Government Prepares 220,000 MBR Residentials, Minister Of PKP Ensures Quality Is Maintained

Minister of Housing and Settlement Areas Maruarar Sirait at the Jakarta Presidential Palace Complex, Tuesday (4/3/2025). (ANTARA)

JAKARTA - Minister of Housing and Settlement Areas (PKP) Maruarar Sirait said Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would directly announce additional occupancy quotas for low-income people (MBR).

Maruarar, in his statement at the Jakarta Presidential Palace Complex on Tuesday night, said that this step was a continuation of the Presidential Government's commitment to provide decent housing at affordable prices for the people of Indonesia.

"Hopefully in the near future the President will announce additional quotas. This subsidized house is in great demand by the public, and the bank is happy because the tax credit is low," said Maruarar.

In the provision of MBR housing, since the Red and White Cabinet started working from October 20, 2024 to March 3, 2025 or during President Prabowo's 130 days of leadership, as many as 110,000 MBR occupancys have been carried out and have even been handed over.

Maruarar emphasized that his party continues to strive to increase the number of MBR housing available in accordance with the funds prepared by the government in 2024, namely for 220,000 MBR housing.

The man who is familiarly called Ara also revealed two main challenges faced by the Ministry of PKP in providing MBR housing. The first challenge is to ensure that residential subsidies are given on target, while the second challenge is related to the quality of the building.

To ensure that the MBR residential subsidy is given to the entitled party, the Ministry of PKP coordinates with the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) and the Central Statistics Agency (BPS).

"This MBR residence is intended for low-income people, which will be determined by name by address by BPS so that subsidies are given on target," he explained.

Meanwhile, regarding the quality of housing, Ara highlighted the lack of thorough property developers, resulting in inadequate final results.

To overcome this, he has formed a curator team consisting of echelon I officials from the Ministry of PKP, including himself, to check the quality of subsidized housing.

"We must ensure that the MBR occupancy quota increases without sacrificing quality. According to President Prabowo's direction, even though it is subsidized, this house must still have quality," he said.

Based on the findings of the curator team, most of the MBR housing already has good quality. However, some were found to have shortcomings due to the negligence of the developer.

For example, Ara mentioned that there are subsidized residences in Bekasi that have problems, even though it has only been ratified for one year. The floor of the house is uneven and inflated, and has difficulty accessing when it rains until it is flooded.

According to him, this kind of problem must be anticipated in the construction of MBR housing in the era of President Prabowo so that people can enjoy truly decent housing even though it is subsidized by the government.