The Housing and Local Government Ministry will look into the suitability of building affordable homes on 13 lots of land offered by the Sarawak government, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Its minister Zuraida Kamaruddin said the ministry does not have any problem with the state’s proposal, but affordable homes would be built only on suitable sites.

“It must be strategic and located in an area where there is infrastructure. Otherwise it would burden the B40 (lower-income) group who own a house in the area.

“If it is not suitable, we will inform the Sarawak government and maybe the state government can find a replacement land,” she said during the oral question-and-answer session.

She was replying to a question from Lukanisman Awang Sauni (GPS-Sibuti) regarding the government’s preparedness to accept the state government’s offer to build affordable homes in the state.

Zuraida said she received the state government’s letter on the list of 13 plots of land on July 3.

On another matter, she said the ministry had set up a committee to look into taking more stringent enforcement action against factories illegally disposing of plastic waste.

She was replying to a supplementary question from Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh (PH-Ledang), who wanted to know whether the government has agreed to establish a committee to tackle the problem of illegal plastic waste disposal.