Maruarar Explains Efforts To Provide Three Million Houses

Minister of Housing and Settlement Areas (PKP) Maruarar Sirait (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Minister of Housing and Settlement Areas (PKP) Maruarar Sirait revealed the latest efforts to provide three million houses per year consisting of the construction of two million houses in rural areas and the construction of one million apartments in urban areas.

The first is the use of confiscated land from corruptors which is converted, among others, to public housing.

"In the past two weeks, I met the Attorney General (Sitiar Burhanuddin). Twice at the Cabinet Meeting (to) chat, and twice came (meeting with the Attorney General at the Attorney General's Office), including this afternoon. He has submitted approximately what can be said to be ready 200 hectares (ha) of a total of 10 thousand hectares," he said quoting Antara.

The government will also utilize the land or assets of Bank Indonesia Liquidity Assistance (BLBI) to support the program.

He is said to be going to convince the Director General of State Assets (DJKN) of the Ministry of Finance (Kemenkeu) Rionald Silaban next week to discuss the use of land confiscated by the Prosecutor's Office and BLBI assets.

Several other lands that can be utilized include land from the provincial and district/city governments that are not used, then idle/ex-Owned Rights (HGU) and Building Use Rights (HGB) from the Ministry of ATR/National Defense Agency (BPN).

After his inauguration as Minister of PKP, it was stated that his party had obtained around 1,200 ha to be prepared as a land for the construction of houses, namely 1,000 ha from the Attorney General's Office and 200 ha from the Ministry of ATR/BPN.

"Pray that I can convince the DJKN and the Minister of Finance (Sri Mulyani) so that it (days can be converted) can be given to the people," said he who is familiarly called Ara.

The Minister of PKP also reported that six large group companies in Indonesia, including Agung Sedayu Group, Sinar Mas Group, Salim Group, Adaro Group, and Barito Group, are committed to supporting the program of 3 million homes through the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) scheme.

Ara itself donated 2.5 hectares of land in Tangerang, Banten, for this program for small communities for free.

"I think we started that social concern without further ado, but with real action," he said.

On this occasion, he hoped for a compact cooperation between the government and business actors to support the achievement of the target of building 3 million houses considering that this program was a priority for Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.

"If Mr. Jokowi (the 7th President of the Republic of Indonesia) can distribute certificates for the people, land for the people for the last 10 years, pray that Pak Prabowo can also provide free houses or cheap houses for the people of Indonesia. There must be one step forward, and let's work together," said Maruarar.

As is known, the government has a program of 3 million houses per year as one of the priority programs in providing housing for the community, especially low-income people (MBR). The three million houses in question have various financing schemes, and are classified as free for certain categories only.