ESTIMATES OF EXPENDITURE FOR THE FINANCIAL YEAR 1ST APRIL, 2000 TO 31ST MARCH, 2001 (Paper Cmd. No. 2 of 2000)

Order read for consideration in Committee of Supply [5th Allotted Day].

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Head T (cont.) -

Resumption of Debate on Question [11th March, 2000].

"That the total sum to be allocated for Head T of the Main Estimates be reduced by $100." - [Mr Charles Chong].

Question again proposed.

Dr Jennifer Lee (Nominated Member): Sir, I was very happy to hear from the Minister on Saturday that MOM would like to see even a small percentage of the women who have stopped work to return to the workforce, and also that funding is not an issue for the Skills Redevelopment Programme (SRP) as it has surplus unused funds. The SRP focuses its attention mainly on retraining retrenched workers and on upgrading currently employed workers who have inadequate or obsolete skills. I believe that it does not currently provide for housewives or homemakers, women who have previously stopped work, to attend to family responsibilities, but would now like to rejoin the workforce. There are many issues to be addressed in getting women back to work, but one of them is that these women need to be reskilled, both from the perspective of updating their outdated skills as well as simply to regain confidence in being able to cope in a workplace environment again. Flowing from the Minister's two points on Saturday, I would like to ask him to consider extending the support of the SRP to such women. 12.45 pm

The Minister for Manpower (Dr Lee Boon Yang): Sir, on Saturday, several Members had spoken on skills training, retraining and the manpower development aspect of my Ministry's work. Allow me to take this opportunity to respond.

I agree wholeheartedly that skill upgrading is indeed an urgent task and I would like to reassure all Members that we are pressing ahead with our manpower development efforts. I am very happy to announce that the Ministry of Finance has approved my Ministry's plan to deploy the $200 million Manpower Development Assistance Scheme (MDAS) which Government agreed to in principle last year. The Ministry of Finance has given full approval for the $200 million budget to be utilised over the next five years. The MDAS has already been formulated to support all our manpower development initiatives by co-funding with employers to train their workers, develop skills standards and also develop learning infrastructure.

The MDAS will support three major programmes: the workforce development programmes, the skills recognition and certification programme and the learning infrastructure development programme. $90 million has been set aside under MDAS to provide additional support for skills training under the Skills Redevelopment Programme (SRP). Our target is to reach 100,000 workers by the year 2003. We have also allocated $20 million over five years to support the Strategic Manpower Conversion Programme (SMCP) to be launched in April 2000. This was the programme I mentioned on Saturday. This is another skills upgrading programme to train non-IT workers for jobs in the rapidly growing IT industry. We hope to initially train about 300 IT specialists a year. $40 million will go to the National Skills Recognition System (NSRS) which is an industry-driven certification system which will accord national recognition to skills obtained through modular training. I will have more to say about the national recognition skills system later. Last, but not least, $50 million has been set aside for the development of learning infrastructure.

Sir, to support employer-based training, the SDF levy will also be revised. The salary ceiling for the collection of a 1% payroll levy will be raised progressive to $2,000 in the year 2004, as announced by DPM last year. The first step is the increase from $1,000 to $1,500 on 1st July 2000. This will increase the levy collection from $20 million a year to $48 million a year. The SDF will be committing about $100 million in this financial year for training grants and the Training Leave Scheme for older workers with lower education. Members can see for themselves that we are, in fact, placing a tremendous amount of resources into manpower development.

The promotion of lifelong learning is critical. We must get all Singaporeans to adopt lifelong learning as a way of life. It is critical for our success in the knowledge-based economy. While we can provide funds and introduce various support mechanism, our employers and workers must adopt a new lifelong learning mindset. From the end of March this year, we will start to publicise the need and value of lifelong learning in the various media. This will lead to the Singapore Learning Festival which will take place at the end of August and early September. This event will further highlight the importance of lifelong learning in the new economy by showcasing learning opportunities and promoting learning as a fun and rewarding experience. I hope Members will not see this as yet another Government campaign but as a bold new initiative to get our people to prepare for the knowledge and technology challenges ahead of us.

Mr Charles Chong on Saturday raised the issue of professionalising certain industries. We recognise that there is a group of older workers who lack the basic literacy and numeracy skills to be equipped with capabilities to take on the new jobs. For this group of workers, our strategy is to re-engineer and professionalise jobs and industries which are currently of low value-added and are labour-intensive. As it stands today, many of these lower skilled jobs in these industries are filled by foreign workers. We will continue to restrict the supply of unskilled foreign workers to this area. At the same time, we encourage more locals to enter such occupations by improving productivity through better practices and processes, the use of technology and raising the image of the industry. This strategy has already been initiated in the cleaning and construction industries. We are aiming to transform cleaning jobs into trades where workers can acquire new skills, operate sophisticated cleaning equipment effectively and perform their jobs much more efficiently, and hence command higher wages and greater responsibilities. Other areas identified for job enhancement are the hotel, retail and healthcare industries.

The Government believes that learning, while it should be employment driven and employer-linked, also requires a high degree of personal motivation. For any programme to be successful, the individual must be prepared to put in the time and effort for continuous learning. Mr Ong on Saturday cited examples of workers who engage in training but subsequently find that they still cannot find new work with their new skills. He observed that when they started on the training programme, they did not have good enough information to guide them. We intend to address this gap by setting up one-stop career centres, which I have mentioned earlier on, and e-Career network to make available information on learning and job opportunities. This will help workers make informed decisions on skills upgrading and career development. A pilot one-stop-career centre will be launched later this year. Mr Ong also pointed out that management skills are also important in the new economy and that we have to train our managers in addition to our workers. For this purpose, the SDF currently provides support to the SMEs for management training. While the importance of management training is recognised, Government support in this area should be selective and focused on the companies and areas of greatest need since management training is already widely available.

Sir, while the Government is committed to encouraging workers to engage in skills upgrading, this effort will only be successful with strong partnership from employers and workers. Employers need to recognise that workers need their support for training. On the other hand, workers need to see the importance of training and to engage actively in skills upgrading. A complacent attitude towards skills upgrading is a dangerous mindset. If employers and workers do not change this mindset and move out of the "comfort zone", we will face a serious problem in the future. We would see an increase in structural unemployment with a growing mismatch between jobs available and a growing pool of Singaporeans lacking the skills for these new jobs. Our programmes for manpower development are targeted at narrowing this gap.

Mr Chay Wai Chuen suggested that industry experts must be involved in establishing the National Skills Recognition System (NSRS) and that the standards that are being set must be reviewed regularly. I agree with him. The National Skills Recognition System seeks to define standards for specific job-based competencies that are relevant to industry and which can be nationally recognised. Such a system would make it easier for workers to upgrade their skills. In addition, the establishment of competency standards and recognition of skills would enhance the professionalism and quality of service of the workforce. It would enable the better trained and better skilled workers to serve their customers more professionally and to offer better quality service.

I agree with the Member that industry experts must be involved in setting up the National Skills Recognition System. We will be identifying industry lead bodies to take ownership of the development, maintenance and recognition process. Industry lead bodies are, in fact, key players in their areas. They would comprise industry associations, group of companies or leading companies in the industry, and the economic agency that is responsible for promoting this sector. We will also set up Industry Skills Standards Committee to establish skills standards, promote the National Skills Recognition System and also review the standards regularly, as suggested by Mr Chay.

The National Skills Recognition System is currently being tested in the hotel, cleaning and marine industries. My Ministry is working closely with the Productivity and Standards Board, the Singapore Hotels Association (SHA), Environmental Management Association of Singapore (EMAS) and the Association of Singapore Marine Industries (ASMI). They will drive this pilot project. In addition, key players within these industries are consulted as well. This includes companies like Conrad International Centennial and Westin Stamford and Westin Plaza in the hotel industry, ISS Servisystem and UMC ServiceMaster in the cleaning industry, and Keppel Hitachi Zosen and Sembawang Shipyard in the marine industry. Under this pilot run, the participating companies are sending about 250 workers to be assessed for National Skills Recognition System certification. We are targeting to train and certify 3,000 workers in the pilot phase. My Ministry will proactively seek out the industries, including the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which can provide jobs after NSRS training, and also participate in the development of standards. This will address the point raised by Mr Seng Han Thong on Saturday. He was concerned that smaller companies may not be involved in the process.

Mr Seng also suggested that the NSRS take into account the needs and capabilities of older workers. I agree on that score too. Under the National Skills Recognition System, workers are trained and certified according to the skills standards set by industry. They do so in modules, small bite sizes, which they can digest easily, tailored to meet the capabilities and working experience of older workers. There is thus a lot of flexibility for them. They can progress at a pace that they are comfortable with. NSRS trainers will develop suitable software to meet the needs of older workers in the industry. This will encourage more older workers to undergo skills upgrading.

Next, I turn to the remarks by Mr Low Thia Khiang. Unfortunately, he is not here this morning. Mr Low made the point that training programmes must be supported by employers, which I agree. He would like more information to be communicated on the opportunities available for training upgrading. That is also an area we agree upon and that is something that my Ministry will pursue to extensively publicise all the various training programmes.

He then went on to say that during the recession in 1998 and early 1999 a lot of workers had difficulties getting jobs. If his purpose is to imply that we have not given these workers sufficient assistance or rendered sufficient support to workers who are affected by the downturn, I would like to take this opportunity to correct the impression because, on the contrary, it is true that my Ministry has been very proactive in helping unemployed workers secure employment, particularly during the economic downturn in 1998 and even early 1999. We have been especially proactive in helping the lower skilled group of older workers who had the greatest difficulty in seeking re-employment. In fact, in 1998, it was quite clear that the economy was going to take a turn for the worse. We set up an employment facilitation team to proactively hunt for jobs from various employers and to offer these job opportunities to workers who are affected by retrenchment or workers who registered with the Employment Department of my Ministry. My Ministry was present during the most difficult period of the economic downturn in 1998 and 1999 at most of the large scale retrenchment exercises conducted by various companies. In many of these exercises, we also arranged suitable companies that were still recruiting workers to be present on site to immediately offer retrenched workers alternative job opportunities.

My Ministry also worked closely with the CDCs, self-help groups, NTUC and economic agencies to organise many job fairs during 1998 and 1999. In 1999, for example, we organised more than 10 large scale job fairs. We publicised these job fairs extensively through newspapers, radio advertisement, posters, personal letters to retrenched workers and also to the community grassroots organisations and the various self-help networks. As a result of our publicity effort, the job fairs were very well attended. Some of these job fairs attracted crowds of 3,000 people looking for job placement assistance. At every such event, my Ministry's officers, together with representatives of NTUC, the CDCs and self-help groups, would be on hand to offer advice and assistance on employment and the training assistance that would be available. In fact, in November 1998, we worked with Hougang CDC to organise a community job fair at the Hougang Community Centre, and this would certainly have benefited residents of Hougang constituency.

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We have also been very proactive in helping retrenched workers who are under-skilled or low skilled to enrol in training. We work with the CDCs, NTUC and various employer groups to encourage these workers to take up training under the Skills Redevelopment Scheme.

I hope this will address the points that he mentioned and I reiterate that there is no basis to say that we have not been paying sufficient attention to the needs of this lower educated or lower skilled group of workers who are affected by the downturn.

Next, I turn to Mdm Claire Chiang who on Saturday spoke about the difficulties facing different groups of workers. She was more concerned with the middle management and the executive group who also faced job pressures during the economic downturn.

Let me say that it is true that in our approach to retraining and skills upgrading, we focus on the needs of the lowest level of workers, the least educated and the lower skilled group of workers. This is because it forms the largest group. About 500,000 of our workers have less than secondary education. So this is the group that is most vulnerable to structural unemployment and most likely to be displaced as industries upgrade to higher technology and higher skills level.

For the executive and middle level managers, most are well educated, as I mentioned earlier on in my response to Mr Ong Ah Heng. They already receive fairly good education and for many, they have been working for some years in the company and have very good working experience and track records also. Our universities and polytechnics offer many opportunities for continuing education and training which are available to this group of people, and they are the group that would have the most resources available to them to continue such training. The Singapore Institute of Management and other private sector educational providers are also doing a thriving business offering many management upgrading programmes.

Sir, the raising of the salary ceiling for contributions to the SDF, which I have mentioned earlier on, would, in fact, help this group too. Because once the salary ceiling is raised to $2,000, SDF would be able to allocate more of its available resources to provide training for the middle level managers. For this group of executives and management personnel, they are, of course, also able to use the income tax relief of $2,500 for individual upgrading programme.

But that is not to say that we do not have any programme for this group of Singaporeans. In fact, our Strategic Manpower Conversion Programme, which I had mentioned on Saturday, could possibly be extended in the future to cover this group. Initially, when we launched the Strategic Manpower Conversion Programme, we were going to focus on the IT industry. That is the area where there is the greatest need for IT-trained manpower and there is a growing demand which cannot be met. So we are trying to convert non-IT trained people to take on these new jobs. But later on, with the benefit of experience of our initial launch in IT industry, we could expand this programme to cover other areas, in management areas, for instance. So we can create opportunity for management personnel to change profession to respond to the new demands that are emerging in the economy.

We also encourage Chambers of Commerce and various industry associations to set up their own life-long learning programmes for their managers and executives. Under the Manpower Development Assistance Scheme, which I have mentioned earlier on, we have allocated funds to develop training infrastructures. We can make use of those resources to assist Chambers of Commerce and industry organisations to set up this kind of training facilities. My understanding is that the Singapore National Employers' Federation is, in fact, embarking on one such initiative.

But at the end of the day, I would like to point out that those with tertiary educational qualifications - the managers and the executives - are already much better equipped to adjust with the changes in the economic environment, compared to the less educated and lower skilled workers. For the managers and the executives, there are options for seeking new employment, going into business on their own, becoming self-employed, and be free agents offering their expertise and services on a more entrepreneurial scale.

Individual drive and enterprise will ultimately determine how each person will be able to make a living. It is important that they also adopt this life-long learning mindset to prepare themselves, to keep themselves relevant and up-to-date with what is needed in the job market. A high degree of individual proactiveness is required and will be helpful to them in anticipation of any economic downturn or any sudden changes in their job prospects.

Here, I would like to draw Members' attention to an article in The Asian Wall Street Journal on the 3rd-4th of March (the Friday-Saturday paper), which is headlined "Old Manager Learns New Tricks". The article is based on the story of a Korean executive. I am sure we will find similar examples in Singapore also which may not yet have been highlighted. I am quite confident we have similar inspiring examples. This article tells the story of a 50-year old Korean executive who was facing retrenchment from this company. Instead of sitting around and bemoaning his fate, he looked around to see which other sector offered him the best opportunity. He concluded that the growth sector was the telecommunications industry in Korea. The telecommunications companies were the ones that were still recruiting. So he found a telecommunications company (Telco) that is planning to replace a manager in about five or six months' time, and he decided that he wanted to try for this job. He is a 50-year old competing with the 30s and the early 40s. He spent four months learning everything he could about Telco operations and management, learning from friends in the business, reading from books and magazines. He even went to the extent of giving up his golf to jog regularly so that he can improve his physical appearance to compete with the 30-something who would turn up for the interview. Well, he got the job. From the story, those of you who are interested should read the article, the employer is very happy with his performance.

So the moral of it is that there is a lot of individual responsibility, there is a lot that we can do as a person, faced with such an unpleasant situation. If we make the effort, I think it would pay off.

Next, I turn to Dr Jennifer Lee who asked what are the training opportunities for housewives who want to re-enter the workforce. If we have SRP for workers who are retrenched or facing retrenchment, what assistance is available to help housewives refresh and update their skills so that they can go back to work? In this regard, we are taking a two-pronged approach. First, the Productivity and Standards Board has introduced core skills training programme for job seekers. This was set in place since September 1996. And over the years we have trained about 5,000 new employees, including many women. They were equipped with new skills or to update their old skills so that they could fit into the new working environment. The second approach is that managers and supervisors must also be trained on how to nurture and develop their new employees, who have just re-joined the workforce, because you have to treat them a bit differently. You have to manage them in a different way because, although they have past working experience, they may have been out of touch for some years, raising children, looking after the family. Since they are newly back into the workforce, you have to manage them differently.

So we have training programmes for managers and supervisors, and several hundred managers have been trained under these programmes.

In 1996 and 1997, we started to look at how to get more women back into the workforce. We had a committee called Back-to-Work Committee, chaired by Mrs Tan Ai Lian, to study the various issues concerned. But in 1998, because of the economic downturn, it seemed to be less critical and less necessary to launch a massive effort to get women back into the workforce, because we were already having very high unemployment rate. So we scaled back the programme in this area. But now that the economy has recovered and employers are again crying out for more workers, I think it is appropriate to revisit all these old areas and see what more we can do in order to help women re-enter the workforce.

In November 1998, we launched the Critical Enabling Skills Training programme or CREST programme. We are thinking of using this CREST programme to replace the Back-to-Work Core Skills Training Programme. The PSB has set aside $200 million for this CREST programme. This is a separate programme. They have allocated $200 million for this programme which will equip workers with critical skills to enable them to acquire new skills and competency in the job. The CREST programme basically gives workers tools with which they can learn new skills. It is not imparting job specific skills but giving them the tools for them to acquire new skills on the job.

We are thinking of including IT as one of the packages under the CREST programme, because IT is nowadays required in many jobs that are available. So housewives who want to re-enter the workforce will find this aspect of IT training very useful.

I am glad to say that the CREST programme has been making good progress. As of February 2000, there were 21,000 providers providing 87 training modules in the seven CREST skills. To-date, more than 24,000 CREST training places have been taken up by workers. We have found it to be more effective and appropriate to encourage employers to recruit housewives and to send them for CREST training, rather than to train housewives first and then try to find a job for them. So this is the approach that we will take. We will encourage and support employers who are willing to recruit housewives. And once they are recruited, we will send them for the full range of CREST training and subsequently follow up with any job specific skills training that is required. I think this would be a more productive approach and it would maximise return on our investments in training.

Sir, I think I have covered all the points raised.

The Chairman: I would like to advise hon. Members that we are very far behind schedule for this amendment, and we have three more amendments on this Head. In order for the three amendments to be heard, I propose to drop the "guillotine" on this amendment at around 2.05 pm.

Mr Seng Han Thong: Sir, may I seek one clarification?

The Chairman: All right.

Mr Seng Han Thong: On the NSRS for older workers employed by SMEs, may I know whether the medium of instruction will also be in Malay or Mandarin, as the problem of the older workers is that when they attend these classes, they may "liak bo kiu" or "catch no ball", which means they cannot fully understand.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Sir, let me reassure Members that when we set up the training for the National Skills Recognition System, we will look at the profile of the workers who are coming for the particular course. There may be instances where we will have to resort to using languages other than English to communicate lessons and the training materials to them. We are prepared to consider this.

The Chairman: May I also inform the hon. Member that the language he has used earlier is considered unparliamentary. I must ask you to withdraw those words.

Mr Seng Han Thong: Sir, I withdraw.

Mr Davinder Singh (Bishan-Toa Payoh): Sir, the questions which I would like to raise are whether Singaporeans are financially prepared for retirement and, if not, what is the Ministry proposing to do about it.

This issue has assumed significance because of a finding by an Inter-Ministerial Committee that unless they start planning now, Singaporeans may not have enough savings for their old age. This finding is supported by anecdotal evidence. Reports carried by the Straits Times suggest that Singaporeans may have seriously over-estimated their ability to meet their future needs. 1.15 pm

What are the facts? In 1995, the median CPF balance at age 55 was $86,000, equivalent to only 32 months of the average salary then. That figure is inclusive of withdrawals for housing and other investments which means that the actual cash balance is much less.

The 1998 CPF annual report disclosed that among those close to retirement, that is, people in the 50-55 age group, only half of some 80,000 active members have balances of more than $150,000. Again, that sum include sums withdrawn for housing and other investments. So the cash element is much less.

Knowing what is available is only half the story. How much do Singaporeans require in retirement? Needs and expectations have increased by leaps and bounds. There are a number of reasons for this: first, greater longevity, second, better lifestyles today, and third, a desire to maintain that lifestyle into retirement.

To have a shot at a decent lifestyle after retirement, you would need per month at least the equivalent of what $750 can purchase today, with no mortgage on your house, no hire purchase on your car, and no other debt. Not many people are going to have that kind of cash when they retire. You do not have to be a financial wizard to quickly work out that unless Singaporeans have substantial voluntary savings, we may be running into a serious problem.

By the year 2030, Singapore will have nearly 800,000 people aged above 65. That is 19% of the population. How are they going to manage if they do not have sufficient cash? Their children have their own expectations and obligations. The reverse mortgage scheme will help but can it take care of all affected members without diluting the value of the underlying properties, and thereby affecting the amount of cash that will be ultimately available?

How has this come about? The CPF scheme was implemented to help Singaporeans prepare for retirement. It is a prudent policy. But it has had a wholly unintended effect. It has led many Singaporeans to believe that their CPF reserves will be sufficient in their retirement to maintain their present standard of living. It has lulled Singaporeans into a false sense of complacency. The figures show that this confidence is misplaced.

Singaporeans should be told that their CPF savings may not be enough, and in many cases will not be enough. Their CPF reserves are already being eaten into for other permitted uses, which are not as liquid as cash and which can depreciate in value. As for the cash, CPF balances do not earn the best interest rates. One economist has calculated that the CPF real rate of interest from 1987 to 1998 was zero, because of inflation. Add to that, the fact that many among the self-employed, who account for about 8% of the working population, do not contribute to CPF.

