DEMOLITION OF UNAUTHORISED STRUCTURES ON GOVERNMENT LAND

Mr Tee Kim Leng asked the Prime Minister how many unauthorised structures on Government land have been demolished by the Land Office since June, 1959, and how many are due to be demolished.

The Prime Minister: Sir, a total of 615 unauthorised structures were detected on State lands and demolished from June 1959 to 27th June, 1962. One un authorised shed is due for demolition next month. Demolition action is taken as and when unauthorised structures are detected. It is therefore not possible to predict when further unauthorised structures will be detected.

Mr Tee Kim Leng: (In Mandarin): Can the Prime Minister take a sympathetic view of the fact that the farmers put up unauthorised houses because they are ignorant of the law? Can the Prime Minister issue them with temporary licences?

The Prime Minister: I will quite willingly oblige everybody and forgive everybody, and in the case of the Member for Pasir Panjang, if there are any vacant lands for schools, hospitals, clinics and community centres which are due for building but which unfortunately have buildings occupied by farmers in their ignorance of the law as to State land, and if he gets me a mass petition from the people in the neighbourhood saying that they would forego willingly the schools, hospitals, clinics and community centres in order that the farmers should not have to bear the consequences of their ignorance of going on to other people's land and building on it, then I will give serious consideration to this petition and to each specific case.

I am quite sure the Member for Pasir Panjang knows that when he was in the People's Action Party he participated in an important series of conferences in which we decided that there should be a once and for all amnesty to everybody an terms an a clear warning to everybody else that any structure that went up would be smacked down the moment it was detected. I have no doubt that all his other pledges are of little value to him now.

I say that if he, as the Member for Pasir Panjang, could convince me that the people of Pasir Panjang are quite happy to have their vacant lands, which have been left vacant for certain specified purposes, unlawfully occupied in this way and the public utilities and amenities frustrated, the Land Office and the Planning Department will give serious consideration to these petitions.

Mr Tee Kim Leng: (In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, the Prime Minister says that I agreed to the demolition of huts. This is rather confusing the issue. I remember that when I was in the P.A.P. no such decision was arrived at any meeting. At that time, I suggested that unauthorised huts which were at least five years' old should be given temporary occupation licences.

The Prime Minister: There were minutes kept of our meetings at which the Member for Pasir Panjang was present. A series of decisions were made as to old unauthorised structures on State land and the position was regularised. Speaking now from memory, they were as follows: they were all to be given T.O.Ls: they were all to be let in accordance with the size of the building. Half the rent was to be set aside for refund to the occupant when he was asked to vacate and when building was to commence. All those provisions have been implemented, and all unlawful structures before June 1959 have been regularised. After that date, the position was made clear to everybody, by debates in this Assembly, in the newspapers and by land bailiffs informing all and sundry, not least of all the contractors, that any unlawful structure put up on any State land will be demolished on detection. And all the while that he was a Member of the Government, that policy had been expeditiously executed as I indicated - 615 houses had been demolished, of which some 470 were demolished at the time the Member for Pasir Panjang was supporting the Government.