The Federal government has assured that the construction of the 1,759 new permanent houses (RKB) for flood victims in Kelantan will be completed between March and June next year.

Kelantan Federal Action Council chairman, Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, said the focus now is to complete building the houses that have not yet been completed. The government has managed to resolve several issues that delayed the construction of these houses, especially ownership of land for the site.

"The original promise was to complete the houses before the end of this year, we did not expect the land issue to be so complicated and now the question of land for the construction of these houses in all the affected districts have been completed," he told reporters here, last night.

Mustapa, who is also the International Trade and Industry Minister, said land reserved for the construction of these houses was mainly in Gua Musang and Kuala Krai involving land owned by the Federal government agencies, state government, and individuals.

He said to date from the 1,759 RKB, the Federal government through the Public Works Department (PWD) has completed the construction of 142 RKB while 301 RKB were under construction and 218 RKB were at the pre-construction level.

He said at the outset, an estimated 1,827 houses were destroyed by the floods which occurred in December last year, however, after a review, only 1,759 houses were destroyed and eligible for RKB.

Pending the completion of the RKB, victims who lost their homes were temporarily placed in transit homes.

About the 127 families still at the National Service Training Programme (NS) Camp at the Ethnobotany Park, Gua Musang, Mustapa said only 94 families were flood victims while the remaining 33 families were not.

He said the NS has allowed the 94 families to remain at the camp until March before moving to the RKB while the 33 families who are not flood victims have been asked to return to their respective homes.

Musang are expected to move into the RKB at the latest by March.