To be fair, this misperception of the size of the CPF safety net is not the only cause of the problem. In Singapore, a culture of instant gratification is taking root. As a result not many Singaporeans plan for the future. It is very important that the Government lay out the facts so that Singaporeans understand what is in store for them when they retire.

It will be a sad irony if the CPF policy, which was designed to help us in our old age, is blamed for hurting us in our retirement because the policy led Singaporeans to make some false assumptions about their worth.

We will do well to lay out the facts and the figures. It will be worth our time and money to give each account holder an idea of how long his savings are likely to last at different levels of expenditure, taking inflation into account. It will be a rough guide at best. But Singaporeans need to have some information and to act on it if we are to avoid a major problem.

Mr Hawazi Daipi (Sembawang): Sir, I would like to bring up a similar subject of provision for retirement, just brought up by Mr Davinder Singh, and this is on the extension of retirement age. Since the extension of retirement age to 62 was implemented in January 1999, I received feedback from older workers and union members who would like to work beyond the age of 62. This is in stark contrast from reactions received when the issue of extension of retirement age was first brought up. Then some workers mistakenly asked why they should be compelled to work beyond the age of 60. Of course, there is no compulsion as the extended retirement age has given workers the option to work beyond the age of 60.

Singaporeans are practical people. They want to maintain their lifestyle in old age and would like to work to achieve that. They want to continue working beyond 62 so that they can remain financially independent. Sir, there are older Singaporeans who need to work because they do not get, or they get very little financial support from their family members, or they do not have sufficient CPF savings to support their retirement. We should stay on course towards the long-term plan for the extension of retirement age to 67. Towards this end, the tripartite partners can start talking to prepare for the eventual extension of retirement age to, first, 65 and then 67 in years to come.

We have a small workforce and, as a result of that, we have to bring in foreign workers to support our workforce. Other than encouraging our housewives to go back to work, we can tap the resources and services of our older workers. Even if we are not going to implement further extension to the retirement age in the immediate future, we can start discussing the matter among the tripartite partners so that we can understand the issues and problems of the respective parties before we can start negotiating.

The Minister of State for Manpower (Encik Othman bin Haron Eusofe): Sir, let me first respond to Mr Davinder Singh. Sir, the 1995 National Survey on Senior Citizens showed that the majority of citizens aged 55 and above did not make any financial provision for old age. Ensuring financial security in old age is therefore a serious challenge for an ageing population, especially for one which is rapidly ageing.

Sir, over the past 45 years, the CPF Board has helped Singaporeans to save for retirement. In more recent years, the Board has conducted a public education programme to remind CPF members on the need to plan early for their financial security in old age. Sir, this is done through the CPF NewsLine, media features and special supplements. The Board's public education programme is targeted at CPF members in the different age groups. It emphasises that CPF is for old age and that CPF members should make a conscientious effort in planning the use of their CPF savings under the various schemes. Sir, the CPF Board's projections show that at the long-term contribution of 40%, CPF savings should be sufficient for basic retirement, health care and housing needs. Sir, however, there is a tendency for CPF members to take for granted that their CPF savings will allow them to maintain the same living standards and lifestyle after their retirement.

Sir, I would like to take this opportunity to remind CPF members that all their CPF assets, including cash in their CPF accounts, property and investments are for their old age needs. Some may have bought a house or apartment which is more than what their income can actually support. So these members could end up asset rich and cash poor. If such members wish to retain their properties bought with their CPF savings, they should put aside more personal savings on their own to supplement their CPF savings or continue working for as long as they can. Otherwise, when their cash savings run low, they have to sell their properties and move to smaller units.

Sir, the HDB has started to build studio apartments in various parts of Singapore. These studio apartments will help those who need to transfer to smaller flats to free up their savings for retirement needs. Hence, if Singaporeans desire to maintain a higher standard of living on retirement and want a more comfortable retirement life, they should put aside personal savings over and above the CPF. Sir, as the Member pointed out, the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Ageing Population reinforced the need for individuals to plan early for their retirement.

Sir, in support of the Committee's recommendation, the CPF Board has stepped up its public education programme and work with related agencies, such as the Ministry of Community Development and the Financial Planning Association of Singapore to reach out to different target groups on the need to "Take Charge" and "Plan Early" for a secure future. An example of such an effort was the "Achieving Financial Security and Personal Happiness" seminar, recently organised by the Financial Planning Association of Singapore and the Consumers' Association of Singapore (CASE) in which the CPF Board has taken an active role to promote the seminar.

Sir, with the CPF Board stepping up its public education programme, together with the related agencies, we hope that Singaporeans would plan early for their old age needs and are able to enjoy the desired living standards and lifestyle after their retirement.

Next, I will deal with the question which was posed by Mr Hawazi Daipi. He has pointed out that the minimum retirement age was raised from 60 to 62 years with effect from 1st January 1999. Sir, it is a bit too early for us to review the minimum retirement age at this juncture. We should allow for more time for companies to make the necessary adjustments and implement the recommendations of the Tripartite Committee on the Extension of Retirement Age. However, the Ministry will monitor closely the progress of the implementation and carry out a review when the timing is more appropriate.

Mr Yeo Guat Kwang (Cheng San): (In Mandarin): Sir, Singapore is a small country with a small population. To a certain extent , we have been depending on foreign workers to help sustain our economic development. Take local factories, for example. But for the great number of foreign workers to make up for the shortfall in our local workforce in this sector, we would not be able to sustain the momentum of our production in Singapore, and the factories would not have survived. In turn, the survival of these factories provides our local labourers with the opportunities for employment. Therefore, our trade unions and people also recognise and affirm the contributions of the foreign workers.

Sir, I recently attended the ILO Asia-Pacific Seminar on Foreign Workers. It was established at the seminar that as compared to other countries, Singapore is in a better position to give better protection and benefits to the foreign workers.

At last year's Labour Day celebration, the Minister for Manpower said that foreign workers enjoyed equal legal protection and the various basic welfare schemes as our local workers in Singapore. In certain circumstances, the Government even went to the extent of amending the Criminal Procedure Code to give greater protection to the foreign workers, like the domestic maids.

The number of foreign workers in Singapore is very large. We have about 400,000 foreign workers in Singapore. In the media, we have occasions to learn of incidents of ill treatment or abuse of foreign workers. For example, on the 5th of March, Lianhe Wanbao mentioned the poor living conditions of some workers and cases of abuse of foreign domestic maids. From the picture, we could see that it is like an indented labour hostel during the colonial days. Although such cases are few and far between, maybe, one out of 10,000, it does nevertheless have an undermining effect on our reputation, and give our neighbouring countries a wrong impression that we have treated our foreign employees very badly in Singapore. So we must consider measures to deal with such irresponsible employers. But I think, more importantly, with our globalisation and economic reform, we should substantively reduce our dependence on foreign labour. In the sectors which are more dependent on foreign workers, such as the construction industry, I hope the Ministry of Manpower will try and help the industry to raise their productivity by introducing innovative construction methods to cut down their manpower requirements. MOM should shorten the timeframe in tightening the Man-Year-Entitlement. I also hope that the Ministry of Manpower would look into the accommodation condition for the foreign workers. We must tackle the problem at the roots. Here, I would like to ask the Minister whether the present system of work permit allocation has achieved its desired outcome and does the Ministry have any plan to reduce the problems of repatriation. 1.30 pm

The Chairman: I would advise Members to be brief with their speeches, otherwise we would not be able to complete discussion on this Head. Mr Thomas.

Mr Thomas Thomas (Nominated Member): Sir, we have a significant number of foreign workers and they make a significant contribution to our economy. Moreover, being a nation of migrants, our forefathers, at one time or other, were foreign workers. Because of this, I completely agree with the sentiments that the Minister expressed on Saturday regarding treatment and welfare provisions for foreign workers. Because of that, I just have got two points that I want to bring up today.

One is that the way many foreign workers come to Singapore is through employment agents and many of these employment agents profit from workers who are desperately trying to get out of the poverty trap in their home countries. We say that labour should not be treated as a commodity but the way the whole system works where these people pay the agents for a chance to work here, it is more than a commodity. These agents collect the money, many on false promises, and sometimes, they are brought in here illegally. To maximise profits, some of these agents work with employers to change them more frequently. In all these cases, workers end up the losers.

I would like to ask the Ministry of Manpower to review the way that they bring these workers in. I know we have modified some schemes but can we also look into the possibility of a Government agency being the sole authority to bring in these foreign workers and cut off many of these unscrupulous employment agents.

The other point is that while we are bringing in foreign workers cheaply, we also have problems, which many of my fellow Members have raised, on older workers finding it very difficult to get jobs. Most of the time, the older workers are the first to be retrenched. Foreign workers are mostly cheaper. We find a lot of evidence and stories around that the employers do depress their wages, especially for the unskilled levels. We would also like to get some assurance from MOM on what is taking place to ensure that the interests of the older workers are also there and wages are not depressed too low with cheap foreign workers.

Mr Tay Beng Chuan (Nominated Member): Sir, I wish to refer to the work permits for unskilled foreign workers, now known as RO passes, being administered by the Foreign Manpower Employment Division of the Ministry of Manpower. Under the current policy, semi-skilled, that is R1, and unskilled, R2, foreign workers are granted an R work passes for two years. Although employers can apply for the extension for such work passes, they can file no more than two extensions. Therefore, an unskilled foreign worker is only allowed to work in Singapore for a maximum of six years. Although I appreciate that this cap is imposed to minimise the social problems resulting from the protracted stay of unskilled foreign workers in Singapore, certain sectors of the manufacturing industry are heavily reliant on the contribution of these so-called unskilled foreign workers. These workers may not possess any paper qualifications or professional skills. They are, nevertheless, highly proficient and experienced in their respective jobs. It normally takes a number of years to train up this group of unskilled workers, who are well-versed with production processes.

It is therefore a pity that by the time they have become fully trained, their employment may have to be terminated under the current policy. Once these unskilled foreign workers have reached the maximum of six years' stay in Singapore and are thus required to leave, employers have no choice but to recruit another batch of unskilled foreign workers and train them all over again before they become competent enough. Overall, productivity will suffer as a result. Employers are faced with the dilemma for it is critical that the production process should not be disrupted. Recruiting locally is also not a solution because Singaporeans are not interested in jobs of this nature.

Sir, under the circumstances, we wish to appeal to the Government to exercise greater flexibility and relax the policy for extension of work passes in the interest of achieving optimal manufacturing productivity.

Sir, may I go on to my second cut?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr Tay Beng Chuan: (In Mandarin): Sir, many of our friends in the construction, food and beverage and retail business are telling me that it is more and more difficult for employers to carry on with their business in Singapore nowadays. Because of acute shortage in local workers, they have no choice but to depend on foreign workers, in order to survive and to develop. However, under the very stringent provisions under the Employment Act, they are like "birds startled by the mean twang of a bow-string", that is, badly frightened people. Every day, they have to deal gingerly with all sorts of labour problems. However, it is sometimes very hard to guard against all eventualities. Make one slip, and you will be charged in court with contravention against the labour laws, and face fines, jail sentence, and even caning. They are in a very sorry plight.

Sir, I understand that there is an upward trend in the number of businessmen being charged in court with labour offences every day. I wonder if the Minister can enlighten us on the relevant statistics. Let everyone know what crimes our business people, particularly those in the SMEs, are committing. Can MOM leave one side of the net open, and give these enterprising business people some chances by not taking them to court at every turn, as it would run contrary to the Government's policy to encourage Singaporeans to venture and be enterprising?

Sir, when implementing its policy on foreign workers, the Government seems to have taken the easy way out by pushing all the responsibilities relating to the labour laws to the employers. This kind of "lopsided" policy, and implemented by the inhumane and bureaucratic civil servants, is bound to create havoc and invite complaints from those affected. By taking such a confrontational stand against the employers, the Government has completely destroyed the spirit of tripartism.

With Singapore parents all wanting their children to grow up to be somebody and the popularisation of national education, the younger generation of Singaporeans generally do not want to work as labourers, salespersons, waiters or lower-level workers in the construction and retail industries. Yet, at whatever stage of development our nation is, we would still need to have such a workforce to support the sustained development of such SMEs. In the circumstances, MOM should conduct an overall review and re-planning of our policy on foreign workers, based on the present and future needs of foreign workers in the various industries in Singapore. It should adopt more proactive measures to assist the various SMEs in Singapore to source for supply of workers from overseas, in order to solve the problem of acute labour shortage in the relevant industries.

Sir, if the Government can change its confrontational stand against the employers and solve the problem of labour shortage of the SMEs in the same way it assists the GLCs in recruiting their senior staff, the suppliers of illegal foreign workers will have no room to manoeuvre, and they will have to beat their retreat in the face of difficulties. In this way, the Government would not have to waste such a lot of resources to deal with all these problems relating to illegal foreign workers. At the moment, the syndicate which specialises in smuggling illegal workers must have spotted the weakness in the Government's enforcement of the labour laws, that is, taking the local employers as the scapegoats and not pursuing the root of evil of these syndicates.

I understand that in most cases, the employers who were charged in court were small time shopowners and coffeeshop operators. Very often, they did not examine the authenticity of the documents produced by the prospective employees and mistakably took in one or two illegal foreign workers. As a result, they were charged in court, while the illegal syndicates which forged the work permits got off scot-free. In the meantime, the illegal workers themselves got to stay in Singapore longer so that they could testify as prosecution witnesses against their poor employers. They were even allowed to work here to raise money to buy their tickets to fly home. In such circumstances, how could we expect those affected in the business community to have good feelings towards and have confidence in the Government? Worse still, will this not result in a wrong signal being sent by the Government that its policy is conducive to the activities of the illegal workers?

Sir, with a very heavy heart, I am reflecting a genuine labour shortage predicament of our friends in the business community. It is often said that "good advice jars on the ear". But I hope that the Minister would seriously consider conducting a thorough review of the current policy and legislation on foreign workers as soon as possible.

Mr Ahmad Mohd Magad (Pasir Ris): Sir, as a matter of policy, the Government has encouraged companies to regionalise and hive-off their lower value-added activities to lower labour cost countries. Many companies have done so but some are facing obstacles in terms of the slow approval process to bring in their foreign manpower for short-term training attachments in Singapore. I have learnt of cases where the approval process has taken as long as three months.

In an aggressive global business environment where speed matters a lot, this imposes constraints to businesses headquartered in Singapore with support subsidiaries elsewhere in the region. In many cases also, products manufactured in regional subsidiaries are semi-finished and have to be brought back to Singapore for further value-added operations to be performed on the products. The lack of trained workers in the companies' off-shore subsidiaries will therefore affect the performance and reputation of Singapore companies.

I would like to ask the Minister for Manpower to review what causes the delay in approving training attachment requests of foreign manpower, and to assist in facilitating and streamlining the approval process so that companies do not have to wait very long to bring their foreign manpower for training to Singapore.

Mr Seng Han Thong (Ang Mo Kio): (In Mandarin): Sir, when foreign experts, including the performing artistes come to Singapore to work on short assignments of a few months, they always encounter difficulties with the authorities. 1.45 pm

The Ministry of Manpower has announced that there would be two categories of permits. For those earning more than $2,000 a month, they can apply for professional visit passes and those below $2,000, permits. But this will also give rise to some problems, particularly to the performing artistes. When they come to Singapore to help with some of the performing groups and clan associations to help them to compose songs or to take part in their performances, they would normally come a short time just before the actual performance for rehearsals. They would not stay for a long time. Some of these performing artistes come from countries where the background is quite different from ours. If their pay is below $2,000 per month, then they will have to apply for a work permit and not a professional visit pass. For the performing groups or associations in Singapore, every time they apply for a performing artiste to come in, they have to furnish a bank guarantee of $5,000. If there are four of them, they have to furnish bank guarantees amounting to $20,000. This is a burden for those who are not financially strong. Furthermore, these foreign experts who may be well respected in their own countries were treated as ordinary foreign workers here, and told to affix their thumb prints on the papers. It is an insult to them. I have heard a lot of complaints about this. These are all administrative problems which can be resolved through some coordination among MOM, MHA and MCD.

For foreign experts, we should have a special Work Permit (Arts) so that these performing artistes who come in do not have to affix their thumbprints, and the sponsors may be exempted from furnishing a bank guarantee. If it is a clan association, so long as you are verified by the Singapore Federation of Clan Associations, it should be enough. I hope that the three Ministries can coordinate better so that it will be easier for our foreign experts to come and help us enhance the standard of cultural performances in Singapore.

Assoc. Prof. Chin Tet Yung (Sembawang): Sir, one of the core ideals in the Singapore 21 Report is developing strong families. It is the hope of realising this ideal that I want to raise the issue of work permit holders who are attracted to work in Singapore and who themselves are attractive enough for Singaporeans to propose to them. The Ministry of Manpower's permission has to be sought before a work permit holder is allowed to get married. Obtaining this permission is itself no easy task. I hope the Ministry can be more upfront with evaluation criteria relating to this issue. But even when MOM gives permission, couples do not just lead normal lives and join other happy Singaporean newly-weds to raise families.

They have to go through another institution to ensure that the foreign spouse can stay in Singapore - the SIR. Usually, they are given long-term social visit passes, but long-term passes can range from a few weeks to a few years. Sir, I do not see how strong families can develop out of a situation where one of the spouses and would-be parent live in uncertainty as to whether he or she will be allowed to stay in Singapore. Naturally, faced with the prospect of continual uncertainty, many who get married this way almost always apply for PR status, and in many instances they are not successful, adding to the uncertainty of their stay in Singapore.

Sir, may I ask the Minister whether his Ministry will work closely with SIR to develop a policy that would provide certainty and assurance to couples and families facing this situation. A policy based on strong families, it seems to me, requires the assurance of an undisturbed stay in Singapore for the foreign spouses of Singaporeans. MOM has the first task of ascertaining that the foreign work permit holder should be given the permission to marry. It should take into account the prospect of long term residence in this process.

Sir, I only ask that what MOM has joined together, SIR should not put asunder.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: Sir, I want to thank all the Members who raised various issues on work permit and foreign workers. In case I do not have time because of the "guillotine" to reply to all their questions, may I suggest that they raise them on another occasion as Questions for Oral Answer so that I can give them a full reply.

First, let me take the points raised by Mr Yeo Guat Kwang. I think he asked for better policies to look after foreign workers who are here in Singapore, particularly housing and recreational facilities. I think the point has been addressed in my answer to Mr Gerard Ee on Saturday morning. So I would not belabour that point again.

I just want to say that we have continued to keep our labour market open to foreign workers in the economic sectors, because many employers, in fact, do require these foreign workers. We continue to educate the employers on their rights and responsibilities in employing foreign workers; and in the case of foreign workers, in coming to Singapore.

With regard to the employers' dependency, Mr Yeo suggested that we should try to reduce the dependency on foreign workers. This is in stark contrast with the request by the Nominated Member who wants my Ministry to review our foreign worker policy to allow employers, especially in the SME sector, to have more foreign workers. So we have to try to maintain a balance.

Our policy is that foreign workers are welcome. We understand that some employers need them, but it cannot be an unrestricted entry into Singapore. There must always be some moderating rules.

Mr Yeo also raised several points with particular focus on construction workers, referring to the man-year entitlement allocation system. This is a new system that we are using to allocate the foreign workers to the construction sector. My Minister of State will have more to say on that later in response to a cut on Construction 21. So if he will be patient, he will get the answer later.

Mr Thomas suggested that we review the ways we bring foreign workers to Singapore. He suggested that maybe Government act as a central employment recruiting agency to bring all the foreign workers into Singapore. Let me say that we are aware that there are malpractices going on in the recruitment process of foreign workers. But not all the problems originate in Singapore.

Our understanding of the way the foreign workers are recruited is that the Singapore employment agent works with a counterpart in the home country. We must remember that these are huge countries and the workers who want to come to Singapore come from various parts of the countries. Some are from very remote rural areas. No single agency can reach out to all these potential foreign workers out there. They need a local agent who knows the country and people well, and who knows the procedures within the country.

Very often, the abuses or the exploitation of the foreign workers begin with his own employment agent in his own country, sometimes even in his own village. We have had reports of employment agents in villages in Bangladesh who exploited their own fellow villagers and were subsequently subject to vigilante laws by the villagers when they found out. This has happened before.

So, you have exploitation taking place at that level among employment agents who are their own people, and it is very difficult for us to regulate, prevent or to anticipate this kind of exploitation. When I meet my counterparts in the countries which send their people to work here, I have always suggested to them that they should make greater effort to regulate and control their own employment recruiting agencies, because that is the only way that they can prevent the exploitation from taking place in their own country.

Employment agents in Singapore, if they exploit the foreign workers, if they make unreasonable or unjustified deductions from the salaries or ask for very high agency fees, we will look into these problems. We will make sure that they do not exploit the workers. We will make sure that they do not run foul of the Employment Agents Act and also the conditions under which we issue the employment agent's licence to the person.

His other point is on Government trying to serve as a central agency. I think that has never been our approach for Government to be the sole agent by which we bring in all these hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, whether to work as domestic maids or to work in the electronic factories or hotels. It is well nigh impossible, I would say, for Government, as a single agency, to be able to satisfy the demands of so many tens of thousands of employers. If the Government were to try to do that, we may well become the single biggest bottleneck to the economy. We may well become the single biggest bottleneck to employers recruiting the quality and the number of workers that they need within the timeframe that they need these workers. I do not think we should become a bottleneck.

