Lawmakers discontented with quality of public housing

Several lawmakers within the Legislative Assembly (AL) remain discontented with the construction quality of public housing and have submitted written inquiries to the government on the topic.

Continual flaws detected in the construction of the Lake Building in Taipa and the Ip Heng Building in Seac Pai Van have been the subject of ongoing discussion. Among these flaws are recurrent issues with falling tiles and more recently, falling exterior cladding in other buildings in Seac Pai Van.

Despite significant discussion at the AL, the issues with construction quality were revisited following the delivery of a comprehensive report issued by the Commission Against Corruption (CCAC) at the end of May, accusing the public services of a lack of coordination and neglect regarding the matter.

An AL double-session on the matter commenced yesterday and will continue today, and is solely dedicated to hearing responses from the various government departments to the written inquiries raised by lawmakers through the AL. During the session, the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosário, heard many critiques from lawmakers who continued to highlight historical problems and also called on the Secretary to provide assurance that the same issues will not be repeated in the new public housing buildings that are undergoing construction in Zone A of the new landfills.

In response to inquiries from lawmakers Ella Lei and Leong Hong Sai, Rosário said that the government has been attempting to handle the cases in “the best possible way” and trying to find solutions.

He added that for new buildings undergoing construction at Zone A, a different solution has been found for the corridors and common area with the reduction of the use of wall tiles and ensuring the quality of those used for those purposes. The alternative to low quality tiles includes the replacement of tiles for areas of painted walls, namely from the middle to the upper sections of the walls.

The Secretary’s explanation was complemented by the director of the Public Works Bureau (DSOP), Lam Wai Hou, who added that the new solution for Zone A public housing would be similar to that which has been used and presented at the Mong Ha public housing model apartment on public display.

To the many critiques, Rosário refuted the accusation that all the public works are going wrong and said that it is normal that, with so many construction projects taking place, some inspections will fail to detect some of the flaws due to a lack of personnel.

He also urged certain lawmakers to stop discussing problems that are already being addressed and to instead focus on the works being currently done, stating that was unfair to blame the staff under his secretariat for past mistakes.

On the same topic, lawmaker Leong Sun Iok recalled that according to the statistics noted by the CCAC, 90% of the public works have encountered problems, and called on the government to enforce a new system that includes sanctions and penalties for the inspection entities.

“We can see that the existing mechanisms are not enough because [inspection] companies do not seem to care about the flaws and there is no way to hold them accountable,” Leong Sun Iok said. He also called for the creation of a “blacklist” to list the entities that fail with their responsibilities.

Lawmaker Angela Leong reminded the Secretary that “The lack of quality of the public housing as well as other public works directly affects the trust of the public in the government,” calling on Rosário to pay more attention to these matters.

Lam also said that the DSOP was already aware and was commencing works to repair the problems with the exterior cladding on some buildings at Seac Pai Van, where parts of it fell during a recent typhoon. He stated that most of the works related to these repairs have already been concluded in several buildings.

Bigger houses to support familiesí development

In a different but related inquiry, lawmaker Leong Sun Iok called on the government to consider building larger housing units of 2-bedroom apartments instead of 1-bedroom. In the lawmaker’s opinion, there is an excessive quantity of small housing units on offer from the government for public housing that does not suit the majority of the candidates, who then need to accept them so they do not lose the opportunity to access a public house.

For the same lawmaker, this typology of housing is only suitable for older people living alone or couples, but does not suit the large majority of the applicants who are aged between 22 and 44 years old.

He said that attributing a 1-bedroom apartment to these candidates is “to restrict their family development” as they will not have space for a family and children.

In response, the Secretary said that housing type is not easy to solve, as the needs of the market are difficult to predict and unstable.

Noting the significant reduction in the number of applicants in the latest public housing tender from around 30,000 to less than 10,000, Rosário noted that many decisions made in the past forecasted a different scenario from the present circumstances.

It is also known that the delay in building public housing in the past has resulted in the need to build many units in a short timeframe and in a small area, which also contributed to the offer of smaller units with a reduced floor area to fit a higher number of units within the same building.

In response to the lawmaker’s inquiry, a representative of the Housing Bureau (IH), explained that the government currently has around 5,000 housing units of 2 and 3-bedrooms to tender, adding that the IH has received around 6,300 applications from families in the last tender.

The same official noted that since not all these applications will conclude with the grant of a house, the government believes that there are enough of these larger units to cope with the demand.