Looking deeper into Singapore's real estate administration

Posted: April 16, 2010 by fievel in Labels: , ,
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I think Mah Bow Tan has not and will not ever "bow" to the aggrieved Singaporeans, which definitely outnumber the happy ones, for the poor control of real estate inflation in recent years.

Nor will our Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Nor will his daddy MM Lee Kuan Yew.

There's a trend here. The higher you go up the chain of command, the more unlikely it is to obtain a fair review and admission of the mistakes committed in each of their jobs to plan and to accommodate for the influx of immigration via proper control of housing supply.

...and so I thought, how about we take a look at the individuals responsible for the very specific job of planning and execution of land and housing development in Singapore.

Well so how about we go take a peep into HDB and SLA, both government organizations responsible for land and housing related issues.

SLA ORG CHART
HDB ORG CHART

Interestingly, you will find that the position for "Planning and Policy" is vacant. I wonder why...?
So hey since there's no fall guy in that position...the next person would be his boss right? Well he is
Simon Ong, Deputy Chief Executive of SLA as well as the "Commissioner of Lands". Right above him we have Vincent Hoong, Chief Executive of SLA as well as the "Controller of Residential Property".

In HDB, we have a group of fellas called the "Building Group", run by a Mr Sng Cheng Keh. The relevant fellas in the group are Fong Chun Wah (Development and Procurement), Raymond Toh Chun Parng (Research and Planning).

Now if there were no proper reasons for HDB not to have built sufficient flats to accomodate for the increase in immigrants, these are the very people who were sleeping on their jobs and yet have kept silent up till now.

With Singapore being such a small nation, it should be really easy to obtain and work with data. As such, I can only conclude the failure to plan was more of a deliberate move than an accidental occurrence.

Now please do not compare Hongkong and China and the likes to Singapore when it comes to the recent inflation. Every country has an unique set of conditions, and in any case, our politicians are the highest paid and to run the smallest country, um sorry.., city.

So please, will somebody in the know please stand up and explain yourself already. Or perhaps, will the opposition politicians engage in some detective work to look into the real estate buying and selling activities of these above mentioned head honchos of Singapore's land and housing prices. You never know what can be dug out! And if there is nothing there, then at least it will put many a suspecting Singaporean to rest.

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