The Malaysian Insight

EMOTIONS ran high at Penang’s Taman Manggis low-cost flats (PPR) when housing department officers evicted tenants today. 

Police detained a resident – an Indonesian with permanent residency – when he tried to stop officers from entering his home. 

Before the officers arrived about 10.30am, some 40 affected residents, including their children, held a a peaceful protest to “protect their homes”.

“Where are the YBs (elected representatives) we voted for? We are not animals,” they shouted. 

“YB Chow, (Chief Minister and Tanjong MP Chow Kon Yeow) come and help us. Don’t run off.”

Some insisted they should be allowed to stay or given other alternatives while others demanded more time. 

In January, the state authorities told 22 tenants to move out. Eight received notices telling them to leave today. 

Religious teacher Abdul Latiff Mohd Yusof, 73, said he just needed more time because the low-cost home his daughter was buying at SP Chelliah in town was not ready. 

He said he understood there were others who needed the PPR unit more than him. 

“We will move there when the flat is ready. We heard it will take maybe another year. 

“But if we are evicted today, we have nowhere to go. We just need more time. I have put in the papers to appeal,” he told reporters. 

Latiff, who has been living at Taman Manggis for more than a decade with his wife and daughter, is being tossed out because his wife owns a house in Kg Dodol. 

PPR tenants lose their eligibility to rent government-owned housing designed for the poor if they own property. 

The protest turned dramatic when the housing officers went from floor to floor to lock up the PPR units to be taken back. 

The Indonesian man shouted that his Malaysian wife and their children have rights. 

“We have eight children and seven still live with me and four still schooling,” Mohd Kadim Kutnan, 51, said of the eight aged between four and 24. 

“My wife is a homemaker. We cannot afford to rent anywhere else. We want to stay here.”

The family are evicted because Kadim is a non-Malaysian. Families with non-Malaysians, including spouses, are not allowed to occupy such units. 

His wife, Nazrimah Jamal Abidin, in her 40s, asked if she had to divorce Karim in order for the family to remain in the PPR flat. 

Other angry tenants also slammed the state government, targeting Chow and state housing exco Jagdeep Singh Deo. 

Present throughout the whole commotion were anti-Pakatan Harapan blogger Muhsin Abdul Lateef, also known as Mamu Parpu, and Sofian Mohd Zin, chairman of the Penang Surplus Welfare Association, who has taken up the tenants’ cause. 

Muhsin broadcast the protest live on Facebook. – March 6, 2019.