inflation.

Global oil prices in recently memory have surged to the point that is causing the increase in costs of related building material e.g. cement, sand, tiles building equipment, and especially land. All these increments, in turn, collectively contribute to the escalating property prices in Sabah, and have been so for the past 10 years especially in city of Kota Kinabalu. A no frill double-storey terrace house will cost upwards RM 400,000.00 in the city. And this does not include renovation costs, furniture and kitchen utensils and such.

With the inconsistencies in electricity and water supply, most home owners would also need to fork out additional money to buy a separate water tank and a power generator in anticipation of abrupt cuts and frequently unannounced rationing.

The state's high crime rate doesn’t help either. Due to the frequent break-ins in Sabah, most home owners also need to fork out extra money to install window grills, alarm systems and CCTVs, just to prevent and avoid petty theft.

All these are unnecessary burden are added to home buyers in Sabah due to poor and unacceptable basic infrastructure and utilities provided by government led by BN for the past 16 years.

The take home salary of Sabahans has seen little to no increase for years. This is clear and undeniable indication to us that the government led by BN has, time and again, failed terribly in assisting and improving the standard of living of fellow Sabahans, even though Sabah is blessed with vast and abundance of natural resources.

This clearly demonstrates the incompetence in management of the BN-led government.

We have been given BN-led government ample time to improve the take-home pay for the young working professional and semi-professional in Sabah but it turn futile and fail.

The coming GE13, I reckon, is timely enough to make a statement and take a stand in reversing and repairing the damages done to the state and the people of Sabah. If we vote for change, there is still HOPE yet, if we don't, we will likely never see improvements in Sabah, for all of us, in the here and now and most importantly, our future generations.

Clement Lee

SAPP CLC Api Api

Organising Secretary