RESETTLEMENT PROBLEMS

Mr Ho Kah Leong: (In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, Singapore is faced with two major problems, namely, urbanisation and industrialisation. In the process, they inevitably involve the question of resettlement. Resettlement problems usually involve the human factor. Hence, many episodes of human interest have occurred. My constituency has been selected as the major area for industrial development and, therefore, many of my constituents are affected by resettlement. If I do not mention in this House some of the problems arising out of resettlement of some villages, I will be failing in my duty.

Mr Speaker, Sir, we do not deny that resettlement is a thorny problem. It is not just a matter of cutting down fruit trees and dismantling of houses. It also involves the removal of the people and their livestock to another place. This, of course, affects the normal life of the people. Most of the farmers have built up their homesteads after many long years of effort. For them to remove elsewhere is, of course, not easy. It is a painful matter to them. During all these years, our farmers have shown great understanding and have co-operated fully with the Government. Within the stipulated deadline they have bravely put up with great inconveniences. They have parted for good from the homesteads which they have built up through toil and labour. They have gone to the resettlement areas where they have to start everything afresh. In my opinion, since they have been very co-operative with the Government. The Government departments concerned should not let them have the worst of it. They should adopt a sympathetic attitude towards them and, as far as possible, try to lessen their pain and inconvenience. Every assistance should be given to them to resume their normal livelihood within the shortest possible time after they have removed to the resettlement areas. Otherwise the burden of our industrialisation programme will fall mainly upon them. This is not fair to them.

Sir, the authorities concerned seem to have much leeway in respect of the time limit set for development of the delineated areas. Sometimes, certain areas may he designated for development soon. But after several years of waiting by the farmers, nothing happens. As a result, the affected farmers are in a quandary. The roads in their areas deteriorate and are never properly repaired. They are also notified by the authorities not to carry on with their agricultural activities. On the other hand, the period of waiting sometimes turns out to be two or three years. During this waiting period the farmers generally dare not undertake any large-scale planting of fruit trees or rearing of livestock. Thus, their income is reduced and they have to make use of their savings in order to survive. This kind of life is most intolerable to them. I hope the authorities concerned will give them a definite date for their removal.

Mr Speaker, Sir, Jurong Constituency is a developing area. Some parts are already developed. Sometimes, in implementing the development plans, the authorities will choke up the drains, thus causing frequent flooding of the vegetable gardens in the surrounding areas. For example, in my constituency around Kian Teck Village and Chung Keng Pah, such incidents did happen. In order to avoid any losses the farmers have reduced their cultivation. Some have gone to look for jobs in the Jurong industrial area so as to supplement their income from farming. Some of them have failed in their agricultural pursuits as a result of an epidemic in livestock. As they cannot for the time being secure enough capital, they have to look for some jobs in the industrial area in order to maintain their livelihood. The net result is that, after one or two years, the authorities will conduct a census and when they find that the farmers' cultivation has decreased and that someone in the household has gone out to do some odd job, they will transfer the original farming household to the register of non-farmers. Moreover, these people will not be considered for the allocation of farm lots. These villagers live partly by agriculture and partly by other work. When they are required to remove, the lucky one will be allotted some 3,000 square feet of land to build a house and some will have to go and live in HDB/JTC flats. Their new living space is small. Hence, they have no more opportunity to engage in agricultural activities. If they go and work in the industrial area, they have to travel long distances, and this means an increase in expenditure. They will, therefore, lead an even poorer life. The Government should allot agricultural lands to these farmers.