Mr Thomas also made a very valid point, which I entirely agree with him. There is an older group of Singaporeans, low skilled, and they are facing stiff competition from the foreign workers if we allow foreign workers to pour in without any restrictions. These older groups of Singaporeans are the ones who are going to be permanently unemployed. I think we should not allow that to happen. We should continue to regulate the entry of unskilled foreign workers so that they do not price our own Singaporeans out of the job market completely.

Next, I turn to Mr Tay Beng Chuan. Firstly, he said that unskilled foreign workers can remain in Singapore for six years. Did I hear him correctly?

Mr Tay Beng Chuan: Yes.

Dr Lee Boon Yang: I have to correct his impression, because it is only four years and not six years. We allow an unskilled foreign worker holding a work permit to renew the work permit once. So it is four years' maximum stay. The reason is that we want to ensure that these unskilled workers do not stay in Singapore too long to either sink roots in Singapore or for the employer to become too dependent on these unskilled foreign workers. After all, they are unskilled. So getting a new unskilled worker to replace an old unskilled worker is not a serious problem, nor will it involve a lot of effort on the part of the employer. If the employer finds that this worker is particularly skillful and experienced in a certain operation, then the onus is on the employer to send this worker for skill upgrading and training, so that he qualifies for a higher grade of work pass and therefore can be allowed to stay longer. We allow skilled foreigners to stay here for much longer than four years.

The other side of the coin is that while the employers may be saying that the four years is a problem causing them to lose their workers, the real situation on the ground which, unfortunately, many employers are not aware of, is that nearly 73% of unskilled foreign workers do not stay longer than three years in Singapore. Even though we allow them to stay a full four years, they have, voluntarily on their own or because of their employers' desire to phase them out, left the country within three years. So if we raise it to six years, eight years or whatever it is, it makes no impact. 73% are already going back after three years. In the construction sector, a larger number goes back after even a shorter period.

With regard to extension of the period of the work permit, I think raising it at this juncture serves no useful purpose. The point to make is that I hope the Chambers of Commerce and all other employers take note that if they have foreign workers in their company, they should make every effort to help them upgrade their skills and qualify for a higher grade of work pass. In that way, we will welcome them here to stay longer.

Mr Tay also made a very passionate appeal on behalf of employers who were found to have violated our law on the employment of foreign workers. While we are sympathetic, I think most of his passion is misplaced. Because we have to understand that it is simply not sustainable for Singapore, both from the economic and social point of view, to have unlimited number of foreigners coming to Singapore. We cannot simply afford a situation where any employer who wants a foreign worker is entitled and can demand for a foreign worker. If you accept the position that there must be some restrictions and there must be some control, then you have to accept that those who do not comply with the restrictions or the controls that are agreed upon have put themselves beyond the law, and they should be dealt with accordingly, no matter how they themselves feel about the need for foreign workers. If you had employed a foreign worker without a work permit, you have violated the law and you will have to be dealt with according to the law. 2.00 pm

In order to deal with this problem of illegal workers, we have to deal with it from two perspectives. One is the demand and the other one is the supply. We have to ensure that very few foreigners can sneak into Singapore to work illegally. That is the supply side. But we also have to ensure that very few Singaporean employers would willingly want to go and employ an illegal worker. That is the demand side. Only by working from both angles, can we nip the problem completely. I want to say that our approach, both trying to contain the entry of illegal workers into Singapore and also cutting down the demand, has worked quite well so that the illegal worker problem is not getting out of hand, and I think we should continue to do so.

We have strict rules about work permit eligibility. Therefore, those who choose to contravene the rules must face the consequence of our law. I cannot understand when Mr Tay said that some employers unwittingly or unknowingly employed workers who turn out to be illegal. Because under our rule, if you want a foreign worker, you have to apply for a work permit. As the employer, he has to apply for a work permit. If he had never applied for a work permit for this foreigner who is working for him, he will know obviously that the foreigner is an illegal worker. There is no way that the foreigner is entitled to work for him because the work permit card carries the name of the employer. If the work permit card carries the name of some other company, he is obviously not the legal employer, and he employs the foreigner at his own risk, knowing full well that he had violated the law.

This is not the kind of risk that the Government is encouraging entrepreneurs to take to break the law. The risks that we are encouraging entrepreneurs to take are the risks involved in doing business, setting up new technology start-ups. To break the law by willingly and knowingly employing a foreigner without having applied for a work permit is foolhardy. The question is one of time: when will it be detected? If you are caught, you must face the full consequences of the law. I am sorry to say that, but the law has to come down hard on employers who choose to employ illegal workers, otherwise we will have a terrible problem of having large numbers of foreigners in our midst working illegally and causing all kinds of other problems.

He made the point that our laws have been unfair by putting all the responsibility on the employers. As I said earlier on, we take a two-pronged approach to catch the people who bring in foreigners to work illegally in Singapore. These are the traffickers and illegal agents who bring them in. When they are caught, they are dealt with very severely under the law too. The workers themselves are also penalised. The employers, of course, as I have explained earlier on, face the full consequence of the law.

Having said that, we are conscious of the fact that there are many businesses that do depend on the foreign workers to survive. We will endeavour to meet their demand subject to also meeting all the other constraints and reservations such as those expressed by the Nominated Member, Mr Thomas, about the older groups of workers and how to ensure that they also have jobs waiting for them, if they need it.

Next, I turn to Mr Ahmad Magad and Mr Seng Han Thong. Both of them spoke about the work permit or work pass system. In the case of Mr Ahmad Magad, people who are coming in for short-term training or attachment, my understanding is that we have fairly straightforward procedures for companies that want to bring in their foreign employees for training or short term attachment in Singapore. The processing time for such a work pass application is generally very short. It is within three days if all the information is provided. In a more complicated case, it might take a little longer, but sometimes a difficult case may be because inadequate information was provided in the first instance. It is the responsibility of the employer to provide all the information required by either the employment pass or work permit department to ensure that the application can be processed quickly.

Mr Seng Han Thong asked whether we could make the work permit category a bit more flexible. For instance, create a special category for artistes and performers who would not be finger-printed. Let me say at the outset that finger printing should not be a problem. All Singaporeans have to be finger printed. Why is it so difficult that we finger-print a foreigner who wants to come here to apply for a pass? All our people have carried a finger print on their ICs too. So that in itself should not be a difficulty.

I understand that we should expedite, and that is what we would do. In fact, we had already gone some way towards helping to expedite this entry of performers and artistes. For instance, we have liberalised the Professional Visit Pass Scheme which allows the entry of these artistes and performers into Singapore. They can now come in for performances, filming, exhibit their work in terms of the paintings or give lectures or speak at other public occasions, or also foreign sportsmen to participate in some sporting events. They can all come in without having to apply for a special pass. They can do all these things with their normal social visit pass and it can be extended for up to three months, if necessary. In fact, most of the people who are coming in for such performances will be covered, and they can do so with their ordinary social visit pass.

Those who are coming here for a longer stay will have to apply for the appropriate permit, whether it is employment pass or work permit. Let me say once again that the salary criterion is not a rigid criterion. It is not a rigid cut-off point. We will consider special high talents or highly capable performers who are coming in and, for whatever reason, they are going to be paid less than $2,000. There are borderline cases which we will consider on its own merit.

In so far as Prof. Chin Tet Yung's point on marriage is concerned, we have to prevent a large number of unskilled foreign workers from sinking roots in Singapore through marriage with a Singaporean. We have now more than 450,000 unskilled foreign workers in Singapore. If through marriage to Singaporeans, they can immediately claim right of permanent residence in Singapore, we could end up with a very serious problem. Already we have difficulty in finding jobs for the nearly 500,000 Singaporeans who have less than secondary education. Can you imagine we then double the number with another 500,000 equally low skilled, lowly educated foreigners? At the next economic crisis, what is going to happen? Obviously, we cannot do that. So we have to assess those work permit holders who apply for marriage approval. Those whom we assess to be able to contribute to the economy and not likely to be a liability to Singapore, we approve their application. In fact, 70% of all the applications by work permit holders to marry Singaporeans are approved. The policy is not unreasonably strict.

The Chairman: Order. I think we have exceeded the time on this amendment.

Mr Charles Chong (Pasir Ris): Sir, I thank the Minister and the Minister of State for their responses and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr Charles Chong: Sir, I beg to move,

That the sum to be allocated for Head T of the Main Estimates be reduced by $10 in respect of Code TA 1500.

Sir, Singapore has been a member of the ILO for some time already. And as mentioned by Mr Thomas on Saturday, Singapore may already be in compliance or will have little difficulty in complying with the requirements of several ILO conventions. However, we have still yet to ratify them. Could the Minister tell us his Ministry's policy with regard to ratification of ILO conventions, especially the conventions pertaining to the minimum employment age and equal remuneration, and also the ILO convention on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining.

Encik Othman bin Haron Eusofe: Siir, Singapore has to date ratified a total of 20 ILO conventions, including two out of the seven core conventions, namely, Convention 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining and Convention No. 29 on Forced Labour. These conventions are classified as core labour conventions as they are considered by the ILO as conventions concerning basic workers' rights.

We are prepared to ratify additional ILO conventions which would not undermine our national interests. We are studying the remaining five of the remaining seven core conventions to see which one could be ratified. For conventions which Singapore has already ratified, we will review our laws to ensure that we are in full compliance with these conventions.

As ratification of every convention involves obligations to fully comply with the requirements, we need to closely examine our laws and policies to ensure that they are in line with these requirements. This will be done in consultation with the relevant agencies, including the Singapore National Employers' Federation and the National Trades Union Congress. As soon as we are satisfied that we are able to comply with the relevant convention, the Government will inform the ILO of our decision for ratification.

Mr Charles Chong: Sir, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr Charles Chong: Sir, I beg to move,

That the sum to be allocated for Head T of the Main Estimates be reduced by $10 in respect of Code TD 1500.

Sir, the issue of discriminatory job advertisements was raised in this House some years ago by the Secretary-General of NTUC, when he was still a backbencher. It was pointed out then that there were many job advertisements that specified preference for a particular race, age or gender. This issue has been raised from time to time since then and again during the recession. Could the Minister give us an update on the current situation on discriminatory job advertisements and let us know if his Ministry will consider legislation against such advertisements?

Encik Othman bin Haron Eusofe: Sir, in response to the prevalence of job advertisements containing discriminatory criteria, the Ministry, in consultation with Singapore National Employers' Federation (SNEF) and NTUC, jointly formulated and issued a set of Tripartite Guidelines to advise employers to select candidates based on merit, experience, capability and other bona fide job requirements. This is consistent with the principle of meritocracy and will help employers select the best candidate for the job. With the support of the various employer associations, the trade unions, and Singapore Press Holdings, the Guidelines have been effectively implemented.

Our surveys of job advertisements in the print media show that discriminatory job advertisements have been significantly reduced. Compared to January 1999 where there were some 32% of job advertisements containing at least one discriminatory selection criterion, the latest survey in February this year revealed that only 0.3% of the job advertisements were discriminatory in nature. This shows that employers have responded positively to the Tripartite Guidelines and have adopted objective criteria in the selection of job candidates.

This significant drop in the number of discriminatory job advertisements shows that the promotional and educational approach is working well and has achieved the objective of eliminating discriminatory job advertisements.

We will continue with our educational efforts to make employers realize the importance of recruiting the best candidate based on merit and capability, so that discrimination, in form and substance, can be fundamentally eliminated. With Singapore moving towards a knowledge-based economy, enlightened employment practices will enable our companies to attract and retain the best talents. This will help our companies to be able to compete more effectively in the global environment. So we will continue with the promotional and educational approach for the time being.

Mr Charles Chong: Sir, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr Charles Chong: Sir, I beg to move,

That the sum to be allocated for Head T of the Main Estimates be reduced by $10 in respect of Code TM 1500.

Sir, could the Minister give us an update on the progress of the Construction 21 plan launched in October last year and if any of these measures implemented have led to a reduction in the number of unskilled foreign workers in Singapore, and to the raising of skills and productivity in the construction industry? Have any of these measures such as the reduction in the man-year entitlement adversely affected the construction industry?

Encik Othman bin Haron Eusofe: Sir, the Construction 21 (C21) blueprint launched in October 1999 aims to transform the construction industry into a professional, productive and progressive industry. The recommendations address the immediate issues at hand, that is, low productivity, heavy reliance on unskilled foreign workers, poor safety performance, and lay the foundation for a stable and productive industry in the longer term. 2.15 pm

Sir, as the Construction 21 report was only launched in October 1999, not all the recommendations have been implemented. Nevertheless, some of the initiatives under the purview of BCA and the Ministry of Manpower are already underway. Given the immediate concerns over low productivity and heavy labour reliance, priority will be in implementing measures that directly address these problems.

Sir, I would like to highlight these areas of priority.

First, the promotion of buildability. More buildable designs enhance labour productivity and lower labour reliance. The legislation on buildability requirements was enacted on 1st April 1999 and will take effect on 1st January 2001. Sir, the long period will enable all participants in the construction industry to make adjustments and prepare for the new requirements. Building plans which are submitted for approval after 1st January 2001 must achieve a minimum buildable score. This buildable score computes how efficiently a building can be constructed. A higher score means better design, requiring fewer workers to construct the building.

Sir, another measure of priority is the tightening of the Man-Year Entitlement, or MYE, formula used in the new Work Permit Allocation System. The MYE was first introduced in April 1998. It was tightened by 10% in April 1999 for building and upgrading project categories. C21 had recommended reducing the MYE formula annually, so that it reaches 70% of current levels by 2005 and 50% by 2010. In line with this, the Ministry will tighten the MYE formula by 15% for building projects and 10% for upgrading and civil engineering projects with effect from 1st April 2000.

Sir, this rate of tightening has taken into account the changes in the productivity level since the last MYE revision in April 1999 and the MYE utilisation patterns. It has taken into consideration the readiness of the industry for the proposed reduction.

Sir, my Ministry has been monitoring the new Allocation System carefully. Our observations suggest that the main contractors have indeed been more circumspect in allocating MYEs to their sub-contractors. So far, for projects that have been completed, only 55% of total MYEs have been used. This has translated into fewer work permit applications and the number of unskilled foreign construction workers has decreased since the reduction of the MYE formula. The MYE reduction in April 1999 has therefore not adversely affected the industry.

Sir, in view of the time constraint, my answer has been a bit brief. If the Member wants more information, please file a Question.

Mr Charles Chong: Sir, I thank the Minister of State for his reply. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The sum of $110,142,220 for Head T ordered to stand part of the Main Estimates.

The sum of $59,876,800 for Head T ordered to stand part of the Development Estimates.

Head U -

The Chairman: Head U - Ministry of National Development. Amendment No. (1), Mr Lew Syn Pau.

Mr Lew Syn Pau (Kreta Ayer-Tanglin): Sir, I beg to move,

That the total sum to be allocated for Head U of the Main Estimates be reduced by $100.

Singapore is a small nation with a limited supply of land. As we grow economically, there is competing demand for the use of our limited land resources. Singapore is renowned internationally as a very well planned and organised city. This did not come about by chance, but through forward planning and the political will to execute the plan. The last concept plan was done in 1991. I understand that there will be one done for Year 2001, called Concept Plan 2001.

I would like to ask the Minister what are the main planning criteria which he will use in formulating concept Plan 2001. We have a current population of 3.9 million people. What will be the targeted population in 10 years' time? On what basis is this number arrived at? With the emphasis now on recruiting foreign talent, what will be the targeted ratio between foreign workers and the indigenous workforce? How can we meet the housing needs of both local and foreign workers? Is the Minister satisfied with the accommodation provided for foreign workers? Today, if you go downtown on a Sunday, you will see the Filipina domestic workers gathered at the Botanic Gardens or along Orchard Road, the Indian workers in Little India and the Thai workers along Beach Road. In 10 years' time, will we continue to see these ethnic enclaves in our main commercial districts? Or should we not start working towards a better distribution, and perhaps, even integration of our different ethnic foreign workers to different parts of Singapore, to the different HDB commercial areas, for example? We have this for public housing already where we impose a quota for each ethnic household in the HDB estates. Can we not do the same for foreign workers, not by law, but through planning and spreading out the building of recreational and retail facilities that cater to their needs?

With competing demands for the use of land, how do we decide how much should be set aside for housing, how much for commercial use and how much for industrial use? Whatever the ratio or percentage we come up with, I think there is no running away from the need to build on our land more intensively. For housing, the Government has increased the plot ratios in many areas already, leading to a deluge of selective en bloc sales and windfall profits for many lately. I urge the Government to continue to allow the building of residential housing to a much greater density and plot ratio in prime areas so that more of our residents can live in prime areas.

We should also build more intensively in the light industrial parks and the science hubs. If you take a drive through our science park, you will notice that it resembles the Silicon Valley area. By that, I mean it is mainly low rise, well spread out and beautifully landscaped with open-air car parks everywhere. In USA, they have plenty of land, hence building low rise is logical and perhaps more economical. In Singapore, as we are short of land, I think we should start planning for our science parks and other light industrial parks to be built to a higher plot ratio. The same policy should apply to our educational belts as well. Our universities and polytechnics still use a lot of land, with many open-air car parks. In their next phase of expansion, I think we should encourage them to better intensify the use of their existing premises.

Co-location of facilities is another principle we should adopt to continue to encourage the better use of our land. In future tenders of sites, we should have more mixed use or white sites. Hotels can be built with retail and commercial outlets on top of MRT stations, as in the case of Raffles City, which is a prime example of mixed use. We should also allow residential units and hotels to be built on the same plots of land. The JTC and the HDB should relax their strict rules on the use of industrial land for industrial/administration purposes and for subletting. The way we work in the future will be changed drastically by the use of computers, the Internet and e-commerce. We may be able to work more from home and at all hours as the world becomes more inter-connected. We should also liberalise the use of the home for work so that more people, whether housewives or others can work and look after their children at the same time. This would also help to solve the problems of over-reliance on foreign maids. In order to support this for the future, we have to wire up all our buildings in the planning and building phases, not just for private, but also for public housing.

I am sure that many people will have many ideas to contribute towards the Concept Plan 2001. I hope the Government will consult widely with the people and the business community in drawing up the Plan.

Mr Ong Kian Min (Pasir Ris): Sir, although Singapore has often been described as a city-state, we are, in fact, much more than a city. Other large cities in the world need only provide land for commercial, residential, retail, educational and transportation purposes, and maybe some areas for parks and recreational activities. We need more than that; we are an independent country, and in addition to all of the above, we have to set aside large tracts of land for our industries, airports, reservoirs, water catchment areas, nature reserves and military training.

To achieve all of this and build a world class city-nation, we have to maximise our land use. The Government has always been looking for ways to utilise land more effectively and I am heartened to hear that the Ministry of National Development will be doing Concept Plan 2001 as part of its continual review of our land use policy. Further, the Concept Plan will not be drawn up by the Government agencies in isolation but will incorporate the inputs and suggestions of the public.

My parliamentary colleague, Mr Lew, has touched on certain general principles, and I would like to just look at certain specific suggestions.

Firstly, Sir, in view of our limited land size, our guiding principle in planning must be to intensify the use of our land and facilities wherever possible. The particular agency in charge of any parcel of land or facility cannot afford to be possessive but must allow it to be shared for economic and quality-of-life purposes. The National Parks Board is a good example when it opened its new Visitors' Centre at the Botanic Gardens and expanded the use of these facilities to co-locate a cafe, and a posh restaurant in a conservation house nearby. This allows people to enjoy refreshments within the setting of the Gardens whether as part of a visit to the Gardens or as a special occasion on its own. More can be done along this line. There are many other lovely parks located throughout the island. Could the National Parks Board consider allowing more refreshment outlets, like coffee clubs, to be set up along the fringes of these parks, so that patrons could have an area to sit out among the greenery and enjoy the ambience?

Another location that I feel could be better utilised is the Central Business District, in particular, the Raffles Place-Shenton Way area. This area goes through a daily metamorphosis. During the business day, it is bustling and full of activities of commerce. The car parks are full; people move about with a sense of purpose; and it is difficult to get a table for lunch. At night and during the weekend, it sleeps and hibernates. The streets are deserted; the car parks are empty; and the restaurants are quiet after office hours. Food outlets cater for the lunch sitting only, compared to Hong Kong where good restaurants are packed for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even supper. I think it is such a waste of resources to invest in the roads, the car parks and the general infrastructure and derive not the fullest from them.

On the other hand, Suntec City has done wonders by wearing the different hats of commerce, exhibition and retail businesses, sometimes simultaneously. Such a diverse menu keeps the place alive, and the infrastructure well used. All this inspite of not having the convenient access to the MRT system.

To inject more life into Raffles Place after office hours, I would suggest that a large retail cum exhibition complex be built adjacent to it. This will attract a large critical mass of people to the area even after office hours. So, even as the financial commercial activities wind down with night fall, another life emerges offering exhibitions, entertainment, lively shops and eateries. Raffles Place would then not only serve that singular purpose of a commercial hub. 2.30 pm

My next point relates to public housing estates. When we think of using land and infrastructure more effectively, it is also relevant to take into account our standard of living and the need to create a generally pleasing ambience. These will go a long way in adding a sense of beauty and grace to our surroundings.

