Applying the Singaporean experience to solve the housing crisis in Iraq

Applying the Singaporean experience to solve the housing crisis in Iraq

 Engineer: Haider Abdul-Jabbar Al-Battat

 When we know that a country that is poor in resources and had a weak economy was able to reach a home ownership rate estimated at 90 percent after its citizens originally lived in public housing of poor quality, this means that it is an experience worth contemplating and elaborating on. This is the experience of Singapore.  The country that the loyal leaders pulled from a backward country to the ranks of developed countries with an influential position in its region in East Asia, despite its small size and lack of resources.

 The most important principles that laid the foundations for success are:

 A leadership aware of the importance of housing for the stability of society, and expanding the base of government support.

 It made home ownership a means of financial security for the elderly, raising the quality of housing and achieving its sustainability, and directing special support to families, especially those with large numbers, to stimulate marriage and childbearing.

And you all know that Singapore was suffering from a suffocating crisis in housing units and the poor quality of what is available from them.

 Why did you resort to the method of distributing plots of land and scattering loans??

 The Singapore Housing and Development Board established the Housing and Development Board.

 His task is to build residential complexes and provide them with basic services, in the areas he deems appropriate.

 This council consists of patriotic and honorable people!!!

 It has the following powers:

 1- He has the sovereign right to expropriate lands that he deems necessary to establish complexes on them for the public interest, and the government issued the law of expropriation in the interest of the Council in 1966 and supported it with the law of 1973, which supported the Council’s negotiating ability with the owners of the land, and compensation for its owners, with prices amounting to 20% of its value  market.

 2- The council gives the residents a choice between leasing or owning in installments, or leasing ending with ownership. The result is that 93% of the units went to ownership.

 3- Ensuring the low costs of the housing units, so the land cost was excluded from the total cost.

 4- The Council's projects have social, economic and political roles that have led to stronger cohesion of societies.

 5- Making the housing ownership plan a part of the life of the Singaporean citizen through savings, by introducing the housing savings program within the programs of the Central Provident Fund, which is considered a retirement fund in Singapore.

 Where both the citizen and the employer contribute in an equal proportion until the down payment is collected to finance the subsidized housing provided by the Housing and Development Council.

 Then this contribution continues to cover the monthly financing installments, thus ensuring that the employee will not reach retirement age unless he owns a home.

 6- The Council allowed the inclusion of residential units developed by the private sector among the units that can be financed in the same way.

 7- Preventing the sale of subsidized housing units in the market (for a specified period), so that only the Council can sell them at the cost price at which they are owned.

8- Imposing very large taxes on any person who owns more than two properties, and one person is not allowed to own more than five properties at the maximum limit, and it falls within the framework of money laundering.

 Lessons learned from the Singaporean experience to solve the housing problem begin with reclaiming lands by the force of the regime??

 And what should happen to us is to take back what was granted invalidly!! The pressure on land fees is severe, on those who currently own and do not wish to develop!!

 Develop financing and saving solutions for housing through incentive programs organized by the government and in which the citizen and the employer participate, as well as following up the housing market and its movements and updating its regulations and legislation to comply with the current situation.

 Finally, stimulating government investment, such as the Public Investment Fund, as well as developers from the private sector, to inject housing units with maximum capacity, facilitate procedures, and reduce the costs of land, building materials, and labor to produce housing units at prices that are compatible with the incomes of the majority of citizens wishing to own property.