Mr Speaker, Sir, in the villages, the family unit system is still prevalent. Sometimes, on a piece of land on Temporary Occupation Licence, there may be several households, some on a father-and-son relationship, some on a brother-and-brother relationship, and others are just relatives. Several of the households may be separate and independent. However, when allocating lands, the authorities in charge will not take this into consideration. For one T.O.L., only one piece of land will be allotted to the licensee, irrespective of how many households there are on that piece of land at the moment. It has happened that sometimes 30 to 40 people are resettled on a small piece of land. But what is even worse is that the authorities have stipulated that only one dwelling house can be built on one piece of allotted land. Furthermore, these dwelling houses are not permitted to have a building area of more than 1,000 square feet. It requires little imagination to visualise the over-crowding and inconvenience when 30 to 40 people are crammed into a house of 1,000 square feet. I suggest that, to be reasonable, each independent household should be allotted a separate piece of land.

Mr Speaker, Sir, when the Government resettles the farmers, they will receive compensation for having to give up their dwelling houses, pigsties, chicken sheds and fruit trees, etc. However, the rate of compensation is very low. It is usually not enough to build a new house. I have no intention to argue with the Minister on the amount of compensation. However, there are two points in this connection which are considered most unreasonable. The first relates to the stipulation of the maximum compensation. According to it, the compensation for an acre of fruit trees and other crops cannot exceed $1,500. To a diligent farmer this is simply a kind of exploitation. It must be understood that these fruit trees and crops are the result of long years of toil on the part of the farmers. How can they not be compensated with a fair amount on resettlement? The other point relates to the compensation for the house. This is based on the size of the cemented area. It is also stipulated that, subject to the possession of documentary evidence to show that the house was built before the Second World War, or the plans of their house if built after the war, every square foot of cemented land is to be compensated for at $2.50. Otherwise, the compensation is $1. Sir, in the rural areas many attap houses had been in existence before the war. However, the rural folks did not know very much about the cumbersome procedures of the Government. So they did not prepare plans to apply for house numbers. As a result, many farmers whose houses were actually put up before the war or were built more than ten years ago had to settle, willy-nilly, for a much lower rate of compensation because they could not produce documents or plans to prove such facts. In such cases, it is reasonable to accept their claims as true, provided the village leaders can confirm them and provided they are countersigned or confirmed by a Member of Parliament.

The farmers affected by the scheme are usually resettled at far-away places. But this is not all. The worst of it is that they cannot rebuild their homesteads immediately. Some of them are allocated low-living areas where they have to spend several thousand dollars of their own money to fill up the land. Some have been resettled in places where the original dwellers are still staying, and this has caused even more trouble. This has happened because the officers who plan such resettlement merely stay in their air-conditioned rooms and have not gone to the spot to see the actual situation of the farmers for themselves. Sometimes the dwelling houses, the chicken sheds or pigsties of the original dwellers happen to appear on the demarcation lines or have been given to others, thus putting the original dwellers in a dilemma. It has often happened that before the compensation for the affected property of the original dwellers has been properly settled, the same land is allocated to new settlers, thus causing no end of confusion to the old and the new dwellers.

Mr Speaker, Sir, what troubles the farmers in the resettlement areas even more is that when they have been resettled in a place for not more than a few years, they are requested to remove to another place. In every removal they will incur great losses and suffer inconvenience. I am against this moving from place to place. This puts the farmers in a very distressing and helpless position. At times after they have been resettled they will, all of a sudden, receive a notice saying that their pigsties and chicken sheds will have to be demolished in order to make way for the building of a new road. They have to pull down the structures which they have put up. This upsets them very much. All this goes to show that there has not been prior planning in resettlement. Moreover, the resettlement problems have not been considered carefully in advance. Many farmers have been asked to resettle on another occasion, causing great losses and inconvenience.

I would like to request the Minister to study for himself the plans for resettlement so that such things do not happen again.

I now come to another matter. Many rural people are religious and there are many temples in the areas affected by resettlement. In the new resettlement areas, there is no provision of land for the building of temples. Some temple managements, after lengthy negotiations with the authorities, were fortunate enough to get small plots of land allotted to them. To these rural people, religion is a part of their lives, and this lack of land is most inconvenient.

