Commission launches housing policy

The Independent Consumer and Competition Commission (ICCC) says affordable housing remains a challenge in the country.
Chief executive officer and commissioner Paulus Ain said that had resulted in working class people residing in settlements.
Speaking at ICCC’s housing policy launched in Port Moresby last Friday, Ain said people have been struggling over many years to own a house but lack financial assistance and land space. He acknowledged the Internal Revenue Commission for granting ICCC tax exemption, Bank South Pacific Financial Group for providing lending schemes and Treasury for the financial assistance.
The housing policy in itself is in three folds: the first home buyers scheme that the ICCC would depend on its staff’s experiences, current salary level of staff.
Second was to do maintenance and third was land acquisition were land was too expensive to purchase.
Ain said: “ICCC would comply with the tax requirements in terms of getting its staff paying the usual tax which would be assisted by ICCC itself.
“ICCC have a dedicated team that is readily available to work with the government so that we could look at how we could address the housing issues in the country.”