Much credit must go to the HDB for continually improving the design and quality of its flats. When we step into an HDB estate, just by looking at the common areas, we can tell straightaway the era when the flats were constructed. However, more modern and better facilities, such as lifts which stop at every floor and better looking lighting facilities, or light fittings, mean higher maintenance expenses. There is a correlation between the age of the HDB flats and the cost of upkeeping them. At the operational level, it costs more to maintain the newer HDB estates because they have more facilities and features. It is like comparing a new car with an old one. The latest BMW and Mercedes Benz are full of electronic gadgets controlled by micro-processors. These cars have to be serviced by authorised trained mechanics and each service can run into thousands of dollars. On the other hand, I drive a 12-year old Mercedes 200. Any workshop can give the car a routine service for about $100 but I am aware that the likelihood of a major breakdown is higher and that will mean big money. In the case of the town councils, the expenses for a major overhaul of an older estate are already provided for by way of the sinking fund. It is the cost of the routine maintenance of newer estates that is a concern. I hope the Minister will take this into consideration so as to enable the town councils to maintain the newer estates at the standard that its original designers had in mind.

Sir, my last point relates to private estates. Senior Parliamentary Secretary Koo Tsai Kee revealed last week in Parliament that the Government was considering setting aside funds for upgrading of our private estates. I feel that this is a very important issue because in the existing private estates, there are certain areas that may have slipped through the cracks between the various Government agencies. Within the estate, there may be a small piece of state land that has been left vacant because no one agency thought it as its responsibility to fully utilise it. And, so it is left as it is, and sometimes the vegetation gets trimmed so as not to breed mosquitoes. However, the residents there know that the land could be put to better use. It would be very useful if the residents' association could come up with ideas as to how to use it more effectively and the Government provides the funding to realise these ideas.

Sir, in land scarce Singapore, we need many more creative approaches for this city to continue to grow and flourish as a vibrant world class home.

Dr Teo Ho Pin: Sir, Singapore aims to be a metropolis where people can work, live and play comfortably in the 21st century. To achieve this, we need to adopt strategic land use planning so as to meet the needs of both individuals and the business community. The Singapore Concept Plan is due for revision. I wish to seek the following clarifications from the Ministry.

(1) What are the key considerations when drafting the Concept Plan 2001?

(2) What is the balance between built-up area and the provision of green spaces in our living environment?

(3) What specific planning features are incorporated to cater to the needs of the elderly?

(4) What are the measures taken by the Ministry to ensure that high-density living will not affect the quality of living in Singapore?

Mr R. Sinnakaruppan (Kreta Ayer-Tanglin): Sir, there was a debate where the topic was really whether our success was due to our small size or because of our leaders. Needless to say, the team that said the leaders, despite the size, won, not just because it is biased towards the leadership in Singapore, but because of the points they put forward.

Sir, the point I want to make here is that one of them suggested that, suppose we had a big space, say, of Batam or Bintan size, in addition to what we have, and whether we would have done it. It remains a hypothetical question. But it brings me to this topic today. If you look at the last few years, various things had happened in Singapore. We had gone through various policies to curtail the property bubble and we did the right things ahead of time in 1996 that, today we have come out of this potentially big bubble from bursting, as it has happened in some of the neighbouring countries.

Secondly, in the last decade or so, many of the young Singaporeans have aspired to own a private property and we have done reasonably well to increase the percentage of private homes in Singapore from 14% in 1990 to the current 18%. And more and more younger Singaporeans still aspire to own private residence.

Thirdly, we have been always referred to as a fine city by many foreigners (I think we have 7 million tourists every year) and, as our PM said at the National Day Rally last year, we should also try to become a fun city. All this means that, as our population grows, and I do not know what is the optimum population, I would like to ask the Minister what is the target over the next 10-20 years that Singapore can target for so that living in Singapore would be more comfortable and it would not be as congested as it is in, say, Hong Kong. Given all these developments, together with the attraction of foreign talents into Singapore to build our knowledge-based economy, I would like to find out what the review that the GPC Chairman talked about Concept 2001 would be and whether some fundamental review would be done to take into account some of these factors.

The Minister of State for MTI, Mr Lim Swee Say, last week mentioned that his Ministry will be looking into increasing the optimum use of land in Singapore for industrial use by building more multi-storey factories, and so on. I would like to find out how the commercial angle would be looked at from the MND's point of view and whether we would also be pulling down those one storey commercial developments and try to make greater optimum use of the commercial land that we have in Singapore, and how the present tenants would be compensated for this.

On the residential side, I would like to know whether we will move from this 18% upwards to a higher percentage so that more of the younger Singaporeans can afford a private home. Also, like what Mr Ong Kian Min mentioned, whether there will be greater developments in downtown, particularly in the Marina South that we have heard about, whether land has already been released fully, if not, when would this downtown development be completed. Sir, I hope all these answers would be in the review that the Ministry is planning to undertake.

Before I end, I just want to mention something about the land sales which are of great importance to a lot of people in this House and outside. Sir, the Government has a reasonably good approach to land sales in Singapore which, on the one hand, looks good on paper, but in practice, it is much more complicated to implement. Because it does not make either the property developers or those who have aspired to buy properties happy. Just look at what had happened in the last year. The residential property prices went up 33% in 1999. And many of the constituents that I spoke to, felt it was far too much in too short a period of time, ie, 33% in a year. When I spoke to some of these developers, they told me that "Well, it is still 27% lower than it was in the second quarter of 1996." So the question is: how do we balance this expectation?

The important point is that, in the last 10-15 years, many corporate companies, bus companies, for instance, have gone into property. So have many other entirely different business focused companies gone into property. This gold rush towards property development where you can make all your money must change. The mindsets of Singaporeans must change. While we want property prices to be stabilised, it should not be accelerating too much, too fast. We should use this Internet boom, where everybody is now rushing towards the Internet, to move away from the focus towards property and try to stabilise property prices in Singapore so that we do not get pushed by just the developers but, more importantly, we cater to the needs of the silent majority of Singaporeans who aspire to own property.

Sir, on that note, I hope that the Minister will look into all these points in this review.

Dr Teo Ho Pin: Sir, as stated in the Development Control Handbook 1991, developers of industrial buildings with a gross floor area of above 5,000 square metres are required to retain 30% of the development for 10 years from the latest date of TOP issuance. This policy was introduced to ensure that one major stakeholder would be responsible to prevent common properties of such buildings from falling into disrepair.

With the progress of time and the increased professionalism of property management firms, such policy has become obsolete. To date, the Strata Titles Act has adequate provisions to make sure that all buildings are well maintained. As such, all residential developments are no longer required to have 30% retention, and yet are properly managed by the respective Management Corporations.

The 30% retention policy for industrial buildings has indeed increased the holding cost and financial burden of developers and industrialists. It also restricts the opportunities for developers or industrialists to expand their businesses. Although developers or industrialists can sell the 30% to a single purchaser, the transaction chances are low. Thus, I would urge the Ministry to reconsider this policy of 30% retention for industrial building development.

Mr Lew Syn Pau: I know that the CIDB, and now the BCA, has been working hard to improve the productivity and quality in the construction sector. It has been 15 years since we started the CIDB. I would like to ask the Minister how the productivity of our construction sector compares with that of the developed countries, like USA, Germany, Australia and Japan. I am given to understand that it still takes a lot longer to build a building in Singapore than in some of these countries. Why is that so? Are our workers still less productive because we are still over-reliant upon foreign workers who are mainly unskilled? What are our plans to further improve their productivity? How many foreign workers in the construction industry do we have and what is their average length of stay in Singapore? Are we wasting resources training them only to lose them quickly when they return home? Are we able to get architects and engineers to come up with more buildable designs that will enhance productivity in the construction sector?

Mr Kenneth Chen Koon Lap (Hong Kah): Sir, in the debate on the Budget Statement, I have spoken briefly on the report presented by the Construction 21 Committee. I congratulate the Committee for doing such a thorough job in evaluating all the problems arising out of our construction industry. The 39 recommendations have been supported by the Minister and have been given a timeframe to be implemented.

But I have certain reservations and remain cautiously optimistic. In my 30-over years of practice in the construction industry, I have been constantly frustrated at the low productivity, efficiency and the standard of workmanship achieved. In Singapore, our building cost is one of the highest in the world and the time taken one of the longest and, worse still, the standard of the finished product leaves much to be desired.

Through the years, much effort and time have been spent in trying to address these numerous problems that plagued the construction industry but with very little success. Therefore, it is most timely that the Construction 21 report is being released. It is comprehensive, thorough, but all such reports are as good as how all its recommendations can be implemented effectively. Otherwise, they would end up just as well-prepared academic studies. 2.45 pm

The 39 recommendations are well-researched and relevant. But there are still many areas which I feel should need more attention and scrutiny. I shall mention two more important ones. The first is our contracting system, in respect of the professionalism of our contractors. While there are a number of fairly competent and professional contractors in Singapore, many could not measure up to the professionalism it requires. Most construction companies are still headed by non-qualified professionals. It is not uncommon that having successfully secured the contract, the partner of the construction firm would appear only for the first meeting and subsequently leave the job to the employed project managers, who may or may not be professionally qualified. Because of the fact that they are employed personnel, they do not have any personal commitment to the company and, therefore, it is not unusual to see project manager posts change three or four times during the duration of the project.

Under such a situation, even if all other productivity factors are in place, it is impossible to see how the project can be completed in time and achieve the high standards it requires. Before we can consider all the other numerous problems associated with the industry, we must first ensure that our contracting firms must have qualified professionals as partners, especially those who are in charge of the project. Therefore, it may be necessary for the Ministry to consider registering builders in the same manner in which professional architects and engineers are being registered.

Secondly, there is an urgent need to ensure a constant supply of skilled labour. Many Members have already spoken of such requirements. It is a serious problem, especially as we are so short of manpower. The requirement for foreign workers to go through a few weeks, or even one or two months of skills training cannot resolve the problem. We must train our own local workers as tradesman. In Australia, every construction worker is a certificate holder. They go to a trade school for two or three years to acquire the necessary skills. They do not consider themselves labourers, but rather as tradesmen who are highly skilled and productive. They may even earn more than the professionals. Very often, you see four or five tradesmen working on the construction site of a house in Australia and it takes 6 to 8 months to finish, compared to the 20 to 30 labourers running around on the same project in Singapore, and taking 11/2 to two years to complete.

There are many more areas which the Ministry can tap on the experience of the professionals and the experienced personnel in the industry. Their inputs are required to see that all the recommendations in the Construction 21 be implemented effectively and, more importantly, to examine more in-depth areas where the report needs refinement or be supplemented.

I sincerely hope that this will be the beginning of a new era in our construction industry.

Dr Teo Ho Pin: Sir, the Construction 21 report aims to produce world-class builders. To achieve this, there is an urgent need to inject more professionalism in the building industry. We must develop a core capability of local construction firms and provide more support for these firms to be world-class. I wish to seek the following clarifications from the Ministry:

(1) What is the policy of the Ministry in nurturing potential world-class builders?

(2) Will the Ministry provide incentives for construction firms to merge and strengthen their core capabilities?

(3) What are the measures taken by the Ministry to improve professionalism in the industry?

(4) Will the Ministry consider licensing building professionals so that better professional accountability can be achieved?

Mr Lew Syn Pau: Sir, we have a public housing scheme that is the most comprehensive in the world, catering to 82% of the population. This means that even the upper-middle income people live in public housing. You would think that this group of people would appreciate and thank the Government for the privilege of being able to live in public housing at subsidised prices despite their income levels. Yet, we know that this is not so and they all aspire to move to private housing at the earliest opportunity, whether in landed properties or condominiums. This brings me to the issue of our public housing policy. The question is: should we continue to cater to the needs of upper-middle income Singaporeans through premium HDB flats and executive condominiums? I think no matter what name we give it, and whatever finishing we put on it, it is still deemed a HDB flat and is regarded as public housing. In fact, such upper-middle income Singaporeans, who are usually younger professionals, are a bit embarrassed and apologetic when they disclose that they still live in HDB flats.

I would like to suggest that the Government review this policy of building premium HDB flats and Executive Condominiums and let the private sector assume a bigger role for this segment of the market. We could release more land to the private sector for this purpose so as to keep the lower end of the private housing market affordable and provide a more gradual and seamless transaction from public housing to private housing. When we provide so much public housing, we are unwittingly creating an over dependency syndrome on the Government, which will be an obstacle to the promotion of greater entrepreneurship and innovation. I hope the Government will review this policy seriously.

Mr Sinnakaruppan: Sir, I join the GPC Chairman in making a similar point, but from a different angle.

If we look at the last decade or more, the Government has moved from regulatory statutory boards to make them corporatised, and then to private particularly for some of the monopolies that exist in Singapore. I will give three examples. First is the SIM group which took over TCS to become several companies who compete with each other. We have got TCS, TV12 and so on. Second is the transport structure in Singapore. For the bus services, we now not only have SBS but TIBS as well, competing in some areas. Then the MRT. We are going to have a new competitor to run MRT. For telecommunications, we have liberalised. StarHub is coming in and competition will be there. I think the key word is competition.

Sir, if you look at public housing today in Singapore, HDB is the monopoly. I have served as a board member in HDB and I would say that HDB is doing an excellent job, particularly under its CEO, Mr Tan Guong Ching and his team and their productivity is extremely high, their buildability excellent by international standards and we have gone to Hong Kong to compare what we are doing, and we have come up tops. And we learnt from Hong Kong in the 1960s.

Sir, the point that I would like to make is that it may be time to look at an alternative to HDB, that is, to have two companies that do public housing. I do not completely agree with the idea that we should push everything to the private sector because for public housing, there are certain things that the Government should still have control. The one better way would be to split HDB, just like the way that we have run town councils and their services. It was all done by HDB, but now the town councils are running it.

In a similar way for building HDB flats, we could split it out and spin off two companies which compete head on under similar rules set by Government. This will make the building of public housing much more efficient through competition, where quality of designs will improve and they will benchmark themselves with the best in the private housing. The two companies, if set up, will look critically at the building cost and continually find ways to reduce these costs, just like the way that the computer industry is driving down prices every day. We may not be seeing price reductions every day, but I am sure that the prices will come down. Overall, the bottomline is that the Singapore citizens will be much happier that the price does not go up too much, too soon. On that note, I would like to call for a review of this public housing policy.

One other point I want to add here is regarding the upgrading scheme that we have. The Main Upgrading Programme (MUP) is an excellent scheme but it is time to review how we address this space adding item (SAI), particularly for the 4-and 5-roomers. Maybe, we have to do away with this scheme for 4- and 5-roomers and concentrate it on the 3-roomers.

The other point is that we now only do certain items for the MUP. I would like to propose that as long as it has anything to do with the facade of the building, we should change it completely. For example, we do the painting, but we do not change the windows. I think it will be useful if the MUP includes the changing of windows or the grilles so that when it is all done, it looks as good as a new flat. I hope the Minister will take these points into consideration.

Dr Teo Ho Pin: Sir, a recent research in the United Kingdom has shown interesting housing trends in Europe. Home ownership policy has become problematic resulting in various problems in some countries. It was found that countries with high home ownership also have high social services expenditure. Those with high home ownership also experienced higher unemployment.

Two possible reasons were cited for these trends. Firstly, market forces have severe impact on job security, thus making homeowners more vulnerable and unable to service their mortgages. Secondly, people tend to lose their drive to work or quit work once their mortgages are fully paid, thus resulting in wastages of human talent and resources.

In view of these trends, I wish to make the following clarifications with the Ministry:

(1) What is the percentage of HDB homeowners in mortgage payment arrears or receiving welfare assistance in the last 10 year?

(2) What are the measures taken by the Ministry to balance between home ownership and family nuclearisation?

(3) Can the Ministry consider removing the 5-year occupation requirement, and allow HDB flat owners to swop flats at market rates to live near their family members?

(4) What is the impact of the home ownership policy on the mobility of labour in Singapore?

Mrs Lim Hwee Hua (Marine Parade): Sir, I would also like to provide a slightly different perspective from Mr Lew on the same topic of Executive Condominiums (ECs).

As I recall, the EC scheme was conceived a few years back to cater to the growing sandwiched segment, that is, Singaporeans who were closed out of the private upgrading market because of run away private property prices. We have yet to complete a cycle for the ECs, but already the Housing and Development Board is offering premium apartments, purportedly by a revamp of two existing design-and-build schemes. Based on the proposed design features and pricing levels for these premium apartments, and notwithstanding some differences, I would like to ask the Minister what would be the impact of this offer on the EC scheme and, indirectly, on the Executive Apartment Scheme as well, and its impact on the resale potential for such apartments. Would this scheme pose unfair competition for EC developers?

Finally, I would like to echo some of Mr Sinnakaruppan's sentiments. A fundamental question would be the need for HDB to be involved in meeting needs beyond the basic level which, for the sake of argument, could refer to housing for first-timers.

Dr Michael Lim Chun Leng (Cheng San): Sir, building new housing estates is one of the key priorities of HDB. The usual reaction of a potential house owner would be one of eager anticipation. Upon receiving his keys, the reaction is one of joy. Upon moving into the new estate, his joy is tempered and harsh realities set in. Soon, the inconveniences of a new estate will dawn upon him. Sengkang New Town is a case in point. It was touted as the new town to live in. It was a town where the conveniences of a new estate are to be matched by a superb transportation system. However, residents who have moved in over the past few years have faced the harsh realities. Conveniences are far and few in between, and inconveniences abound.

3.00 pm

Firstly, much can be done to improve the design of future flats in Sengkang. Covered linkways are aesthetically appealing to the eye, but often do not shelter you from the rain. I have walked there at night and even in a light drizzle, you get wet. Block signs are so small that it is extremely difficult to find your way around, not only when you drive around the parameter but even when you are within a cluster itself.

Amenities are few and therefore prices of goods, including market produce, are significantly higher than other places. Although there are at least about 20,000 housing units, there are only two clinics tucked away in one corner. The scarcity of amenities has resulted in outrageous rents. This has been passed back to the consumer as an increase in consumer prices.

As an example, in terms of the comparison of rental prices of clinic space, in Ang Mo Kio estate, existing rentals for a precinct are about $3 per sq ft. Hougang estate is about $4 per sq ft. These are for HDB rental units. For those which have been sold by HDB and sub-let, it is about $9-$15 per sq ft. Those in Sengkang range from $25 - $34 per sq ft. So if we compare them to Ang Mo Kio, it is almost 10 times.

For shops or market units in comparison, in Ang Mo Kio, the going rate for a flower stall is about $250-$468 per month. Comparatively, in Sengkang, it is $2,500, which is more than five times. A fish stall is about $350-$650 per month. Comparatively, in Sengkang, it is about $3,000-$4,000. So it is about six times. For meat and poultry, it is about $288-$850 in Ang Mo Kio. In Sengkang, it is about $3,000-$3,500. This is about four times, and so on and so forth.

I think it is not unexpected sometimes in new estates to expect an increase in prices. But I think what has happened is that the scarcity of amenities and facilities has resulted in these high rents. The unnecessary increase in consumer prices made things very difficult for the residents.

I would first like to thank the Minister for the support given to the grassroots organisations with the formation of the Sengkang Town Development Steering Committee. We have given various recommendations to the Ministry to improve the quality of life in Sengkang Town. We would be grateful if the Minister can kindly enlighten us on some of the development projects, so that my residents will be able to see that Sengkang Town is the town that they would want to live in.

The Chairman: Order. I propose to take the suspension now.

Thereupon Mr Speaker left the Chair of the Committee and took the Chair of the House.

Mr Speaker: Order. I suspend the Sitting and will take the Chair again at 3.25 pm.

Sitting accordingly suspended at 3.05 pm until 3.25 pm. Sitting resumed at 3.25 pm

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Debate in Committee of Supply resumed.

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Head U (cont.) -

Mr Peh Chin Hua (Jalan Besar): (In Mandarin): Sir, with the rapid advances in IT and Internet technology, today's offices are no longer the same as the traditional offices we have in mind. Sectors such as IT technology, e-commerce and technological services can be located in residential premises. So long as there is a desktop computer, PC software development and other business activities can be carried out. In this respect, I would like the HDB to do the same by allowing HDB lessees to register their business and carry out certain commercial activities in their flats. Lessees and tenants should be allowed to carry out their business from their flats, so long as these flats are not used as warehouses. With the saving on rent, it will be better for these young entrepreneurs to start up their business.

With the emergence of e-commerce, the neighbourhood shops in HDB estates will be gradually phased out. I hope the HDB and MND would not build more shopping centres and shops because with the emergence of e-commerce, it will be difficult for these shops to survive. I also hope that the Building Control Department can relax on the ratio for space in the warehouses to be used as offices.

Dr Jennifer Lee (Nominated Member): Sir, in surveys done of working parents, two of the benefits listed as most helpful in enabling them to balance work and family responsibilities are, firstly, flexible working arrangements and, secondly, on site or near site childcare centres. In Singapore, the MCD has done much to promote the establishment of childcare centres, both at the workplace and in the community. Apart from the quality of care provided, convenience of location is an important factor. Best for the parents are childcare centres conveniently sited at a location near to home, often a HDB void deck, or a workplace centre. A review of workplace childcare centres reveals however that the majority are in Government agencies or GLCs with large manpower establishments. This is not surprising as it makes little sense for a small company with a small staff to set up a childcare centre of its own. The economies of scale to run such a centre are just not there to make the enterprise viable without huge subsidy, something small companies are generally not in a position to undertake. The numbers of staff benefitting are small.

