BY PNG ENG HUAT
The recent debate on the Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP) has only 2 conclusions.
One, the People’s Association (PA), despite being publicly funded by millions of tax dollars, remains an unreasonably partisan entity. In doing so, the association has completely lost touch with the community. To put it simply, it has lost all sense of reality.
In the reality television game show, Survivor, when a participant gets voted out at the end of each episode, he or she must ‘leave Exile Island immediately’.
In PA’s version of the ‘Survivor’ show, a candidate who gets voted out does not need to ‘leave the island immediately’. It all depends on the colour of his or her ’skin’. If it is white, you get to come back on the ’show’ to haunt and taunt the very people who booted you out. If your skin is anything but white, off you go. You must leave the ‘island’ immediately.
That is indeed a uniquely Singapore concoction – something for the Tourism Board to think about and possibly include in its campaign of the same name.
Two, public housing is no longer under public control anymore. It is now in the ‘private’ hands of a partisan HDB. The rationale behind HDB’s practice to deal with a constituency’s grassroots adviser for all upgrading programmes instead of its popularly elected opposition MP is just beyond comprehension.
It is ludicrous for HDB not to acknowledge the two opposition MPs in Hougang and Potong Pasir are more ‘grassroots’ than the grassroots advisers appointed by PA!
Both Mr Chiam See Tong and Mr Low Thia Khiang have been serving the residents of Potong Pasir and Hougang since 1984 and 1991 respectively. Mr Sitoh Yih Pin and Mr Eric Low Siak Meng only surfaced in 2001.
It is also delusional for PA to think it could fulfill its mission to ‘build and to bridge communities in achieving one people, one Singapore’ when it repeatedly chooses two defeated candidates over two popularly elected veterans as grassroots advisers to serve the opposition wards.
A taxpayer-funded PA should not restrict its selection of grassroots advisers to just PAP members. Currently, the PA Board comprises mostly PAP members starting with the Prime Minister as Chairman. The only distinction between PA and PAP is just an alphabet letter.
As we have a non-partisan and elected President now, perhaps he should be the best person to front PA to promote racial harmony and social cohesion. After all, the President has the mandate of the people as the entire electorate supposedly elects him.
Last, the LUP is to rectify a design flaw in older HDB flats. It is not that difficult for anyone to explain that to the residents. In fact, HDB should be the one doing the job since those badly designed flats were built by some ‘penny-wise-pound-foolish’ civil servants in the first place. HDB should take full ownership of this problem and rectify it to the best of its capability.
Going through grassroots advisers or any MP to announce or publicise the LUP will only politicise the issue further. Nothing will absolve HDB of its shortsightedness in building such ridiculous flats until the lift landing issue is resolved.
Sadly, about 200 flats will not get LUP because of the high costs involved in rectifying those badly designed public housing. A Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme should be instituted for those affected residents.
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This article was first published on Times They Are A-Changin’.
