Waiting on developer's mercy

By Patrick Lee - Free Malaysia Today,

KUALA LUMPUR: Abandoned housing projects are commonplace throughout Malaysia's property landscape. But for the villagers of Kampung Berembang, this fact comes as a painful truth.
Once home to a few thousand inhabitants, Kampung Berembang in the vicinity of Ampang has been reduced to a shantytown of rude huts, with only 30-odd families left.
With their original houses forcibly bulldozed by the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council in 2006, many of the villagers have had to move to other locations throughout the Klang Valley.
Those who have been fortunate enough to remain have been forced to live in tents for a few years, adding zinc sheets and leftover wood to craft into makeshift houses.
The villagers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. To the northeast lies a YTL cement factory, with its cement trucks rumbling precariously every five to 10 minutes along Jalan Berembang.
A water retention area for the SMART tunnel sits to the north, while to their west are planned quarters for government workers from Sabah.
Even their skyline has been taken away from them, with the whole village dangerously resting beneath high tension power cables.
But there is little choice for the few villagers who still remain and the hundreds of Berembang “refugees” all across the city, as they wait on the mercy of developers to build a new place for them to live in.
In a state of limbo
In 2006, the state government at the time had promised to build a 17-storey low-cost flat for the villagers in a joint venture between Permodalan Negri Selangor Bhd (PNSB) and Perspektif Masa Sdn Bhd.
Located directly behind the South Korean embassy off Jalan Ampang, the building should have been finished by November 2008. But to this day, it remains in a state of limbo, with only about 30 workers laying bricks for a housing project more than three acres large.
In his surprise visit to the construction site recently, Selangor state exco member (Housing, Building Management and Squatters) Iskandar A Samad witnessed only a handful of labourers in the area, with a logistics and safety officer as the only official in sight.
Accompanied by nearly two dozen Kampung Berembang villagers, Iskandar said that much of the work on the site could have been completed in one or two months.
He first visited the site early this year. Last week, he made another two more visits.
On his third visit on Nov 4, Iskandar had been accompanied by both the contractors and developers, as well as over 60 workers.
“Whenever there is an (official) visit, all the developers, agents and engineers will come,” he said at the building's construction office, adding that more than 70% of the construction had been done.
Less than 30 minutes after Iskandar's arrival, officials from Vertex Builders (contractors) and Acmar International (developers) made their appearance.
This did not stop the state exco from berating them for a job poorly done.
Weekly report
A quick look into the contractors' logbooks revealed that only 32 labourers showed up for work compared with 63 when he came to the site on Nov 3.
Iskandar grabbed the logbook and flipped through the pages, showing both the media and contractors that the total number of workers showing up for both Monday and Tuesday last week were 23 each.
“When I came yesterday (Nov 3), the number of workers was 63. Today (Nov 4), it is 32. You want me to come every day, is it?” he asked the site's contractors angrily, who tried to placate Iskandar with excuses.
Iskandar then issued an ultimatum to both Vertex and Acmar, demanding that the building be completed by February 2011. He also said that the PNSB owed the Selangor government a weekly report on the building's progress, threatening drastic action if his words were not taken seriously.
Asked what excuses the Selangor government had been getting from the developers, Iskandar said: “They have lots of excuses, like they have other projects at the moment... But their excuses have got nothing to do with this one!”
When pressed by FMT, both Vertex and Acmar claimed that the delayed deadline was not their fault.
“We paid the workers Deepavali money on Nov 4, which is why so many of them showed up. We cannot make them work on Deepavali day (Nov 5),” said a Vertex Builder spokesman, who refused to be named.
Even so, the spokesman admitted that the site's labourers were usually on the job seven-days-a-week.
Asked why it had taken a long time to complete its work, Acmar International (project building divison/construction) senior manager Richard Ng said, “I can't answer you this, because it's all (based) on the top management's decision. We've only been here a few months.”
Passing the buck
However, Ampang Jaya Municipal Councillor Hayati Abdul Samad was convinced that both Vertex and Acmar officials were passing the buck.
“Most of the workers here are Indonesian, so why would they be celebrating Deepavali?” she said, pointing to the scant few that showed up on Nov 4.
Hayati also alleged that many of the workers who showed up during Iskandar's visit on Nov 3 were from other nearby construction sites.
“They were here just to show their face. They were just following us around, and not doing any work,” she told FMT.
Hayati also said that the contractors were often late in paying their workers, causing many of them to run away.
When approached, an Indonesian worker who preferred to remain anonymous admitted that he had not been paid for more than a month.
'We will fight'
Like Hayati, many of Kampung Berembang's villagers were not swayed by Acmar International's words. According to resident Nor Alizan Ali, the developer appeared to be more keen on developing the area into a luxurious condominium area known as D'Rapport.
FMT noticed a well-serviced Acmar International office located along Jalan Nipah, not too far away from the unfinished low-cost flats. According to an iProperty website, D'Rapport apartments have been offered from as low as RM880,000 to as high as RM5.1 million each (Link: (http://www.iproperty.com.my/developments/developmentreview.aspx?pid=1174).
However, complicating matters is the village's position, which is cut into two by the Selangor-Kuala Lumpur border. The new but unfinished homes, however, sit in Ampang Jaya, Selangor.
Thus, the villagers have been forced to send their children to schools in Ulu Klang, even though a newly-completed school sits in plain view, less than a hundreds metres away. But until the housing project is completed, the school cannot be used.
Despite being pressured by a consistent rash of bad news, Nor, like many of Kampung Berembang's villagers, has not given up hope.
“Until I get that house (low-cost flat), I will not leave this place. I will fight. We will fight,” he said, pointing to the unfinished housing project.
However, the future remains bleak for him, and the people of Kampung Berembang. Many of his fellow villagers have already moved to other parts of the Klang Valley, including Puchong.
He fears that the developers would not be able to complete the housing project the next time the bulldozers return.
“If they (authorities) chase us away, we will be gone forever (from Kampung Berembang),” he said.