There is no reason why, however, employees of many companies sited within a grouping of buildings in an industrial, business or office complex would not find a childcare centre conveniently located somewhere within the complex most useful. Combined numbers make the running of such an establishment by professional childcare operators a viable proposition. This is not, however, a consideration that will occur to most developers and landlords and if it did, that they might pay any attention to. Yet, the availability of such centres would be another small but eminently integral piece of the jigsaw of measures that go towards helping working parents cope with the demands of both work and family.

Would the Minister therefore consider under National Development's planning requirements to require the setting aside of space for a childcare centre or, better still, in view of our changing demographics, a multi-service centre which would also cater for day-care for the elderly, for office, business and industrial complexes beyond a certain size? In tandem with this requirement, of course, we will need to have the agreement of the authorities to exempt this square footage set aside from the gross floor area in the calculation of the plot ratio.

Mr Sinnakaruppan: I would like to touch on affordability of HDB flats for Singaporeans. I think the Government defines affordability in relation to household income. The Government has also come out with various indexes, for example, new flat affordability index, which is based on a ratio of targetted percentile household income to the minimum qualifying income needed to buy flats based on an affordable loan instalment pegged at about 40% of household income.

Very often we have heard in this House from the present Minister and the past Minister, Mr Lim Hng Kiang, that Singapore's HDB flats are affordable. Yet, when we have our constituency dialogues with residents, many young couples, middle income families, always disagree with this point of view, and they say that they are finding it very difficult to afford the flat that they have or aspired to upgrade slightly. The question is where is this gap of understanding.

If you look at it from a broader perspective, it is not sufficient to just define affordability by household income. I think we have moved from the 60s, 70s, to 80s and 90s where, to some extent, the lifestyle changes and family size have to be taken into cognizance. Because if you have two or three school going children, sometimes you find that, just taking a household income per se for a husband and wife versus somebody with three or four, or like Mr Ong Kian Min who has five children, it is going to be very difficult. It is very difficult to therefore just base on household income. We are, on the one hand, encouraging our middle income families to have more children.

Yesterday, Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon said that our reproduction rates are not sufficiently high as before. If not the lifestyle, we should particularly consider the family size in deciding this because the households with school going children face a lot of middle class squeeze, whether to send their child to the childcare centre or whether it is the PCF childcare centre which is available, if not, some church or other private childcare centre. It is the same with kindergartens, whether to send them to the normal schools, the autonomous or the independent schools, which are a bit more costly, and so on. The list goes on. We have to take into consideration some of these facts because, whether you like it or not, when your neighbour's kids or the child's classmate comes with $2 or $3 pocket money, you also have to give your child that $2 or $3. Where does the money come from? These are the nuts and bolts issue that many middle class families face in Singapore. We should, in particular, if not the lifestyle, take into consideration the number of children in the house in determining affordability. So I would like to ask the Minister to seriously review the definition of "affordability" in this context.

Dr Wan Soon Bee (West Coast): Sir, it is an undeniable fact that the HDB has a successful public housing programme, which is the envy of many countries. More than 85% of the population live in HDB flats and about 90% own their own homes. I applaud the HDB in the effort to keep prices of new HDB flats affordable. However, as the structure of the economy and society changes, and at an increasing rate, with the power of information technology, I would like the authority to constantly monitor the equation between price and affordability. I fully agree with Mr Sinnakaruppan that the current principle of keeping the cost of housing at 40% of the household income may need to be reviewed. The household income might be the same but, as Mr Sinnakaruppan has said, the needs of each family can be quite different.

The 40% of the household income is a very blunt instrument to determine affordability of the HDB flats. Especially in a knowledge-based economy, there will be some families who will lose out because of their inability to cope. As a result, their income level may fall below that of the average household and the gap between the different household income groups could increase. Similarly, while the typical household size is likely to decrease in the future, there will still be families who cannot afford but to live together. Households with low incomes and more members will therefore find it very difficult to own their home. Would the Minister look into the needs of such families who are facing difficulties in owning their HDB flats?

Mrs Lim Hwee Hua: Sir, I would like to raise a point regarding the pricing philosophy for HDB flats. There is currently a gap, albeit not a serious one, in terms of expectations between buyers and HDB. It is not uncommon, especially during the crisis as well as during the property market boom, for many HDB dwellers to express frustration and uncertainty over what they would actually pay for their flat. Part of this can be attributed to the queuing time which can be inordinately long for the more popular zones. Apart from this, there is also little or a direct reflection of pricing by, firstly, the location of the new flat and, secondly, on a per square metre or per square foot basis. The latter is used throughout the private housing market for whatever benchmarking it offers.

For the HDB, however, the emphasis is on room-type and although most Singaporeans understand the references quite well by now, a 3-room flat really has two bedrooms and both a 4-room and a 5-room flat have only three bedrooms. Some have expressed surprise too that the new 5-room flats somehow appear or are in fact smaller than the older generation ones. This sense of being shortchanged is misplaced and quite unnecessary. Can the Minister reveal how the sense of value for new HDB flats can be properly conveyed to would-be buyers?

Assoc. Prof. Chin Tet Yung: Sir, I echo Mrs Lim's description of the problem concerning HDB flat prices. Let me just illustrate the problem. During the onset of the financial crisis, some applicants for HDB Executive flats, for example, were asked to select their flats based on pre-crisis prices. This was in November 1997. Even in March 1998 when they went to collect their keys and pay their 20%, the price remained unchanged. But last year when these applicants moved in, they found to their surprise that prices had dropped dramatically for the unsold flats. The price drops ranged from $30,000 to as much as $100,000. In percentage terms, the range was from 15% to 35%. Naturally, the flat owners who paid these high prices would, of course, like to have their prices adjusted downwards to reflect a fairer deal. I think it is an example of the lack of coincidence between the expectation of the buyer and the approach by HDB. After all, the point that many buyers made is that HDB has the monopoly as far as public housing is concerned and potential owners do not really have the luxury of choosing their time to purchase.

May I ask the Minister whether it is not desirable for HDB to have a fairly stable price structure whatever the market conditions are like, and whether in such an instance, HDB could consider adjusting the prices of those affected, ie, the Executive flat owners who paid substantially higher prices for their flats in 1997.

Mr Lew Syn Pau: The HDB upgrading programme has been generally well received by residents. Most residents vote for this programme, pay their share of upgrading cost, are prepared to put up with the inconvenience during the upgrading, and are happy with the outcome when the upgrading is finished. Many see their flat values rise significantly after upgrading. The only source of unhappiness and contention, especially during the upgrading, is the selection of the space-adding item within their flat and the choice of finishing of their flat. Two of my blocks in my constituency had their main upgrading not too long ago. I must confess that the upgrading within their flats caused quite a few problems, with differing views on the space adding items, choice of tiles, leakage problems and some lack of cooperation on the part of residents who refused entry to contractors to work in their flats for whatever reasons. A few felt that they were not given what they wanted despite having to pay for them.

This brings me to the question whether the HDB should be involved in the upgrading of the interior of HDB flats during the Main Upgrading Programme. Why do we not just focus on the upgrading of the common areas at the precinct and leave the renovation of the inside of flats to the owners themselves? Different households are at different stages of their lives and have different needs and different capacities and resources to pay for them. We should leave the upgrading of the interior of flats to the owners to allow them to maximise their economic utility and also help speed up the upgrading process. In my view, the main upgrading process now takes far too long, in fact, long enough for you to pull down the entire block and rebuild. I hope the Minister will review this policy.

Mr Ang Mong Seng: (In Mandarin): Sir, our Government has been carrying on these Interim Upgrading Programme and Main Upgrading Programme with the view of improving the environment and providing better service to the residents. With this ageing population, I think the most important item in the upgrading programme is to improve the service of the lifts. In the older HDB estates, lifts do not stop at every floor. For those who are living in the high floor, particularly the senior citizens, it is very inconvenient. HDB understands this problem. Therefore, in the new flats, the design is such that the lifts would stop at every floor. They provide very good service to the residents, particularly the senior citizens, and this has won the praises of the residents.

We have about 280,000 people aged 60 years and above. 90% of them are staying in HDB flats. Every day, they have to make use of the lifts to go upstairs and downstairs. If the lifts do not stop at the floor on which they are staying, they would have to walk up one or two floors before they could use the lifts. To the young people, there is no problem. But for the old people, particularly those who are not feeling well, it poses a problem. On one occasion, I met an old man who was sitting at the ground floor of the flat, waiting for his son to come back to help him to go upstairs. He said he could not walk up. I asked him how he managed to come down. He told me in Teochew, "My legs are not listening to me. I can walk down but I cannot walk up." I came across a newspaper report that when a person gets old his most vulnerable part is his legs. They would not be able to walk properly.

Presently, I am living in an HDB estate and work very closely with the residents. I understand the problems they are facing, and their needs. I feel that improving the service of the lifts is the most important item in the upgrading projects. I think the lifts and the covered walkways are the two most important and most frequently used facilities in the HDB estates. HDB should seriously consider installing new lifts with landing on every floor for the benefit of the residents, particularly the senior citizens.

I discovered that some Interim Upgrading Programmes have not included the improvement to the lifts. The residents are very disappointed with it. HDB rules that improvement to the lifts would only be carried out in the Main Upgrading Programme. For some estates, after the IUP projects are implemented, the residents have to wait for some 10 years, or even longer for the MUP projects. I think this is too long, particularly for the old people. They may not be around when the lifts are eventually improved.

I hope that we can give this matter more urgency. As the Finance Minister has said, we have a budget surplus of $3.2 billion. I think we should set aside $300 million to help HDB in improving the lift service for the benefit of the 280,000 senior citizens in our population. 3.45 pm

Dr Wan Soon Bee: Sir, since 1992, selected old HDB flats have been undergoing upgrading through the Main Upgrading and the Interim Upgrading programmes. These programmes are highly popular with the residents since they have brought about new facilities and amenities in the precinct as well as an enhancement in the value of the flat in this resale market. The benefits to the residents are immense. Covered linkways provide shelter; communal places allow residents to interact with one another; and, the upgraded lift lobbies and common areas make the place look more attractive. I therefore would like to congratulate the HDB and the Town Councils for doing a wonderful job in creating a higher quality living environment for our HDB residents.

With the financial crisis behind us, may I urge the Ministry to accelerate the upgrading programmes. Besides benefiting the residents, these upgrading projects will also provide opportunities for the construction sector to speed up its recovery.

Dr Teo Ho Pin: Sir, the HDB upgrading programmes, ie, MUP and IUP, are implemented in phases. Each upgrading precinct comprises between five and 10 blocks. Very often, covered linkways are designed to link blocks together, and from blocks to bus-stops or other amenities. But the Ministry does not allow the MUP or IUP budget to be used for covered linkways beyond the upgrading precinct. As such, covered linkways are sometimes not completely linked to blocks or public amenities to provide a seamless connection for residents. This is especially so when the linkway spans across land parcels belonging to different authorities.

In some MUP and IUP, certain infrastructure works belonging to HDB, such as access road and car park, are not upgraded during the upgrading programme. This has affected the overall rejuvenation of the upgraded precinct.

The upgraded precinct with its new facilities, such as lift stopping at every landing, will also increase the cost of maintenance for Town Councils. Sir, I wish to make the following suggestions for the Minister to consider:

(1) Provide additional budget for covered linkways which link upgraded precincts to buildings or amenities outside the upgraded precinct boundary.

(2) Coordinate with LTA, ENV and Land Office to ensure that linkways can be constructed to bus-stops or other amenities during upgrading programme.

(3) Provide a budget to provide anti-mosquito breeding features to be incorporated in the upgrading precinct, such as clothes hanging poles.

(4) Provide a budget for HDB to upgrade car parks and access roads of upgrading precinct during MUP and IUP.

(5) Provide a grant for Town Councils to bring forward cyclical works of upgrading precinct so as to minimise inconvenience to residents.

(6) Provide a special grant to Town Councils, which have blocks with lifts stopping at every floor landing.

Mr Seng Han Thong: (In Mandarin): Sir, many of our older HDB flats are now undergoing upgrading. Most of them were built some 20-over years ago when the problem of an ageing population was not an issue. In these estates, some blocks have lifts and some do not. Even for those with lifts, the lifts do not land on every floor. Moreover, for this special type of flats known as segmented blocks, the residents would have to walk a distance along the public corridor on the lift-landing floor before walking up or down the stairs to their respective flats. To the senior citizens, the problem is aggravated.

I would like to commend Minister Mah Bow Tan for making the decision to allow the lifts to stop at every floor, and for building additional lifts in some of the older blocks. I would like to urge HDB to provide these facilities for all the blocks in order to look after the ageing population.

Sir, in the following years, I think there will be more problems with the lifts in the older estates. In fact, from what I know, some people have to upgrade simply because they are fed up with the inadequacy of the lift service at their old flats.

As for the lifts in the upgrading precinct, there are still other problems to be resolved. Who is going to share in the cost and who can vote and who cannot vote, or can everyone vote? This issue has not been resolved. I feel that we need some specific ruling on this.

Mr Goh Chee Wee (Boon Lay): Sir, I would like to thank HDB and the Government for the upgrading programmes. We saw 4,900 units of flats in my constituency, Boon Lay, benefiting or about to benefit from the Interim and Main Upgrading Programmes.

For older constituencies like Boon Lay, most if not all of the flats are eligible for main upgrading. But being a nation-wide programme, upgrading could only proceed at a certain pace. So, many residents are therefore afraid that it will take quite some years before their turn for upgrading of flats will come. Some of the older ones wonder whether if they will live long enough to see the upgrading.

Sir, I share the sentiments expressed by the earlier speaker, Dr Wan Soon Bee. And I would like to ask the Minister, in view of the economic recovery and the stronger financial position, and, in fact, larger surpluses accumulated by the Government, whether HDB could accelerate these upgrading programmes so that more of those who live in the older estates could benefit from the programme early.

Mr Low Thia Khiang (Hougang): (In Mandarin): Sir, on HDB upgrading, I recall that on 7th March, during the debate on the financial policy of the Government, the Minister for Finance, in reply to questions on the budget surpluses, said and I quote: "Who is the Government? The money in the reserves is yours. What is the Government? The Government represents the people. The Frontbench and the Ministers are just your agents holding the money." The Minister spoke with justification and good reasons. But the more I think of it, the more I become doubtful. The Government's money belongs to the people. But it is for the Government to decide how to spend it. The ruling Party, the PAP, is using the people's money to threaten the people by saying that if you do not vote for the PAP, you would not get the benefit of upgrading funded by the Government with the people's money.

The Minister for Finance said time and again that the Government represents the people. Since the Government represents the people, it should be fair to all the people alike. But the scheduling of the upgrading programme is based on the election results. In the PAP wards, some estates which are not very old have already been upgraded. But in my Hougang constituency, some older flats in the old Punggol estate are already more than 23 years old, yet the turn has not come for them to be upgraded. Since the Government's money is the people's money, why is it that the people in the Opposition wards do not have a share in it? Perhaps the PAP Government does not regard the people in the Opposition wards as their people.

At the last general election, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong even went to the extent of saying that the flats in the Opposition wards might become slums one day. These are words coming out from the mouth of the Prime Minister. I am very surprised. When I referred to the upgrading issue in Parliament, the Minister for National Development said that it was not possible to upgrade all the flats at the same time. The Opposition wards must queue up at the end. But now the situation is that the flats which are less than 10 years old in the PAP wards are already upgraded, while flats which are more than 20 years old in the Hougang constituency have not.

I can anticipate the Minister for National Development telling me that there is a difference between IUP and MUP. Be that as it may, the people in Hougang can suffer a little bit of disadvantage. The Government can just provide IUP to these flats that are more than 20 years.

The result of this policy of two different kinds of upgrading is that flats in Hougang which are older than 20 years are not upgraded, but flats in other constituencies which are less than 10 years old are upgraded. My conclusion is that the Minister's explanation that it is not possible to have all the estates upgraded does not hold water. What the PAP Government really meant was that the Opposition wards would have to wait till what the Prime Minister said at the last election that "opposition wards will become slums".

If, as the Prime Minister has said, one fine day the Opposition ward does become a slum, compared to other wards, this will be the desired outcome of the PAP in consolidating the hold of its power and an achievement of Prime Minister Goh during his term of office! By then, I wonder if the Cabinet, which the Minister for Finance described as the custodian of the people's money, will feel proud of the slums among them in the so-called Singapore 21 vision.

The Minister for National Development (Mr Mah Bow Tan): Sir, first of all, let me thank all the Members who have spoken. I am grateful to them for keeping their speeches short. Because I have got a fairly long agenda to take care of, I need a bit more time. Thank you very much, first of all, to the Members who have spoken on the Concept Plan review. This is a subject that I will first touch upon.

Mr Lew Syn Pau, Mr Ong Kian Min, Dr Teo Ho Pin and Mr Sinnakaruppan, in particular, spoke about the Concept Plan review and asked questions regarding the upcoming Concept Plan review, and also raised several questions pertaining to that review.

Sir, many of the issues raised are indeed being studied as part of this current Concept Plan review. The Concept Plan is a blue-print which guides our planners in shaping Singapore's physical development to make Singapore a thriving world-class city, a city which Singaporeans can be proud to call their home and, of course, to make it a livable city and attractive city so that foreigners want to come here to live, work and even settle down.

In this Concept Plan review, the starting point is to decide, first of all, on what is our long-term population, what planning parameters do we use for population, because this decides how much we set aside for infrastructure, services, and so on. 4.00 pm

In the 1991 Concept Plan, the figure that we used for planning purposes was four million. The focus then was on the indigenous and the resident population and that included of course PRs. Since then, we have attracted more employment pass and work permit holders in order to support the growing economy. As a result of this, the total population has grown rapidly from three million in 1990, when we were doing the previous Concept Plan, to about 3.9 million. So obviously, we need to update our original 1991 Concept Plan population of four million.

For this review, we are adopting a long-term population figure of 5.5 million. This includes citizens, permanent residents, employment pass as well as work permit holders. By long term, I am talking about some time in the middle of this century, 2040-2050, because that is the long-term planning horizon when we are talking about land use. But this does not, in any way, suggest that Singapore can only support 5.5 million people. Indeed, it would be very difficult for us at this point in time to know or to project what life is going to be like in 40 or 50 years' time. With further advances in technology, information technology, telecommunications technology, reclamation technology, building technology, transportation technology, we may be able to plan for a population larger than 5.5 million in future. But, at this point in time, for this current review, this is the number that we are looking at.

Sir, our limited land space is a given in this exercise and we need to optimise the use of our limited land resources, as Mr Lew, Mr Sinnakaruppan and others have pointed out. In order to effectively accommodate more people, in order to provide more commercial, industrial and recreational space, we would have to optimise or maximise the use of this limited land. This means building upwards, high-rise residential apartments, commercial towers, high-rise flatted factories, and so on. HDB has announced that it will be building its first 40-storey block in Toa Payoh. If the response is good, HDB will build more where it is possible to do so.

Uses that cannot go high rise are located where there are height constraints. In Singapore, there are many places where buildings cannot go up beyond a certain height because of the height constraints, airspace constraint, and so on. Pollutive industries would be grouped together to minimise the constraints they impose on their surroundings, ie, sewerage treatment plants and noise polluting industries where buffers are required by law in order to protect the environment. These would be located together so that their buffers will cancel one another.

Leisure and recreational facilities, such as golf courses, would be located within water catchment areas. Again, this is so as not to use up additional land. If necessary and if possible, we will put some of our infrastructure and services underground. The Environment Ministry is starting work on the deep tunnel sewerage system. Mindef is looking at underground ammunition dumps, or ammunition storage depots. We will encourage the co-location of compatible uses. Mr Ong Kian Min mentioned just now the possibility of providing recreational or eating facilities in our parks. This is indeed being done and some of our parks are already host to very thriving, very successful and very attractive eating places, for example, the Botanic Gardens.

Then, we can also cluster different uses together. Community facilities, such as community centres and libraries, can be clustered together. This in fact is being done now, the first one being the Marine Parade community centre in the Prime Minister's constituency. By doing it in this way, by imaginative and creative use of land, or co-location of such facilities, we can save as much as 40% of the land compared to the situation where we have to build them separately.

But we must also be realistic. There is, at the end of the day, a limited amount of land that we have in Singapore. So notwithstanding the many areas and many ways in which we can optimise land use, at the end of the day, we would still need to make very difficult trade-offs in planning our land use. For example, we would have to decide how much land we want to set aside for housing, and for a better quality of life, how much green space to set aside and, on the other hand, how much industrial land we need to set aside in order to attract industries, investments and dollars to create the jobs that will fuel economic growth. These are difficult decisions. Ultimately, the Government would have to make these decisions. But in arriving at these decisions, the Government would involve as many people as possible in the planning process. Not only do we let people have a say, but I think it is also good to let people understand the difficulties that are faced in arriving at such decisions. Collectively, Sir, we will have to determine the kind of city we want for ourselves and future generations.

I come now to a basic concern of many Members, which is housing. Do we have enough land for housing? The short answer is yes. Even for a population planning target of 5.5 million, let me assure the House that there will be no shortage of land for housing. We have one million housing units today spread over 10,000 hectares of land. A total of 16,400 hectares of land have been safeguarded for housing over the long term. This is sufficient to house a 5.5 million population.

For private housing, since 1990, the Government has systematically injected more housing units into the market through the Government land sales programme. And as a result of this, the proportion of private to pubic housing in the housing stock has risen steadily from 14% in 1990 to 18% today. This is going to increase even further because we recognise that we have to cater for a population which is becoming more affluent, which will have higher aspirations for more exclusive housing types and are prepared, willing and able to pay for them. But at the same time, the Government will continue to build sufficient public housing to cater to the majority of Singaporeans.

