Govt providing land title to owners of cheap houses

JAKARTA (JP): State Minister of Agrarian Affairs Soni Harsono reiterated yesterday the government's commitment to provide affordable land title for cheap houses.

Soni, also chairman of the National Land Agency, said the policy aimed to cut costs and boost consumer confidence on the legal status of cheap houses.

The minister vowed to take harsh action against officials who collected illegal levies from people applying for land title for cheap homes.

Soni acknowledged that many of people were forced to pay more than the official Rp 15,000 fee when applying for land title.

Many consumers had to pay more because government officials did not inform them that they were no longer required to obtain leasehold permits from the government before receiving land title, Soni said.

Last year the government ruled that developers of cheap houses no longer had to apply for leasehold. This was expected to cut the cost of building cheap houses.

Soni said the government ruling had come into effect, because he had issued Ministerial Decree No. 9 this year as the legal basis of the new regulation.

Pretend

"Many officials pretend not to know about the government's program to protect low-income people," he said after meeting President Soeharto at Merdeka Palace.

The government has set a fixed price for cheap houses. A 21- square-meter house on a 60-square-meter plot costs Rp 4.9 million (approximately US$2,000) and a 36-square-meter house on a 100- square-meter plot costs Rp 6.9 million. The government provides subsidies for these houses.

"At least 278 officials have been sacked for corruption, and I will not hesitate to punish more officials," Soni said.

The minister said the same facility also applied for houses on 200-square-meter plots which cost no more than Rp 30 million if the house was bought before the decree was issued.

"You will also receive this facility so long as your house does not cost more than Rp 30 million," he said.

The new regulations give owners a stronger legal position because previous regulations only entitled them to renewable leaseholds, which are valid for about 20 years.

The new regulations do not affect expensive houses, which are only entitled to leasehold.

The President said in January that 110,000 cheap houses would be built in the 1997/98 fiscal year.

State Minister of Public Housing Akbar Tandjung said yesterday the government expected that 500,000 cheap houses would be built in the Sixth Five-Year Development Plan which will end in 1999.

"I am optimistic that we will be able to reach the target," Tandjung said after meeting Soeharto yesterday. (06)