Zuraida fosters sense of belonging among urban poor

KUALA LUMPUR (April 22): It has been almost a year since the Pakatan Harapan government has taken power and one of the hardest working ministers in Putrajaya is the Housing and Local Government Ministry’s Zuraida Kamaruddin.

And she feels the crown jewel of her efforts in her first year as minister is the fostering “of a sense of belonging among the urban poor in their community”, she said in an interview with The Malay Mail.

This has been driven by ministry’s National Community Policy (NCP), a scheme meant to “financially and mentally empower less fortunate Malaysians in the bottom 40th percentile” or B40.

“Under the National Community Policy, we are not talking about physical buildings or infrastructure but we also want to go into nation building, community building because giving them a nice infrastructure and building, that’s not good enough,” Zuraida told the newsportal.

“It can be wasteful if they don’t know how to take care of these properties and empower themselves.

“That’s why under the National Community Policy, there’s a structured platform where we get the community to empower themselves by looking after the property, empower them to look into cleanliness, safety and financial management.

“I believe if we can improve the mentality of the B40, especially in the low-cost housing schemes and improve the quality of life in terms of their knowledge, exposure, networking and communication, the whole country will see a leap in nation building,” she added.

Zuraida has decided to go “back to her roots” by inculcating the traditional kampung spirit of gotong-royong to push the NCP plan for residents of in low-cost flats or public housing.

“I want to train them to be empowered and to take care of their cleanliness — for instance, when they are empowered with their cleanliness, they can turn their rubbish into money (through upcycling centres to be set up near residential areas).

“This becomes an economic advantage and if they have a proper structure, committees, they can even learn how to manage the economy of their neighbourhood by getting the people within the community there to serve — plumbers, repair works, cleaning services, etc.

“It’s the spirit of perkampungan and gotong royong,” she explained to The Malay Mail.

Part of the mindset shift also involves weaning the people away from the habit of “receiving handouts from the previous Barisan Nasional (BN) regime”.

“My approach to things is to phase in and phase out. Phase in slowly and phase out slowly so there won’t be any culture shock. That’s why when you look at my policy, these are friendly policies that people can accept because I try to improve their lives,” Zuraida said.

“Malaysians also must move out of this subsidy mentality. As a progressive nation, we must be empowered,” she reiterated.

But the government is still forking out a lot to help out the B40s. The minister said “subsidised housing costs the government around RM190,000 per unit but it is sold to the B40 at around RM42,000 to RM45,000 each”.

Zuraida also wants to make the homes for the B40s “more desirable”. She revealed to the newsportal that instead of developing units with a total size of just 700 sq ft , the authorities should be “developing homes with a minimum total size of 900 sq ft per unit”.