For planning purposes, MND will adopt the housing mix of 75:25, in other words, 75% public, 25% private. But let me just say that we cannot cast these plans in stone. We have to take into account the changing tastes of the market. We must be flexible in order to accommodate any changes in the marketplace. While this would be the planning norm in the current Concept Plan review, the situation may change in subsequent plans. But for this particular purpose, we feel that this is a realistic and reasonable mix to plan for. We will monitor the market closely and we will have to adjust the public housing as well as the land sales programme as we go along in order to meet the changing aspirations of the people.

That is the quantitative aspect of the housing and land use problems. But even as our planners strive to meet these quantitative aspects of housing and other needs, they would also do well not to neglect the qualitative aspect of our built environment. Our existing planning system has facilitated the development of a generally efficient, safe and attractive urban environment. But I think we can do more to enhance Singapore's attractiveness as a city.

As the design quality of our buildings improves and as our construction industry matures, URA has also relaxed and reduced its development controls and urban design guidelines over the next few years. URA will explore various ways to further facilitate and encourage creative developments. It will review the existing development control and urban design guidelines, for example, those that pertain to the key districts, such as the Civic District, the Historic District, the Central Business District and the tourist belt along Orchard Road. All these can be made known. Architects, designers and planners will then know what areas need to comply with the guidelines. And outside of these areas, we can afford to be a bit more relaxed and only apply very minimal urban design guidelines. In this way, we hope to be able to encourage more creativity and more innovation in the design of the built environment.

Another thing that URA intends to do is to establish an international advisory panel to provide ideas on planning strategies and proposals. URA is already currently engaged with international experts. But they hope that they can formalise this through the formation of such a panel which will comprise eminent experts from all over the world. After all, we do aspire to be a global world-class city of excellence. But we need to also complement their contributions with those of our local experts. Conferences and workshops will be organised to raise the standard of local design and also to promote, very importantly, appreciation by the public, the owners and developers of what constitute good and creative designs.

Sir, the Concept Plan review is an exciting and a very important exercise. We will be entering soon a phase which allows the URA to involve the public in various planning issues and the Concept Plan will be finalised after such consultation exercises. This public consultation will take place at different levels. There will be small focused group sessions with the professionals and informed members of the public to discuss issues and trade-offs that are faced in land use planning. On a larger scale, public exhibitions of the plan will be held next year. Again, this is another opportunity for the public to comment and to give feedback on these plans. With the participation of the public and with URA's proactive strategies, I am confident that we will be able to make Singapore a thriving world-class city in the 21st century.

Sir, allow me now to address some of the specific issues that were raised by the Members just now. Mr Lew Syn Pau suggested that we allow a higher plot ratio for prime residential land in order to allow more people to live in the prime areas. Sir, this does make good economic sense and, as far as possible, this would be done, as indeed, it is being done today. But he would also agree that not every piece of land can support a higher plot ratio. There will be limiting constraints and factors, such as height constraints imposed by flight paths, as well as capacity constraints of infrastructure, or services, like roads, sewerage, etc. But as far as possible, this is something that will be done. 4.15 pm

Mr Ong Kian Min, along the same lines, spoke about the need to bring more life into the Central Business District, such as Raffles Place. I agree with Mr Ong. Our CBD can be better utilised. In fact, we have gradually started to introduce mixed use and residential developments to create more life and vibrancy in the CBD after office hours. For example, if you take the Boat Quay development, when you look out of Parliament House, you will agree, if you are here in the evenings, how vibrant and how noisy it is. Fullerton Hotel is a development that has been awarded to a developer to create a top-class hotel and I believe that will also bring life into the city. Far East Square is another example. For our future downtown at Marina South, we will be zoning more sites as white sites. What these white sites allow developers to do is to give them flexibility to plan for wider range of uses so as not be constrained by URA guideplans.

Mr Ong Kian Min and Dr Teo Ho Pin spoke about planning for the aged. Yes, this is going to become more important as our population ages. I chaired the Inter-Ministerial Committee last year to look at the problems of an ageing population and the Committee came up with a set of recommendations including the need to cater for the elderly in our built environment and the need to provide more facilities such as nursing homes, aged homes and other support facilities. URA and HDB will work together with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Community Development and Sports to ensure that sufficient land is set aside for such uses. The Land Transport Authority has also factored the transportation needs of the elderly into its plans.

Dr Teo also asked how we provide greenery within our built environment. We have, within our residential estates, provided a variety of parks and common green, as well as park connectors and these will form the green link between parks which is useful to enhance the quality of life. Finally, there was the question about how we can factor IT into our commercial developments. Yes, this is an important aspect of the review and what the review will do is to take into consideration the rapid technological changes and their impact on the way we live, work and play. This would impact ultimately on the amount of land that we set aside for industry and commercial developments, etc.

I believe I have answered all the relevant questions on the Concept Plan review. May I now respond to Members' questions on public housing. But before I do so, first of all, I would like to remind the House that the HDB is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

HDB was set up in 1960 to solve Singapore's housing problems. At that time in 1960, less than 9% of the population lived in low-cost housing. The majority lived in slums and squatter colonies. Today, 40 years later, as many Members have pointed out, it is 86% of our population living in HDB flats, and 9 out of 10 HDB dwellers own their own flats. And over these years, public housing has developed from the very basic, spartan low-cost housing units into homes and communities that our citizens are proud of. HDB flats are spacious, comfortable, well-furnished and affordable and provide residents with clean and secure homes within self-contained communities.

Our public housing programme is one of Singapore's enduring success stories. It has given Singaporeans a stake in the nation. It has contributed to social stability in our nation-building process. When you talk about the Singapore heartbeat, if you want to find the Singapore heartbeat, go down to the HDB's heartlands.

Singapore owes a deep debt of gratitude to many men and women of HDB who have made this possible, led by many distinguished Chairmen, including the first Chairman, Mr Lim Kim San, Mr Howe Yoon Chong, Mr Lee Hee Seng, Mr Michael Fam and Mr Hsuan Owyang. Some time this year, HDB will be handing over the keys to the 800,000th family. This is indeed a great achievement. I have asked HDB to organise an event to commemorate this significant milestone.

On specific issues raised by Members, Mr Sinnakaruppan made a very interesting suggestion and I think I should take his suggestion first. He asked whether the Government is prepared to introduce more competition into the public housing arena. He did not use the term, but I presume that he meant a HDB 2 because he still wants to have all the rules and regulations and subsidies associated with public housing. Over the past 40 years, HDB has accumulated a wealth of experience in public housing and the Member would not disagree with me that this, together with the economies of scale of building so many public housing units, has enabled the Housing and Development Board to keep development cost low and housing quality high.

Our public housing is held in great esteem and regard by many countries and I do not mean just developing countries. Members who have visited the HDB, the Ministry and Singapore from the developed countries are equally amazed at how we are able, not just to develop and build, but also to maintain and keep HDB housing to the highest quality and standards. I was in Hong Kong recently. I went there to look at their public housing and they were quite frank in telling me that a lot of ideas were actually adapted from Singapore, and I am sure Singapore's HDB did the same. There is a wealth of experience built into this and this is manifested in the kind of public housing we have today.

Before we move quickly into carving out HDB into two, or even three blocks and get them to compete with each other, we should pause a while and consider the implications of this. Having said that, there is a valid point in the sense that we should try as much as possible to involve the private sector in schemes to build and upgrade public housing. There is a difference between doing that and what the Member suggested, which is to create a competitor to HDB. How does Government do this at the moment? Through the design-and-build programme, the Main and Interim Upgrading programmes, the Executive Condominium scheme and so on.

While I am hesitant to talk about a HDB 2, at the same time, I must tell the Member that we are always looking at ways to engage the private sector in public housing programmes and projects and if there is an area where the private sector can do a better job than the public sector, then I agree that we should give them the opportunity to do so. I do not see the need for Government to set up another agency at this stage to compete with HDB or to privatise HDB. We should not lose sight of the fact that a major component of HDB's mission is not about building flats. It is about social cohesion and community bonding. Those are things which cannot be easily measured in terms which the private sector understands.

Many Members, like Mr Sinnakaruppan, Dr Wan Soon Boon, Mrs Lim Hwee Hua and Prof. Chin, amongst others, have spoken about the question of affordability of HDB flats. Let me, first of all, explain to Members how and what is the rationale behind Government's pricing policy of HDB flats. First of all, the Government is committed to keeping the prices of HDB flats affordable to the Singapore citizens, especially to first-timers and to lower-income families. How is this done? By pricing HDB flats such that 90% of Singaporean households can afford at least a 3-room flat, and 70% at least a 4-room flat. 5-room flats and Executive flats which HDB used to build in the past but which they do not anymore, are additional choices for those households with higher incomes. In line with these principles, smaller HDB flats are generally given more subsidy. HDB does not follow the private sector's practice of pricing its flats on a dollar per square metre or dollar per-square-foot basis which is what Mrs Lim Hwee Hua was suggesting just now. If we did so, then the differences between large and small flats would be blurred. I do not think this is the intention of the HDB's pricing policy. This explains why the dollar per square metre of Executive flats, for example, is higher than that of 5-room flats, 5-room flat per-square-metre is higher than 4-room, and so on. And because of these affordability criteria, 9 out of 10 HDB dwellers today own their own homes.

Dr Wan Soon Bee mentioned the 40% of household income that is being used to determine maximum loan quantum, which in turn determines whether a person can afford a HDB flat or not. If you take the average HDB flat prices, the average monthly mortgage instalment for a HDB flat as a percentage of his monthly household income, is way below the 40% criterion of a purchaser's household income. Dr Wan can be reassured that the 40% is not a limiting factor in terms of pricing and allowing HDB flat dwellers to own their own homes. In fact, what that means is that most HDB flat dwellers are able to service their mortgage loans entirely with their CPF contributions. To another question posed by another Member, there are very few HDB dwellers who do not pay their HDB mortgages in time. For 4-room flats, the mortgage instalments are roughly about 18% of the applicant's household income; and for 5-room flats, around the same, 19% of the household income. This is the amount of money that HDB dwellers pay as a percentage of their total household income, way below the 40% limit that Dr Wan was talking about just now.

Mr Sinnakaruppan then posed another interesting proposition. He asked whether HDB can consider lifestyle and family size in the setting of flat prices for HDB. This is a very novel suggestion but this is going to send a very wrong signal to the people concerned. If we take that suggestion seriously, the logical conclusion is that there must be different flat prices for different families. If you have a large family, you have one price. If you have a small family, you have a different price. Mr Ong Kian Min, for example, who, I am told, has a larger than average family, would have to be given a higher subsidy in order to afford a HDB flat. Is that not right? 4.30 pm

Mr Sinnakaruppan: Let us take a three-child family. In addition to the family income, let us take the kind of expenditure for a three-child family and use that as a benchmark, and then purely using 40% of household income. Because, for a young couple with no children versus three children, it is going to mean different things when we talk about affordability. And that is the problem we face in the constituency when we tell constituents that the Minister says it is affordable. But the people with three kids say no.

Mr Mah Bow Tan: But that is precisely what I mean. The families with five children would have to have a different price. A family with six would have to have another price. That is exactly what I am talking about.

I would advise Singaporeans to purchase their flats based on their needs and on their affordability. I do not think there is any problem with affordability. As the statistics and the experience of HDB show today, the 40% limit that is used to compute the maximum loan is not a problem. As I have explained earlier, the average family comes in way below the 40%. So there is really no problem with affordability.

The problem arises when family expenditures become extremely high, and not necessarily related to family size. There are many families whose expenditures have got absolutely no relationship to family size, and yet because of their lifestyle, household expenditures are high. So, if we were to accede to that request, then I think HDB would have to go and do a means test for every family, and look at how much money they spend on children, on tuition, whether they have a car, whether they go on holidays, etc, etc. So let us not get into that. It is very messy. The present system today works fine and let us leave it at that.

Prof. Chin asked a very specific question about the pricing of flats in his constituency. I do not have all the details at hand, but suffice it to say that, generally speaking, when flats are priced, they are priced based on several factors, one of which, of course, is the prevailing market price, because that is where the affordability issue comes in. At any point in time, in order to make the price affordable, you would have to benchmark it against the current market price. So, it may well be that the different batches of flats that were offered to his constituents were offered at times when prices were fluctuating very wildly. So there must have been a very sharp difference in the resale prices from one batch to another. Hence, the sharp difference in the prices offered by HDB.

But that is how the pricing works. When resale prices come down, HDB prices follow. And, similarly, when prices go up, HDB flat prices also follow. Those who have bought earlier at high prices obviously feel aggrieved. But I do not think we can accede to their request to actually give them a refund. If we wanted to do that, then I think we would either have to fix all prices the same irregardless of the time of year or when it is sold, or we would also have to ask those who have paid lower prices to top up when the next batch comes in.

I think it is reasonable for the Member to make this request on behalf of his constituents, but I hope the Member would also agree with me that he is really trying his luck on this one. Sir, I hate to disappoint him.

Some Members have also voiced concern about the role of HDB or the apparent move of HDB into better quality housing. Mr Lew Syn Pau and Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, among others, made these comments, expressing reservations about HDB's recent announcement of premium apartments. First of all, let me state at the outset that I agree with Members that HDB should focus on providing affordable public housing for the majority of Singaporeans. This has and this will continue to be the mission of HDB. There has been no change in housing policy or in the type of flats offered for sale by HDB.

HDB has all along provided two categories of flats for sale to public housing applicants. One, is the standard flats, and these are flats which come with limited finishes for applicants who prefer to put in their own finishes. The other type of flat is the so-called design-and-build or design-plus flat, and these flats come with full floor finishes. What HDB has done, in order to minimise confusion that flat applicants have over the different range of flats offered for sale, it has grouped the design-and-build flats and the design-plus flats into one category and called them premium apartments. This is purely an administrative renaming exercise. There is no change in the flat type, neither is there a change in the selling price. And it does not in any way affect the affordability of HDB flats nor will they pose a competition nor indeed are they intended to pose any competition to Executive Condominiums or private properties.

Dr Michael Lim spoke about the problems faced by his residents in Sengkang New Town. I do sympathise with him in this regard and, in fact, this is the reason why we set up a special committee chaired by Dr Michael Lim called the Sengkang Town Steering Committee in order to get all the different agencies together to better coordinate the provision of services. All I can say is that HDB will provide every support and do its best to help the Sengkang Town Steering Committee to enhance coordination among the various agencies.

This is a problem every time HDB establishes a new town, and that is the reason why there is a difference in price between mature estates and non-mature estates. Mature estates are like Toa Payoh, Ang Mo Kio, Bedok and so on. All the facilities are there. Transportation facilities are more than adequate. Marketing facilities, shops, schools, clinics, etc, are all there. They have all grown with the town over the years. Residents have moved in. Businesses are doing well. Residents are happy. That is the reason why they call it a mature estate. On the other hand, the Sengkang town, Punggol 21 and so on are towns where residents are only beginning to move in. Facilities are also beginning to move in. Shopkeepers are trying to find and establish their footing. Not everybody wants to go and build or set up a clinic there because they do not see the business there, for example. And that is the reason why there is such a shortage of facilities. But having said all that, I think we should, as far as possible, get the various agencies together and make sure that such facilities are provided as quickly and as conveniently as possible.

Sir, I now come to questions on HDB upgrading programmes. The Main Upgrading Programme and the Interim Upgrading Programme are programmes that were started 10 years ago. The purpose was to make sure that older estates do not degenerate, to rejuvenate and bring them up to the standard of the newer estates.

In December last year, the Prime Minister asked my Ministry to review the MUP and IUP with a view to making them more cost effective and relevant to residents' needs. Sir, I am pleased to inform the House that the review has been completed. In this review, HDB sought feedback from residents and MPs, through surveys and dialogue sessions, to find out what are the things that people want, what are the things that people value. The HDB also spoke to the town councils to find out what sort of problems they face in terms of maintenance in upkeeping upgraded estates. HDB internally also looked at its own work processes in order to streamline work flows, in order to increase the cost effectiveness of the HDB upgrading programmes.

Sir, HDB survey results show that the residents are generally most appreciative of improvement items that give them direct benefits. I think this is not surprising. But what kind of items? This is what the surveys sought to find out. Based on this feedback, HDB has revised the scope of the upgrading works to concentrate more on the functional items. The focus will shift from precinct and block works to works within the flat. Less functional and cost effective items like amphitheatres and extensive landscaping will be scaled down, as they add to maintenance cost. But I would like to assure the House that HDB will continue to provide precinct and block works that yield tangible benefits to the residents, and I am talking about popular items like covered linkways, lift upgrading, etc. And we will also ensure that the upgrading programme is obvious to the residents. In other words, that MUP blocks will be distinctive.

In addition to the full range of internal works that are currently carried out within the flats today, HDB will replace the main entrance door and all windows in the flat during MUP. This is in response to many requests from Members in the House on behalf of their residents.

The Member for Kreta Ayer-Tanglin, Mr Lew Syn Pau, commented just now in this regard that Government should not be too involved inside the flat. This seems to fly in the face of his advice. But let me say that I do agree that we should just carry out only essential works within the flat. We are not going in to renovate the whole flat for the lessee. Items such as space adding items, the replacement of the discharge stack in the bathrooms, these are massive and costly exercises. No resident can do it on his own. It has to be done by HDB, and this is what the HDB will continue to do. But other items that he can do himself, these we will leave to the residents.

In a more cost effective upgrading package, the budget for MUP and IUP will be rationalised. The revised budget per flat for MUP will be $37,600 and $58,300 for the standard and standard-plus packages respectively, down from the original $42,400 and $67,200 for standard and standard-plus. For IUP, the two-tier budget will be brought down from the existing $5,000 without full lift upgrading, and $8,000 with full lift upgrading per flat, to $4,000 and $7,000 per flat respectively. With these revisions, residents can look forward to a smaller MUP upgrading bill, better value improvement works that will benefit them more. The IUP will continue to be fully funded by the Government and later today, HDB will be issuing a press statement to give full details of the revised programme.

Dr Wan asked about the pace of the HDB upgrading programme. He asked Government to speed up the upgrading programme. Sir, with the revised MUP and IUP budgets and with the recovery of the economy, I am pleased to inform the House that the Government will step up the upgrading schedule this year. We intend to announce 12 MUP precincts and 20 IUP precincts for this year 2000, compared with 5 MUP and 18 IUP precincts last year. This means that the number of flats which will enjoy the benefits of upgrading will go up, from less than 20,000 last year to something like 26,000 this year.

As for the actual precincts to be selected, I think this is always a contentious point, and Mr Low Thia Khiang has made some comments on this. Earlier, we also heard Mr Goh Chee Wee making exactly the same comment, that if we do not speed it up, his constituents will miss out. I think we have in this House and outside clarified many times that the upgrading programme is a long term programme. If you add up the total number of flats, it is something close to 400,000 flats that are eligible for upgrading even under existing criteria. Reasonably speaking, you can do something like 20,000, maybe 26,000 this year if we speed it up. At that rate, we are looking at a 15-20 year programme. There is no way that we can do all constituencies at one go, whether it is Boon Lay or Hougang. Some must go first, and some must wait. 4.45 pm

When the Member for Boon Lay complains that some of the old flats in his constituency have not yet been selected for MUP, I feel very sympathetic. But he also has to wait because we have got many criteria to consider. If we were to just go on age alone (and I know Boon Lay has got many old flats), there are many old flats in Queenstown, Toa Payoh, Ang Mo Kio, Redhill, Hougang (not that old, but reasonably old), as the previous Minister has explained many times, all the upgrading is going to be done in Queenstown, Tanjong Pagar and Redhill, and none would be done in Marine Parade, the Prime Minister's constituency, Bedok and Ang Mo Kio. So it is not just age alone. Age is only one of the criteria. We have to ensure a good spread of the precincts across the various housing estates. That is another criterion.

But that is not all, because we also have several other criteria, including the level of support and the cleanliness of the estate which is a proxy for the community spirit. Because there are so many eligible precincts, and there are such strong demands for upgrading because of the benefits, it is difficult for the Ministry to just base it on one or two criteria. There are several criteria that have been spelt out. Some are subjective, some are objective like the age, some we will have to make a judgment, like the level of support.

Why do we have "level of support"? Mr Low Thia Khiang mentioned that the Government is not fair because it does not upgrade flats in Hougang. Let me put it this way. If you have two MPs who are asking for upgrading, one MP goes around explaining to his constituents what is upgrading, what are the benefits of upgrading, how is it that the Government is able to spend $500 million or more a year on upgrading. It is because of the policies which generate surplus. Without the policies that generate surplus, and without a surplus, what is the point of talking about upgrading? One MP goes around and explains to the people, yes, these policies which will not be popular sometimes, these are policies which, at the end of the day, help the Government in terms of generating a surplus, these are policies which reflect a very prudent financial policy. As a result of these prudent financial policies, you have a surplus. He tells his constituents to vote for this party because this is the party that is able to generate surpluses and this is the party that distributes the surpluses in the form of upgrading, among other things, and vote for him as an MP so that he can fight for upgrading, so that he can get upgrading earlier for his residents.

