MTUC urges employers to provide housing loan interest subsidy

PETALING JAYA (April 13): The Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) has called on private sector employers to provide a subsidy for the housing loan interest to assist workers in owning their own homes.

MTUC secretary general N Gopal Kishnam (pictured) said this would help Putrajaya's efforts in providing affordable housing for low- and middle-income workers, Bernama reported today. 

Servicing the housing loan is one of the main expenditures of workers and if this could be reduced via the subsidy, it would go a long way to ease their financial burdens, he told Bernama.

Gopal was commenting on the First Home Deposit Funding Scheme (MyDeposit) where the government will provide 10% or a maximum of RM30,000 (whichever is lower) to first-time house buyers to buy homes of less than half a million ringgit.

MTUC represents more than 500,000 workers in the country’s work force.

Gopal also supported the call by the National Union of Bank Employees (NUBE) in seeking interest-free housing loans for its clerical and non-clerical members.

The NUBE had submitted a proposal to the Malaysian Association of Banks to consider providing interest-free loans for its employees for homes costing between RM300,000 and RM500,000.

NUBE said banks should consider housing provision as their corporate social responsibility and, therefore, assist their employees to own their own homes.

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