By Ling Hui
KUCHING, Sept 15: About 25 per cent of the houses in Sarawak are unoccupied, says Deputy Premier Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian quoting the Census 2020 data from the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM).
He said statistics reported 779,000 residences existed in Sarawak, but with only 618,000 households.
“So meaning there are more houses than households. In other words, out of these residences, there are people living in about 75 per cent of them and the other 25 per cent are empty,” he said.
Out of the 779,000 residences, he also said that figures showed 57 per cent of them were located in cities while the remaining 43 per cent were located in rural areas.
Explaining the numbers, Dr Sim, who is also Minister of Public Health, Local Government and Housing, said it could be due to rural to urban migration.
“In Sarawak, we are very unique because we have a lot of rural to urban migration. People have houses in both the rural areas and cities because they are working in the cities.
“So, we should not have a situation where we have 50 per cent unoccupied residences. That means our resources are going to waste,” he said when officiating at the Housing Deposit Assistance Scheme (HDAS) and Spektra Mutiara Program (RSM) handover to recipients at a local hotel in Miri yesterday (Sept 14).
Also present were Dr Sim’s deputies Dato Pengguang Manggil and Michael Tiang, Ministry of Public Health, Local Government and Housing permanent secretary Datu Antonio Kahti Galis, Transport Minister Dato Sri Lee Kim Shin, Deputy Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Datuk Sebastian Ting, Housing Development Corporation (HDC) chairman Dr Abang Abdul Rauf Abang Zen, Mutiara Mortgage & Credit chief executive officer (CEO) Shaharony Mat Nor. — Dayakdaily