Secondly, what amazes me is that no reservation has been made for sites in the new resettlement areas for educational purposes. Many resettled farmers have been troubled by the problem of their children's education. The Government should not think that once the farmers are successfully resettled, the undertaking is completed and the livelihood, education, recreation, etc., of the farmers can be disregarded. I assert that this attitude is not correct. In Resettlement Areas 117 and 118 the situation is thus. The settlers in these two resettlement areas came mainly from Lokyang Village in my constituency. The Management Committee of Lokyang School, which was originally in Lokyang Village were notified that the school would be demolished. They applied to the authorities for a lot in the resettlement area and made preparations to remove to the new school building. At the same time, local keen supporters of the cause of education also set up a school building committee. But this enthusiasm for education on the part of the villagers did not meet with any encouragement from the Government. They did not even allot a piece of land for a school. The schools near the resettlement area already have a full enrolment and settlers are continually being added to the settlement. I really do not know where the children of these settlers will go for their schooling. I request the Minister to give the House a satisfactory answer.

Sir, at present farmers who are not yet affected by resettlement have two to three acres of land on an average which is used for agricultural cultivation or livestock rearing or both. They mobilize all hands in the family and utilize all the available land. In this way, they manage to scrape up three meals a day. When they are removed to the resettlement areas, they are allotted not more than one and a half acres of land. A great majority of the households get only one-half or three-quarters of an acre of land. When the area of arable land is reduced, the amount harvested will, of course, be reduced proportionately. Further, there will not be a harvest rightaway. If fruit trees are planted, it will take several years for them to bear fruit. If the income from their agricultural activities is not enough to maintain their livelihood, members of the family seek work in the industrial areas. Then, in view of the great distances travelled, after deducting transport expenses, the income received will still be very limited. The farmers who are resettled not only get a reduced income but also incur increased expenditure. Because a house is newly built, it will attract a higher annual assessment value. The property tax is thereby increased. To settle in some far-away place, the farmers have to pay more on transport expenses than before.

In addition, sanitary amenities will have to be installed, hygienic pigsties and chicken sheds have to be built, better breeds of livestock and farming implements have to be bought. All these need money. When the school nearby is full up, the children will have to be sent to far-away places for schooling, and more transport expenses will be incurred. It can be said that the farmers, who are already poor, after moving to the resettlement area, will become even poorer.

Sir, ours is a country which professes democratic socialism and advocates the narrowing of the gap between the rich and the poor. Judging from the distressed condition of dwellers in the resettlement areas, the gap between the rich and the poor has grown wider. The Government seems not to care for the farmers. It seems to be satisfied with merely rapidly removing the farmers from their homesteads and allotting the sites thus vacated to foreign capitalists for investment. The authorities concerned seem not to have planned and developed the resettlement areas well to make them suitable for people to live in and enjoy the modern amenities of life. The Government has been vociferous in claiming that it is much concerned with the welfare of the resettlement dwellers. It should not merely pay lip-service to it, but should show its concern for them in practical terms.

6.35 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Law and National Development (National Development Division) (Mr Ho Cheng Choon): (In Mandarin): Mr Speaker, Sir, regarding the problems mentioned at length by the Member for Jurong, my feeling is that they are general resettlement problems and only one or two deserve an answer. All the rest can be solved administratively by the departments concerned.

Sir, according to data collected by the Primary Production Department, there are about 19,000 farms which have been licensed. The number of people engaged in farming is about 180,000, of which those who are engaged in full-time farming number only 36,000, those engaged in part-time farming number 14,000, and those not engaged in farming number 23,000. The rest are women and children. If we classify the farms according to their sizes, the small farms comprise about 85 per cent. The rest are medium-sized farms. By small farms I mean those which have less than 100 pigs or less than 1,000chickens, or farms which are partly engaged in other farming activities. According to these data, most of the farmers on the small farms are part-time farmers. Meantime, they are also engaged in other activities to maintain their livelihood. As regards these small farmers, whether or not they are affected by resettlement, they are still part-time farmers.