Then you have another candidate who goes around telling his constituents that the Government's policies are wrong, that Government makes money from the people, that the Government is rich, the people are poor. The Government should redistribute wealth through subsidies, that upgrading is a joke. If you were the Minister in charge of deciding which constituency were to be upgraded first, which one would you choose? The one who supports the programme and encourages his residents to support the programme, or the one who does not make any effort to support the programme and, on top of that, runs down the Government's policies which created the surplus, which allows these programmes to be implemented. As the Americans would call it, it is a "no brainer". So this is something that we have always had to explain very carefully. It is not a question of fairness. It is a question of prioritisation. It is a question of whether you support, not just upgrading, but the whole range of policies which allows us to implement the upgrading programme.

A last point for Mr Low Thia Khiang's information, his flats are not the oldest flats in Singapore. There are many other constituencies which have got flats even older than his, who are also in the queue and who are also trying to jump the queue. Potong Pasir is one, Toa Payoh is another, Redhill, Tiong Bahru, Queenstown. I have asked for the list because I wanted to be absolutely sure that HDB is totally fair and objective about it.

There are quite a few questions on lift upgrading. Mr Seng Han Thong has asked several questions about lift upgrading, so has Mr Ang Mong Seng. There is no doubt that lift upgrading is one of the most popular items under MUP and IUP. And with an ageing population, as Mr Ang Mong Seng very graphically put it just now, lift upgrading is something that we should seriously consider in order to meet the mobility needs of residents. But let me try and convince Members that lift upgrading is a very expensive proposition. It does not come cheap. This is the reason why in order to try and prioritise the flats which qualify for lift upgrading, HDB has in place a set of criteria, like how many people would benefit if we put in the lift, benefit per flat, and so on.

Mr Ang Mong Seng requested that Government extends lift upgrading to all blocks under HDB. Let me inform the House that HDB already allows full lift upgrading under IUP if the precincts meet the lift upgrading criteria and if it is within the IUP budget. In fact, we have provided additional funds for IUP, if the Member would like to upgrade his lifts. The lift upgrading programme is a very massive programme. It involves major structural works because you have to put in new lift shafts, link bridges and so on. Generally speaking, I would recommend that we do lift upgrading only under MUP rather than IUP. But those who want to do it under IUP, there is provision to do so, but bear in mind that you would have to sacrifice something else, and you must also meet the criteria.

As Mr Seng Han Thong mentioned, the blocks that do not meet the lift criteria are generally the so-called segmented blocks. I think he knows the blocks in question. Basically, these are blocks which really require additional lift shafts and new lifts to be added. Where it is technically feasible, HDB is prepared to be flexible and allows such blocks to undergo full lift upgrading under MUP. But the cost of installation will mean a significantly increased upgrading bill for the residents. Notwithstanding that it is co-shared between Government and the residents, with this particular feature, it is going to be much higher. We would have to require from the residents a very firm indication. In other words, we will have to go through a voting process to get from the residents an indication whether they want to proceed with this upgrading or not. HDB is now looking into the details, including the co-sharing formula, criteria for upgrading and so on.

A few other miscellaneous issues which I may quickly round off. Executive Condominium housing, Mr Lew and Mrs Lim asked about the relevance of the EC scheme. All of us would agree that EC housing has achieved its social objective which was, at that time, to provide a category of private housing that meets the need of the so-called sandwiched class, the young professional couples. If you look at the statistics of the people who buy the EC, the majority, more than three-quarters of them, are actually first-timers, and most of these people are young couples, between the ages of 25 and 35. The EC scheme has worked and it has met the objective. It has provided an alternative housing type to these young families.

Dr Teo Ho Pin asked about the mutual exchange of flats scheme. There is such a scheme but I am afraid that it is not exactly very popular because of the constraints. Only about 20 flats are exchanged every year. Having said that, I must also point out that there are many other schemes in place that facilitate extended families living together or living close to one another. There is the Joint Selection Scheme, the Multi-tier Family Scheme, the Conversion Scheme, and of course, let us not forget the CPF Housing Grant Scheme, which is the grant of $40,000 to encourage first-timers to buy resale flats near their families.

Finally, Dr Jennifer Lee asked about whether we should require industrial and commercial developers to provide child care facilities or elderly care facilities. First of all, let me just point out that the development control guidelines do not restrict the provision of such facilities. Yes, there is a cap on it, but they are able to provide such facilities. But whether we should require them to provide the facilities, that is another matter altogether. I am reluctant to move to that stage of being so prescriptive, but if the Member has got a very strong case, I am prepared to listen in terms of how to convince the developers to provide such facilities. I would have thought that if it does help the developer to make that development more attractive, they would provide such facilities on their own volition.

On flexibility in doing business, Mr Peh Chin Hua suggested that we should allow HDB flats to be used as offices. I do not know whether he is aware that the Technopreneur Home Office Scheme has already kicked off. This actually allows people to use their HDB flats as office addresses subject, of course, to certain conditions. I am very happy to tell him that HDB has to date approved 150 applications from applicants to use their flats as registered offices. I do not see any problem at all.

Dr Teo also asked about the 30% retention policy. He is correct in saying that this was introduced in 1979 to encourage better maintenance and he feels that this ruling may no longer be necessary. I agree with him and I want to tell him that URA is currently reviewing this retention policy, together with the BCA, with a view to removing it. 5.00 pm

Finally, I see time is running short, I would just like to respond very quickly to Members' comments on Construction 21.

Sir, Mr Kenneth Chen and Dr Teo Ho Pin commented on the Construction 21 report. Mr Kenneth Chen, in particular, expressed, I thought, some reservations about whether the report can achieve its objectives. Let me just tell him that these are targets. The report was not prepared just by the officials alone. They were prepared in conjunction with the professionals in the industry. There was extensive consultation among different Ministries - Ministry of Manpower, my Ministry, BCA, Professional Engineers Board, Board of Architects, SCAL, REDAS, and so on and so forth. So I think all the possible stakeholders have been consulted. They have been involved in the deliberations. The C21 report took a while to cook and to finalise. I think the process itself makes me optimistic, and so is the industry optimistic that the targets are achievable. So I would say, let us give it a try, and let us work hard to make it work.

In so far as whether we should register contractors - I think this was the other point he raised, that is, whether we should license the contractors, this is one of the recommendations in the report by the architects, I believe, and the developers. Obviously the contractors were not too keen on this one. But I think BCA is currently studying the feasibility and the effectiveness of this recommendation. So we would await their comments on this.

I believe, Sir, I have covered most if not all of the points.

Mr Sinnakaruppan: Sir, may I have a point of

clarification?

The Chairman: Yes.

Mr Sinnakaruppan: Thank you, Sir. The Minister said that if you consider family size, then how are we going to determine for one-child, two-child, three-child families. I think we have already in the pricing, looked at location, floor level, and at the type and size of a flat. So I do not see why in terms of subsidy, we cannot have different scales, ie, 1, 2, 3. Suppose if this is not possible, then the other simpler approach is to look at the 40% magic formula and try and reduce it to, say, 30% in light of some of these. I think that will be a more simpler formula to look at. That is point one.

Point two is on land sales which I talked about. I did not quite get an answer, maybe because my points did not come out across clearly. My point is that we need a more transparent and a more medium term planning so that prices will not have to fluctuate or go through a roller-coaster ride within a year. It picks up before the announcement and then comes down after the announcement, or vice versa. I think we need a more long-term and a more gradual increase in prices, and not 33% in one year and so on. So we need that policy to be looked at.

The last point, Sir, is HDB 2. I think some years ago we said that MRT would be the monopoly, but today we have competitors. I hope at some point of time we will have HDB 2.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Sir, the Minister says that he has a comprehensive list of old flats, waiting to be upgraded, to prove that Hougang flats are not the oldest. Would he make available the whole list to me or to make it public? And would he estimate what is the time frame that my estate would be upgraded?

Second clarification, Sir. The Minister mentioned about the criteria for the upgrading. I want to ask him this. By tying the upgrading programme to political support level, does it make any difference at all to pork barrel politics where you use Government funds to dispense benefits to your supporters?

Mr Mah Bow Tan: First of all, let me answer Mr Sinnakaruppan. He was first in the queue; higher priority. I have to give face to my parliamentary colleague.

Mr Sinnakaruppan is quite adamant that the family size should be a factor in the setting of prices. My point really is that it is not HDB's ambit. It is not HDB's mission to actually vary prices according to family size. We vary prices according to location. I think that is eminently suitable. We vary prices according to floor, which floor it is (low floor or high floor). I think that is also easily understood, and no arguments. Either you are on the 25th floor or you are on the 2nd floor. We vary prices according to closeness to MRT. Again, no questions asked. But the moment you ask HDB to start to vary prices according to how many children you have, HDB is going to have a lot of problems, and I do not think this is something we want to commit HDB to doing. So let us agree to disagree on this one. I do not think it is a good idea.

He also asked about release of land. The question of release of land is really a question of what do we want to achieve. His point is that we should be achieving stability in price. I think that is a very tall order for any Ministry or any authority or any government to achieve. To achieve stability in price, I think, requires you to monitor and to find out or to second guess what the market is going to be like. If you want to achieve that, you have got to release land in a way that will help to soak up the demand. Even then, you may not be able to succeed. So what do we do? We say, let us gauge what is the medium term demand. These are the numbers of new households that are being formed, the number of young families that are coming into the market, the people who are coming in from overseas, whether employment pass holders, professionals or PRs, or whatever - let us do an estimate on what is the medium term demand, what is the trend. In the Concept Plan review, you are talking about population target of 5.5 million, what does that entail in terms of number of units that are required. And then we work towards that. We release land such that the private sector and also the public sector, HDB, can provide the required number of units. And I think that is what we will do.

Short-term fluctuations from year to year depending on the stock market, depending on the external demand - these are all short-term fluctuations which I think we are not in a position to try and anticipate or second guess. So, as far as possible, the policy is, let us release a steady flow of land for a long term or medium term supply, and prices will fluctuate according to how the demand comes in. But in that way, by making that clear and making that transparent, people are not tempted to go and rush in if they do not need to. People are not tempted to try and chase prices like what happened during the peak of the property boom. They know that the supply is available; it is coming on-stream; Government land sales programme is this amount every year. If you are interested in public housing, we also have sufficient public housing available for you. You join the queue.

I think that is a very clear cut, a very transparent and a very fair policy which will help to ensure that there is stability in the supply and it will help to ensure that the market in the long term is fairly well balanced.

He made one last point about HDB 2. I think I have given him an answer on that one.

Now, on Mr Low Thia Khiang's point - list of old flats waiting to be upgraded. He would like to have a list. We do not give this list to anybody, even the PAP Members who ask. I do not think we should give this list freely. But you know what the flats are, you know the age of your flats in your constituency. And I think, generally, people do know in those areas that I mentioned just now - Redhill, Toa Payoh, Queenstown, Tiong Bahru. I think if you go and do some homework, you will be able to find out where these flats are. It is not difficult.

On the time frame, as I indicated earlier, this is a very long-term programme. We are about half way through or maybe slightly more. But I think it is very presumptuous to say that this is going to be the five-year time frame for MUP. For a start, how do we know that we are going to have surpluses every year for the next five years? This is something that we should not forget - that we can only do an upgrading if we have the surpluses. Therefore, I cannot provide any time frame for MUP programme. We will take it on a year-to-year basis.

Tying upgrading to political support - what was your question?

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Pork barrel politics.

Mr Mah Bow Tan: What is pork barrel politics?

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Benefits based on political support.

Mr Mah Bow Tan: This is not distributing of benefits. As I have explained earlier, everybody will have a chance. It is a question of who comes first.

Mr Chiam See Tong rose.

The Chairman: Mr Chiam, we do not have much time. Make your point quickly.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Clarification from the Minister. Does he distinguish between party politics and national policies? When a party is elected to be the government, the party acts nationally. Am I correct? It does not mean that if I do not support you, you do not build the roads near my house.

Mr Mah Bow Tan: Sir, I did not say that we do not apply the policy. I am just saying that there is a long list. How do I decide? How do I look my PAP MP in the face and say to him that, "Oh, I have upgraded Hougang or Potong Pasir, instead of Boon Lay?" I think Mr Goh Chee Wee is not going to forgive me.

Mr Chiam See Tong: You can go by objective criteria and not by MPs or what party they belong to. I think when it comes to national policies, you have to judge them objectively, how are you going to carry them out.

Mr Mah Bow Tan: Sir, we have listed out all our criteria. It is very clear, very transparent, and it cannot be more transparent than that.

The Chairman: Prof. Chin is not here. Mrs Lim.

Mrs Lim Hwee Hua: Sir, frequently after an Interim or Main Upgrading Programme, estates are renamed by residents to give better sounding names or ones that reflect the history or location. For example, Serangoon North Avenue 1 becomes Hwi Yoh Court. If I recall correctly, Serangoon North was so named as it was an estate lying to the north of Serangoon Central. Never mind the fact that many people still refer to the place as the Jalan Hwi Yoh area.

But, Sir, we used to name a whole estate to reflect the history or location. For example, we adopted the series of Marine Terrace, Marine Drive, Marine Parade Central, etc, for the reclaimed land in the East Coast back in the 1970s. Somehow along the way, it appears we got less imaginative. We started naming streets, roads and avenues by numbers and sometimes letters. So we have typically an A, B, C avenue series, following by an A, B, C street series. We even classify them as Neighbourhoods 1, N1, N2, and so on, as depicted by a web on a large signboard, as one approaches newer estates, if one drives slow enough to take in all the details. 5.15 pm

Surely we are not so devoid of imagination nor history as to fall back on a somewhat scientific method of naming our estates which get promptly renamed after upgrading. We are not like typical US streets which run on a grid system and for which both private and public housing estates have evolved over time. I would therefore like to ask the Minister to consider naming new estates which are more reflective of the history or significance of the locality right from conception.

Dr Ker Sin Tze (Aljunied): (In Mandarin): Sir, the two main problems faced by HDB dwellers are spalling concrete from the ceiling and the leaking floor from the toilets and kitchen. The issue of spalling concrete has been extensively discussed in the newspapers and I shall not dwell upon it here. The leaking from the floor concerns the family upstairs and the family downstairs. If it is not properly dealt with, it will certainly affect the relationship between the two families.

HDB's common practice is to ask the two families, the one upstairs and the one downstairs, to co-pay for the repair. The family downstairs felt that it is very unfair because they have to endure the inconvenience of having water leaking through their ceiling and falling on their heads. Yet, they are asked to pay part of the repair cost despite the fact that this is in no way due to any fault of theirs. If the people upstairs have changed the floor tiles and, in the process, damaged the water-proof layer, then of course they are liable to pay for it. But if they have not done anything to the flooring, yet water is leaking from the floor, then who is responsible?

HDB's explanation is that the floor is a party-structure belonging to both the people upstairs and the people downstairs and, of course, they have to co-pay for the repair. But this explanation is just overly simplistic. The question is whether this water-proof layer belongs to the people upstairs, or the people upstairs and downstairs share the water-proof layer. Of course, the people living upstairs have to wash the floor in the bathroom and water will leak downstairs if the floor is not waterproof. In order to prevent leaking, normally waterproof chemicals are used. So apparently, this water-proof layer should belong to the people upstairs. If there is a problem the people upstairs should pay for the repair. Now, with this leak, the people downstairs are already inconvenienced and yet you want them to pay for the repair. It does seem to be very unfair.

Let me quote you an analogy - the forest fire in Indonesia. This issue which we discussed in Parliament earlier today and the haze resulting from this forest fire has caused some problems to us. Just imagine, if Indonesia says that since we share this air space and in order to get rid of this haze, you will have to share the cost with us. This explanation is apparently farfetched and very unconvincing. Of course, if the family upstairs has just moved in not too long ago and there is a leakage from the ceiling, then the problem must lie with the construction. The contractor should be responsible and residents should not be asked to pay for it. Of course, the leak from the floor is not a very major problem. But with these flats getting older, the problem would get more and more common. I hope that the HDB can give them a very clear explanation as to which part of the repair should be borne by the residents, otherwise, there will be a lot of quarrels among the residents.

Dr Lily Neo (Kreta Ayer-Tanglin): Sir, ongoing is a spate of en bloc sales which will bring with it a whole new set of potential problems. Kim Seng, being Districts 9 and 10, has its fair share of en bloc sales and some residents there have voiced their concerns and their "headaches" on the matter.

The most frequent complaint is about the noise and dust from the redevelopment projects. Other inconveniences, such as obstructions, traffic snarls and increased numbers of non-residents all add up to the stressful environment. Worse still, are situations where several projects are going on in the same area simultaneously. Since these areas are all densely populated, the number of people inconvenienced is considerable. The ill effects on these people can become intolerable. Sir, what can the Ministry of National Development do to lessen the pain of these residents in their predicament?

There is usually an increased plot ratio granted in most of these en bloc sales. Many new redevelopments can therefore have buildings as high as 30 storeys or more. I know the Government is allowing this plot ratio change to optimise the land use in Singapore. The Minister for National Development has, earlier in his reply, touched on this subject with some assurance on the plot ratio change. My concern however is whether we have indeed allowed this increased plot ratio even though there are physical constraints. For example, is it right to grant a plot ratio change when the site area is small and the access roads are tight and heavy with traffic? Will we have a situation where residents have to queue just to get out of their own gates? Sir, there is even an instance of three en bloc redevelopments with buildings to go as high as 30 storeys approved on sites with buildings of 10 storeys on a short narrow road with definite constraints to road widening.

Under the Planning Act, it is a requirement for the Development Guide Plan to be exhibited so as to obtain feedback from the residents and the general public. Sir, as the notice is usually placed in an advertisement, it is not satisfactory because many people may not have read or paid attention to such notices. We may perhaps improve in this area by sending letters to the residents and allow them an opportunity to raise objections, when necessary.

Sir, I would like to urge the Minister for National Development to look into the abovementioned issues.

Mr Ang Mong Seng: (In Mandarin): Sir, Singapore is a small nation. We are only a little red dot on the map. Just now, the Minister has said that our population is 3.5 million. Yesterday, Senior Parliamentary Secretary Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon encouraged our people to give birth to more children so that our population may go up. Bearing in mind we have very limited land for building houses and flats for our people to live in, we must have some long term plans on our land use. Consequent to this consideration, HDB introduced the Selective En Bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS).

This En Bloc Redevelopment Scheme will benefit our HDB residents. They will have their new flats to replace their old ones. Most of these flats selected for SERS are more than 25 years old. But when the residents move to their new flats, they are given new 99-year leases. The new flats will not have such problems as leaking floors or spalling concrete, as described by Dr Ker just now. On top of that, the residents will enjoy modern and better facilities, such as lifts stopping at every floor for the residents. It will also enhance the cohesiveness among the residents. So SERS is a win-win situation for everyone.

On this, I have a few suggestions to make. When HDB announced the plans for the Selective En Bloc Redevelopment Scheme, they should give ample time and information to the residents so that they can have a better understanding of the details of the whole programme, such as terms of compensation and the selling price of their new flats, etc. The Government should also help the lower income families with more favourable packages. The residents should be shown the layout plans, and even models, of the new flats. Because the new development is to give the residents the opportunity to upgrade themselves to modern and better-designed flats, so long as the residents are well-informed of the various details of the exercise, they are bound to support it. Hillview Estate is a very good example.

When HDB announced the plans, the residents were given only 10 days to reply whether or not they would support the project. Before they were informed of the details of the plans, they were very unhappy. The support rate was only 86%. However, after the dialogue session conducted by the grassroots organisations and the exhibition of the development plan, the residents saw for themselves what was in store for them, they were very happy. Accordingly, the support rate was raised from 86% to 95%. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Minister Lim Hng Kiang, Minister Mah Bow Tan and Senior Parliamentary Secretary Koo Tsai Kee and all the staff of HDB for the support and cooperation they have given to us in explaining these plans to the residents, so that these plans could be successfully implemented.

Since one of the objectives of this SERS programme is to maintain the social bond among the residents in the area, I would like to ask the Minister whether priority will be given to the children of the existing residents to purchase flats in the new development so that they can live near their parents. This is also in line with our Government's policy to encourage children to look after their parents.

[Mr Deputy Speaker in the Chair]

5.23 pm

Dr Wang Kai Yuen (Bukit Timah): Sir, I would like to add my weight to Mr Ang Mong Seng's speech supporting the SERS programme. Judging from the asset enhancement perspective, I believe SERS is a better upgrading programme for both the HDB and residents. For those sites located in the urban areas, they unlock the land value through better plot ratio. For those in the outlying areas, such as the Hillview Avenue project, mentioned by my friend, Mr Ang Mong Seng, it affords a complete re-design of the precincts. Furthermore, for estates built more than 20 years ago, the population is rapidly ageing as younger and outward mobile families upgrade to newer estates. As a result, in many of these estates, surface car parks are by and large empty because the household profiles are very different from the time when those flats were built.

In the Bukit Timah GRC, the precinct in Clementi Town exemplifies this trend. Sir, by bringing back younger residents it will inject the redeveloped area with renewed vitalities. Consequently, if we also provide the children of those already living in the district a higher priority, like Mr Ang has pointed out, we could make use of the opportunity to keep multi-generation families closer together in the community. This goes a long way towards promoting multi-generation family concept in Singapore. Now that the budget is healthy once again, the Minister is likely to get the necessary funds from the Minister for Finance.

I would like to urge the Minister to consider exploring wider implementation of SERS to bring about faster renewal of older estates in Singapore. If he is looking for a candidate site, there are actually two in Clementi that will be quite suitable, failing which, of course, maybe he would include that two precincts into the MUP programme he has announced in Parliament just now.

