Andrew Loh jumps into the BB $1.9m fray with hard hitting article

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

http://theindependent.sg/the-hdb-and...murali-claims/

The HDB and the URA should clarify or rebut what Murali claims
By The Independent - April 26, 2016 0 618
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Straits Times, 25 April 2016
By: Andrew Loh

On 25 April, the news reported an exhibition by the Jurong-Clementi Town Council held in Bukit Batok, the single-member constituency which will see a by-election come 7 May.

The exhibition presented infrastructural upgrading plans under the Housing and Development Board (HDB)’s Neighbourhood Renewal Programme (NRP) for the SMC.

The People’s Action Party (PAP) candidate for the upcoming by-election, Murali Pillai, told reporters that the upgrading plans were “a plan by the PAP Jurong-Clementi Town Council.”

Accordingly, says Murali, he and his town council “will have the mandate to carry on only if we are returned at the by-election.”

“If we don’t have the mandate, then we won’t have the ability to carry on because we will not form the town council,” he explained. “That’s the rule.”

Singaporeans are familiar with the argument, rolled out by the PAP during elections, of how they must be elected first in order for such estate improvement plans to be carried out.

Singaporeans, to their credit, have been calling for such practices – linking estate upgrading to the vote – to be stopped. However, it is evident that the pull of the bait is too enticing for the PAP to forego.

And so, here we are again – with another PAP candidate resorting to the tired and divisive rhetoric.

Be that as it may, let’s take a substantive look at Murali’s claims – that such estate improvements plans would be in jeopardy if he (and his party) did not win and thus run the town council – and see how even his own PAP minister would prove him wrong.

First, let us be clear that all town councils have access to the NRP, even opposition-run ones like the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council (AHTC).

Indeed, in 2015, the issue came up in Parliament in an exchange between the chairman of AHTC, Pritam Singh, and the Minister of State for National Development, Maliki Osman.

Mr Singh, who is also MP for the Eunos division of Aljunied GRC, had complained that the grassroots organisation – namely the Citizens Consultative Committees (CCCs) – in the area “had been slow in working with his town council to secure funding from the ministry”, as reported by the Straits Times then.

The ministry disburse Community Improvement Projects Committee (CIPC) funds through the CCCs, and town councils have to have the support of the CCCs before such funds are released to be used for the upgrading projects.

maliki2
Opposition wards get NRPs as well, says MOS Maliki

Dr Mailiki went on to rebut Mr Singh’s claims, saying that in fact the “AHPETC was given six Home Improvement Programmes and three Neighbourhood Renewal Programmes over a two-year period from 2012 to 2013.”

“This is comparable to the number of projects received by other town councils”, the minister said.

So, the point here is this: what Mr Murali said, that estate upgrading plans would be in jeopardy if he (and his PAP team) were not elected, is pure rubbish – for even opposition town councils will have access to upgrading funds to improve their estates, as is clearly stated by the Minister of State for MND himself.

Opposition town councils can and do in fact offer their own NRP plans, which could also include things like the 3-generation park which Mr Murali is offering.

There is nothing to stop the SDP from doing the same, if or when it wins Bukit Batok SMC.

And there is precedence for such a thing – that even if the opposition takes over a PAP-run town council, the opposition town council could still go ahead with NRP plans which were or had been offered by the PAP town council.

In a Facebook post on 25 April 2016, reflecting on the Bukit Batok by-election, Mr Singh revealed how “about 3-4 weeks before the General Elections [of May 2011], the then PAP-managed Aljunied Town Council carried out an exhibition for a Neighbourhood Renewal Programme (NRP) at a precinct in my ward of Eunos.”

“The timing and message of the exhibition was political by any stretch of the imagination, i.e. vote for PAP, you get upgrading,” Mr Singh wrote.

And here is the more important thing, according to Mr Singh’s post:

“After the 2011 elections, the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council checked with HDB if the NRP project at Eunos Spring (the precinct in question) could go ahead because of a change of Town Councils, and an opposition Town Council at that. The answer was YES. In addition, we were free to determine if we wanted to change the proposal of the previous PAP-run Aljunied Town Council with regard to the NRP upgrading plans – that’s the nature of the NRP and how it works.”

So there.

It is plain that such estate or neighbourhood improvement plans can go ahead even with a change of MPs or town councils.

Mr Murali’s claims are thus not quite accurate, and are clearly politically designed to scare voters into casting their votes for him.

Now, here’s the second substantive issue with Mr Murali’s claims: the so-called upgrading plans he offers, such as the new 3-generation park, may not be new at all.

In its 2013 Master Plan for Bukit Batok, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) had already planned for such a thing, “new parks” in the area where Mr Murali’s 3-gen park would be – “west Bukit Batok”.


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