Riyadh-Amlak
The Housing and Public Services Committee of the Shura Council confirmed its rejection of the proposal for the regulation of housing construction and distribution to state employees, and recommended the inappropriateness of studying the proposal submitted by former Shura Council member Zain al-Abidin Berri, which included the installment of housing after its construction at state expense for citizens over 30 months.
The committee explained that it does not see the appropriateness of studying the proposal for reasons, most notably that the content of the proposal to build and sell in installments is achieved on the ground in one way or another as the state is already building a large number of housing as the Ministry of Housing is currently implementing more than 500 thousand housing units as the largest government housing program that has passed through the Kingdom since its establishment. A number of housing projects have already been completed and work is underway on the rest of the projects, noting that this number exceeds what was allocated in the development plan by stages exceeding 760%, and the Housing Committee stressed that there is an organizational regulation being prepared to distribute these houses to the deserving citizens after establishing eligibility criteria.
The committee pointed out that one of the reasons for its disagreement with the proposal is that the Real Estate Development Fund continues to lend to citizens to build their own housing or buy another ready-made one, with annual installments that can be paid over 25 years, and it is preferable to support the Fund's resources and give it the flexibility to commission real estate development companies to build housing units of various sizes and costs and sell them to citizens with a loan guarantee.
The Housing and Public Services Committee stressed the importance of not marginalizing the role of the private sector in solving the housing issue, as the Ninth Development Plan stipulated that the private sector should establish and finance 775,000 housing units, so it is necessary to limit the state as the main player in the construction of housing and the importance of encouraging the private sector from developers and construction companies to enter strongly in the housing sector. The committee drew the attention of the Council to the government agencies, according to the text of the ninth development plan, to build 50,000 housing units for their employees, and funds have been allocated for this purpose in the projects of some ministries such as health, defense, National Guard and others.
The Shura Council will decide whether to support or oppose the committee's rejection, as its report on the member's proposal will be discussed and then vote directly on the committee's recommendation, if it wins 76 votes, the proposal will be rejected, and if the opposite happens, the proposal will be referred to a special committee.
