The Johor government is committed to ensuring that the prices for affordable homes in the state remain within the means of the rakyat.
Mentri Besar Datuk Mohamed Khaled Nordin said among all the states in the country, Johor ensured the rakyat would be able to afford to own a house with reasonable price.
Khaled (second from left) making enquiries at the newly open Tabung Haji branch. With him is (left) Lembaga Tabung Haji group managing director and chief executive officer Tan Sri Ismee Ismail.
The price in Selangor is RM200,000 while properties in Penang is above RM300,000, affordable houses in Johor will not be more than RM150,000.
This was due to the fact that a lot of affordable housing projects here had been subsidised by the state government to encourage locals to buy property, Khaled said in his speech before officiating the newly built Dewan Taman Molek that cost RM2.5mil here on Saturday.
He pointed out that this is the main reason why the state government emphasised on the importance of development in Johor as it would return back to the rakyat.
Meanwhile, in an earlier function, during the launch of Tabung Haji’s latest branch at Taman Bukit Dahlia in Pasir Gudang, Khaled said the majority of Muslims in the country still believed in Islamic financial institutions.
He said there were two indicators that showed many Muslims had faith in the Islamic financial institutions despite the global economic situation.
Khaled added that the first indicator was the amount of savings Tabung Haji had collected where Johor had deposited RM1mil out of RM8.8mil nationwide.
Besides that, the state managed to collect about RM230mil in tithe payments where they were able to channel it to the needy here.
Tabung Haji is an important Islamic institution in the country where it had helped ensure millions of Muslims performed the Haj in Mecca through savings, he said.
Khaled added that without Tabung Haji, it would be difficult for Muslims in Malaysia to perform the annual Haj pilgrims, as the cost would increase. - The Star