The Member for Jurong has alleged that these farmers have become poor because of resettlement. This is incorrect. However, I do not deny that when a farmer is resettled in a new area, he will have to put up with some inconvenience and hardship. My department understands very well the existence of these problems and we have always given these farmers our careful attention. We have tried our best to reduce their difficulties in building their new homesteads. This is the experience we have gathered over the years and, as a matter of fact, because of our enlightened and reasonable attitude in tackling these problems, our resettlement policy has been carried out smoothly. I do not agree completely with the Member for Jurong when he says that in the implementation of resettlement, certain aberrations exist. In point of fact, the selection of a resettlement area is dependent on a number of factors. The most important factor is that the selected site must conform with the utilisation of the area as specified by the Master Plan for Singapore. The majority of the resettlement areas are delineated in the Lim Chu Kang and Choa Chu Kang areas. That is the reason why farmers from Jurong must be resettled in these areas. But what I am worried about is that once we have used up these areas, we have to review the policy of reallocation of land for farmers.

The Member for Jurong has also alleged that certain farmers were resettled for a second time. These are the facts. When we were in Malaysia, the problem of national defence was in the hands of the central Government. When we became independent, national defence became our primary concern. En order to train our Army, the Ministry of Defence required large areas of land for training purposes. Because of this, certain rural areas, including certain resettlement areas, were affected by this plan. Actually, resettlement is not an easy task. Sometimes, because of practical necessity, we are compelled to carry out resettlement. Strictly speaking, our resettlement department can be said to be an agency for various Government departments in clearing out areas designated for development so that all our national development projects may be carried out smoothly. If one day there is nothing for the resettlement department to do, then our development will also come to a stop.

The Member for Jurong is unhappy about the reallocation of land for farmers and about the maximum compensation of $1,500 per acre of fruit trees. Sir, on the question of reallocation of land, our policy is this. If the person is a genuine farmer, he will get between half an acre and two acres of land. As land is becoming increasingly scarce in our country, there must be certain limitations imposed on our policy of reallocation of land. On the question of the maximum compensation of $1,500 per acre of fruit trees, this figure is much higher than that prevailing before 1964. The maximum compensation is based upon the maximum number of fruit trees which can be cultivated in an acre of land. The fixing of the maximum figure also ensures that corruption does not take place.

Similarly, in regard to compensation for buildings, if the owner can produce documentary evidence to show that he has followed legitimate procedures in applying for building approval, he will receive compensation at the rate of $2.50 per square foot. In addition, I wish to mention that special cases which were brought before the relevant department by Members of Parliament have been given special consideration after due investigation.

As regards the problems of damage to roads, blocked drains and larger houses for farmers, all these problems can be solved administratively by the various departments concerned.

Mr Speaker, Sir, although our resettlement areas cannot be compared with those under the Housing and Development Board, at least most of them do have roads, drains and supplies of water and electricity. Furthermore, a certain portion of the resettlement area is set aside for schools and other purposes. However, the construction of schools is not the responsibility of the resettlement department. If the Ministry of Education can support the building of schools in the resettlement area, then our resettlement department will be willing to offer assistance.

On the question of temples, those which were affected by resettlement projects have been relocated in various resettlement areas. There are also community centres in these resettlement areas.

Sir, before I conclude, I wish to point out that for the last few years our farmers, under the care of our Government, have made a considerable contribution to our country. As a result of the rapid expansion of our economy and the growth of industrialisation, it is true that a certain number of farmers have been affected by resettlement. But, on the whole, our farmers have contributed to our Gross National Product to the tune of 2.9 per cent. In terms of monetary value, their annual production exceeds $100 million. This, then, is the fact which goes to show that the picture painted by the Member for Jurong is based upon his subjective point of view.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved,

That Parliament do now adjourn.

Adjourned accordingly at Fourteen minutes to Seven o'clock p.m. to a date to be fixed. COMPARISON OF THE EXISTING AND NEW NATIONAL SERVICE POLICY (cols. 359-368)