Sir, I too find that the priority allocations of various upgrading projects hard to decipher. Like Mr Low Thia Khiang, the residents in the two precincts which I mentioned have also waited all these years without seeing any upgrading opportunity. But unlike Mr Low's constituents, these residents living in the Bukit Timah precinct which was still a single Member constituency in the general election had voted overwhelmingly for the PAP with a majority vote that was within the top 10 in the nation.

Furthermore, it is not too smart for Mr Low to belabour this point in Parliament. Maybe I should mention Mr Ang Mong Seng as an example. Many older PAP MPs envy Mr Ang in his ability to bring about many upgrading projects to his constituency. As I look at Mr Ang's circumstances, I identified two relevant parameters. Firstly, Mr Ang Mong Seng is a first term Member of Parliament. Secondly, he was returned from a ward that was formerly an Opposition ward. Judging from the priority Mr Ang has managed to obtain for his residents and given this fact, there is a possibility that Mr Low Thia Khiang's constituents might wake up one day to the fact that the best thing they can do for themselves is to vote for a PAP candidate in the next general elections.

The Minister of State for National Development (Dr John Chen Seow Phun): Sir, I would first like to take the cut by Mrs Lim Hwee Hua. Mrs Lim has proposed that we should be more imaginative in naming HDB estates, streets, precincts, neighbourhoods and so on. In the earlier HDB towns, the road names were derived from a combination of town names and numbers based more or less on a grid system. This was very systematic and sequential in nature to facilitate an easy orientation and identification of roads. Based on feedback received, HDB has introduced an alternative approach to road naming and to enhance the identity of these towns and better reflect the historical significance. For example, Sengkang has a historical past as a fishing village. Hence, it has road names such as Compassvale Street and Rivervale Drive. The same goes for Punggol 21, where road names like Punggol Dale and Punggol Field are based on the original topographical features of vast tracts of farmland and vegetation. Likewise, different neigbourhoods in new HDB estates, for example Sengkang, will also be given names such as Rivervale, Compassvale, Anchorvale and Fernvale. HDB will continue to name roads and neighbourhoods in new towns using this alternative approach. I am pleased to inform Mrs Lim that we have made progress.

Dr Ker asked who should pay for the repair of ceiling leaks. To answer that question, it is very important to first establish the principle. The present rule uses the principle of establishing the ownership of the party structure to determine who should pay. According to the Land Titles Act, the party structure is owned jointly by the parties sharing the use of it. So whether it is in public housing or private housing, the practice is to require the households owning the same structure to pay for the repair. It is fair because if we were to ask the upper floor to pay, the upper floor household would ask the same question, "Why should I pay?" We will have problems in convincing them that they should pay. That is why we have all these disputes. But if we were to tell them that it is a party structure and since both parties jointly own the structure and through wear and tear, there are leaks, then there should be no argument that both parties should share the cost of repairing the leaks. This has been practised, both in the public and private housing. It is fair if we continue with the practice, rather than, say, imposing on the upper floor to pay. He would say, "I am just using it normally and why should I pay for something which is owned by both parties?". In addition, we have to bear in mind that the lower floor unit will also have his party structure below. The law is thus very fair and we should keep it.

Let me come to Dr Lily Neo's point about the noise and dust created from redevelopment projects. Dr Neo asked what could be done to lessen the pain of residents affected by noise, dust and traffic congestion of redevelopment projects. When developers and contractors carry out development projects, they have to comply with the legal requirements under the Environmental (Pollution Control) Act and the Environmental (Pollution Control of Noise at Construction Sites) Regulations. These regulations have been drawn up to protect the residents from being affected by intolerable levels of environmental pollution. Members of the public can alert the relevant authorities if they feel that the developers have created an excessive level of noise, dust and construction traffic. The relevant authorities would take actions against the developers concerned if investigations show that the regulations have been violated.

The second question that Dr Neo raised is whether we have allowed development intensification, even though there are physical constraints. In the preparation of the Development Guide Plans (DGPs), the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) will study with various authorities on the need to increase the provision of infrastructure, utilities and services for the planning areas to support future developments. For example, the Land Transport Authority would study a need to widen existing roads or to build new roads. At the detailed planning stage, LTA will determine the appropriate vehicular entries and exits of the development to minimise the conflicts in traffic flow.

Lastly, Dr Neo asked whether letters could be sent to residents to inform them of the DGP exhibitions. The DGPs were extensively publicised at the exhibition stage. Besides using advertisement to notify the public, press releases were issued. These exhibitions were held in convenient venues, such as community centres, community clubs and shopping centres, etc, and were well covered by the print and the broadcast media. Sending letters to every resident is time-consuming and costly and since there are already many avenues to publicise the DGPs, there is no need to send letters to every resident.

I now come to Mr Ang Mong Seng's point. I am pleased to inform the Member that HDB has already implemented his suggestion for SERS sites announced from October 1999 onwards. Since then, the model, the preliminary design layout and unit floor plans of the new replacement flats are displayed at the SERS exhibition, which is held over a one-week period immediately after the announcement. HDB officers are also available to answer questions from residents and HDB would also conduct a survey among the affected residents after the SERS announcement and, possibly after the exhibition. It would take into account residents' feedback before finalising the design layout and the actual flat type proportion of the replacement flats.

Mr Ang also asked whether we could extend this SERS privilege to the children of residents who are affected by SERS. I would like to inform him that we have a number of programmes to promote extended families and parents and children to live near to each other, like the Joint Selection Scheme, Multi-Tier Family Scheme and so on. For SERS programme, it is substantial, in terms of benefits given to the affected residents. I would ask HDB to consider whether to adopt both Dr Wang Kai Yuen's and Mr Ang Mong Seng's suggestion. We have to balance it with the need to be also fair to other Singaporeans. Certainly, it is something worth looking into and we will let them know in due course.

I would like to thank Dr Wang Kai Yuen for supporting the SERS programme. I agree with him that SERS is effective in rejuvenating the older HDB estates. When SERS was first announced in 1995, the original intention was to announce about six sites per year. In view of the overwhelming support from the residents, we have, since 1997, accelerated the SERS programme. Altogether, we have announced 37 sites, involving 14,700 units of sold flats under SERS. The Government will continue to announce more SERS sites. A critical factor in the selection of sites for SERS is the financial viability of the proposed redevelopment. As Dr Wang mentioned, it must be a win-win proposal. If the block is already well-developed, in terms of plot ratio and flat size, it may not be financially viable. The actual pace of announcement would hence depend on the number of viable sites identified and the availability of suitable replacement sites to re-house the affected SERS residents. As you know, one of the objectives of the SERS programme is to allow the residents to live in the same area. We must find a replacement site not too far away from the same area. If we were to ask them to move very far away, then this objective of retaining the community bond will not be met. These are all the limitations. Having said that, I know there is so far no SERS site announced in the Member's constituency and obviously, he is lobbying very hard for it. In view of the strong support from the residents in his constituency, I will ask HDB to give me good reasons to support his request.

I think I have answered all the questions.

The Chairman: Order. I have decided to end the discussion on the $100 amendments at 6.25 pm and move on to discuss the $10 amendments thereafter. Dr Ker.

Dr Ker Sin Tze: Sir, can I respond to the Minister of State's answer just now before I go on to my cut?

The Chairman: Carry on.

Dr Ker Sin Tze: While I agree with the Minister of State that it was an easy way out to settle the leaking problem, by asking the parties living upstairs and downstairs to share the cost of repair, what I am asking is whether the principle is correct or not. Which party is at fault? Who owns the waterproof layer? I think we have a tendency of finding an easy way out, and we overlook to go a step further to see which party should be responsible to rectify the problem. Let me take another example. In a traffic accident, the drivers of both cars involved in a traffic accident are presumed to be in the wrong if the car in front is hit by a car from behind. But it could be that the driver in the car behind was waiting but the car in front reversed, for whatever reason, and hit it. Then, we will take it that both parties are in the wrong. Maybe we should go a step further, rather than just say it is an easy way out. Why do we not just stick to the easy way and settle it? 5.45 pm

Dr John Chen Seow Phun: Sir, I agree with the Member that if it is established that it is due to negligence, say, from renovation and so on and so forth, then there is a case to ask the owner of the upper floor unit to pay. But if it is due to wear and tear in the course of using the flat, I think it is only fair to ask both sides to pay, because naturally the owner of the upper floor unit will not want to use it such that he will have to pay for the leaks. No one would want to inflict the repair cost upon himself. In the course of using the unit normally, and if there is a leak, because the structure is designed in such a way that it can only withstand a certain number of years of usage, then when it leaks because of wear and tear, the parties that own the structure jointly should repair the structure.

Dr Ker Sin Tze: Sir, I thank the Minister of State for his reply. Sir, may I now go on to my next cut.

The Chairman: Yes.

Dr Ker Sin Tze: (In Mandarin): Sir, the upgrading of commercial areas in town centres and shopping precincts have met with many difficulties. The reason is that when these shops were sold to the shopowners, they were sold under the Land Titles Act. Under the Land Titles Act, the shopowners purchased only the space inside the shops. The space outside the shops, eg, corridors and other amenities, belongs to the HDB, and it is repaired by the Town Council on behalf of the HDB. Out of the monthly maintenance charges levied on the shopowners, only a small portion is used for renovation and repair work. Therefore, there is no surplus fund to use for upgrading the common area outside the shops. If they want to upgrade, then they have to co-pay for the cost of upgrading or to raise funds themselves. This has posed many difficulties for them. Even if the majority of the shopowners agree to upgrade, there is always a minority of them who are not willing to do so.

When the shops were purchased, they were not given strata title. Therefore, the open space outside the shops does not belong to the shopowners. They cannot form a management corporation, and they cannot compel the shopowners to pay for the upgrading charges. Therefore, if they are not willing to pay and simply sit tight and wait for others to pay, they stand to benefit from whatever improvements that are made, or the upgrading programme cannot be carried out at all.

When shops were sold, the intention was that more energetic young people would run the businesses, so that the commercial centres will be rejuvenated. However, many shop precincts and town centres have become shabby and old. There is no life or vibrancy apart from some coffeeshops and hawker centres.

Apart from the shops in the town centres, HDB also built many shopping complexes, eg, Hong Lim Green, Bras Basah Complex and Rochore Centre, etc. All these shopping centres have flats on the upper floors and shops on the lower floors. They are far inferior to the private shopping centres in design. The common complaint is that the lighting is inadequate, the corridors are narrow, and open space is limited. These shopping centres certainly do not appeal to the young customers. However, these shops are located in important urban areas. If we leave them to fend for themselves, it would degenerate into a pit, and will be a waste of land resources. If these commercial centres are upgraded, although they are not comparable to the new private shopping centres, at least we can change their image to increase the trade volume, so that they can have a chance to survive.

The shops at the Bras Basah Centre were sold under the Land Titles Act. Therefore, the maintenance comes from their monthly conservancy fees. There is no fund to carry out an upgrading programme. The shopkeepers plan to put a roof over the air well, so that they are sheltered from the elements, and it can be used for promotional activities. But they have to pay more than $700,000 as development charges, and the total amounts to $1.1 million, including construction cost. The shopowners are unable to afford such a big sum of money.

Sir, as time changes, the shops in the HDB estates are not able to cope with the expectation and demand of the new generation customers. Therefore, we should upgrade them and inject them with life, so that these places are not wasted. But to expect them to pay for the amelioration of the surrounding areas, it is not possible and not realistic. Therefore, the only way is for Government to provide funding for these shops to upgrade their commercial areas. I would like to urge the HDB to accede to this request.

Mr Lew Syn Pau: Sir, I shall be very brief on this amendment on the upgrading of private estates as we are running out of time. This subject has been answered to some extent recently when my colleague, Mr Heng Chiang Meng, filed a Question in Parliament last week. I would just like to add the following questions. What is the budget set aside for this purpose? And is it all held under the budget of the Ministry of National Development? How would the pilot projects be selected? What criteria will be used in the selection? Would the MPs, with a lot of private housing estates in their constituencies, have some influence in the selection process? How would the Government prioritise the selection of items to upgrade? I would like to suggest that the age of the housing estates be one key factor that should be taken into consideration.

Mr Inderjit Singh (Ang Mo Kio): Sir, I join Mr Lew's call to upgrade our private estates and I also have a similar question. But the issue I have is how do we handle the upgrading of the private estates. In the HDB estates, the town councils have the natural responsibility to maintain and upgrade these estates. And it is going to be a difficult problem for the private estates because we do not have this natural organisation. I would like to suggest that maybe it is about time that we considered extending the role of town councils to cover the management of the private estates in addition to the HDB estates, at least, for the common and public areas. After all, in each constituency, the town constitutes both the HDB and the private estates. As far as the MP is concerned, he has to manage all of it. Maybe it is about time that we extended the role of town councils to at least handle the upgrading as well as maintenance of the estates effectively.

Mr Sinnakaruppan: Sir, I would like to thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for announcing last week that the private estates will be upgraded, and I join my two colleagues here to make a similar appeal.

First, on the point that the GPC Chairman, Mr Lew Syn Pau, made. What is the benchmark budget per household? Is it the IUP $4,000? It should be at least the IUP amount of $4,000 per unit. The problem is this. There will be no economies of scale because if we take my Novena Estate in Kreta Ayer-Tanglin GRC, for example, we have about 100 over units in that particular estate. If we go by $4,000 per unit, we get slightly over $40,000. This is hardly enough for a playground, let alone many other things. The point is to try and pool together the budgets of LTA, ENV and other agencies, maybe NParks and so on, to get more money, maybe at least $1/2 million to $1 million for an estate size of 100-200 units, so that there is sufficient money to do at least the very basic minimum that is required for upgrading of an estate. Otherwise, it will be a half measure and it will be counter productive, and the private estate residents are going to be unhappy and it will reflect in our votes.

The second point I want to make is that RCs have meeting rooms in the HDB estates. What about the NCs? Of course, the People's Association will have to look into it jointly with MND, but this is something that we need to look at. We cannot look forward to the lofty club house idea. It will be expensive, I am aware, but at least try and look at the old schools that are not being used for the time being, renovate them and let the NCs use them until such time that the buildings are knocked down or an ultimate use is found. This will really help. Otherwise, maybe use the community centres, allocate some rooms, but there is already competition for rooms in the community centres.

My third point is this. I think Mr Inderjit Singh asked who would be the coordinating agency for these projects. It could be the town council, but I think there are considerations that we have to take into account, because town councils already embark on a number of other areas. I am not sure whether the Town Councils Act allows this extension of duties. So do we have to find an agency? And it has to be balanced with the needs of the town council itself.

My last point is what Mr Lew Syn Pau also made. Who would be in the pilot scheme? It is not for us to say but I would like my constituency to be first and so on. And if we take the HDB pilot scheme for MUP, let me be very careful here, it was the choice areas that were selected for a pilot scheme. But I hope that when we consider the pilot scheme for the private estates, it should first have geographical distribution and age, as Mr Lew Syn Pau has mentioned, but please also consider the total percentage of private households as against the total households in a constituency. And if it is more than 50% or if there is a high figure, give them the priority, because we really need your help in this, especially those areas like Mr Lew Syn Pau has got almost 90% of private estates.

Mr Lew Syn Pau: 95%.

Mr Sinnakaruppan: 95%. Definitely, he needs consideration, Sir.

Mr Ang Mong Seng: (In Mandarin): Sir, at the moment, we have about 14% of the population or about 500,000 living in private housing estates. These include terrace houses, semi-detached houses and condominiums. All these people living in private residential estates, in proportion, pay more income tax and property tax. In terms of national revenue, they make a great contribution. The Minister has already announced that they will be included in the upgrading programme. But the Minister also said that only about two neighbourhoods will be selected for upgrading. I think it is too few. There are many private housing estates. If we take only two a year, how many decades do we need to complete the upgrading programme.

In my constituency, there are 5,000 units of private residence in 20 neighbourhoods. If we take two a year, then it will take 10 years. I would like to suggest that in selecting private estates for upgrading, the criteria should be for those which are more than 10 years old. We must encourage the residents themselves to establish their neighbourhood committees to help in the implementation and consultation of upgrading programmes.

The third point is that MND should also have a budget on how much every unit would have to pay for the upgrading. Then it will be easier for our grassroots organisations, residents committees and neighbourhood committees to have more effective planning.

Dr Teo Ho Pin: Sir, I will just ask four questions under this cut. (1) What is the basis of funding for upgrading of private estates? (2) Will the upgrading be administered through the CCC? (3) Who will maintain the additional facilities provided through this upgrading programme? (4) Can the Ministry consider setting up a private estates upgrading unit to coordinate the upgrading programme? 6.00 pm

Dr Ker Sin Tze: Sir, we discussed a number of ways to improve the areas in private estates last year. I would like now to identify another possibility for upgrading in private estates, ie, to build a new road or road extension as an additional outlet in older estates if the required space is available.

Sir, with the growth in the last 20 years, private estates have undergone many structural changes. Many single storey houses have been demolished and replaced by two or three storey houses. Where planning regulations are allowed, a site for a single house has been split into two or three terrace houses. As a result, many new houses have been built even in older estates. Consequently, the density of residence has increased. Also, many families now own two cars instead of one. There are more and more cars. As a consequence, roads in older estates are congested during peak hours, in particular, the artery connecting the estate and the main road outside of the estate. A way to solve this problem is to open up a new road linking it to the main road to alleviate the traffic congestion wherever possible. And this will be an improvement which is badly needed in private estates.

Two estates in my constituency, namely, Charlton Park and Tai Keng Gardens, will illustrate the above point. There are 600 units of terrace and semi-detached houses in Charlton Park and the only major link road to the Upper Serangoon Road is Charlton Road. During peak hours motorists have to form a long queue at the junction of Charlton Road and Upper Serangoon Road. Tai Keng Gardens also has a similar problem. The only linkage from the estate to the main road, Upper Paya Lebar, is Jalan Kelichap. There were 29 houses along Jalan Kelichap and 73 new houses have been added recently. The traffic volume has increased significantly and congestion is quite bad now. If a new road or road extension can be built, the congestion can be substantially alleviated.

I must acknowledge that it is not easy to find suitable space to build road extensions or new roads in mature estates to join with main roads. However, it will be an improvement highly desired by the older estate residents if suitable space can be found. And I urge the Ministry to work with the Land Transport Authority to identify similar problems in other older estates and to incorporate it as an item of upgrading in private estates.

Mr S. Iswaran (West Coast): Sir, the recent announcement on the upgrading of private estates has brought cheer to the hearts of many residents who have long felt that they are the forgotten children. Having said that, I think there are some questions that they would like to put to the Minister. First, on the scope of the upgrading of private estates that is being considered - playgrounds, parks, widening of footpaths seem terribly unambitious. The question really is, what more can be done or should be considered. I will put two ideas to the Minister for consideration. The first is access to public transport, be this in the form of additional bus routes, bus stops, or even covered footpaths linking to these facilities. The second, in terms of general community facilities where private estate residents can organise their activities, since this is indeed one of the objectives of organising private estates' association.

Secondly, the pace of the project. Two projects in the second half of this year, as a pilot phase, again seems very modest, since the scope of work mainly contemplated is very basic. Why do we need this pilot phase? There is lots of experience out there in terms of upgrading playgrounds and widening of footpaths. So I would like to know why we cannot accelerate the project and actually have several more occurring at the same time in order to broaden the Ministry's own experience with this novel venture.

Thirdly, my colleagues have already mentioned the mechanism. First, the criteria for selection of such estates and, second, is there scope for additional projects to be taken on a co-funding basis?

Dr Teo Ho Pin: Sir, can I take my two cuts together?

The Chairman: Yes.

Dr Teo Ho Pin: Sir, multi-storey car parks are provided for all new HDB estates instead of surface car parks to maximise land use. But the design of multi-storey car parks does not provide adequate elderly-friendly features. Car parks that are below 12.6 metre high or five storeys high are usually not provided with lift. As a result, residents especially senior citizens may encounter difficulty when carrying things from their cars to their flats.

Furthermore, the height of the car park entrance is restricted to 2.15 metres. As a result, owners of certain lightweight vehicles are unable to park in these car parks. These residents do not have any other alternative car parks, thus resulting in much inconvenience.

Sir, I would like to make the following suggestions for the Minister to consider:

(1) Increase the height of multi-storey car parks' entrance to allow lightweight vehicles with height constraint to park.

(2) Provide lift and ramps for all multi-storey car parks.

(3) Use solar energy to light up multi-storey car parks.

(4) Increase the floor to ceiling height of multi-storey car parks to allow better ventilation and daylighting.

(5) Install better fire safety features instead of fire extinguishers or fire sprinkler system for multi-storey car parks.

Now, on my second cut about park connectors. Park connectors have proven to be a success in providing green spaces for people to relax and keep fit. But the progress of park connectors' development has encountered various difficulties such as obtaining approvals from various authorities to construct park connectors over their respective land parcels. This has resulted in unnecessary delay of park connectors' development and also the construction of disjointed park connectors, such as the park connector in Ulu Pandan.

In order to promote healthy living and provide a quality living environment for Singaporeans, I would urge the Ministry to give high priority to expedite the construction of park connectors in Singapore. Sir, I wish to seek the following clarifications from the Ministry:

(1) What is the progress of park connectors in Singapore?

(2) Can we provide more fitness facilities and toilets along park connectors?

(3) Can the Ministry accord higher priority to construct park connectors within the housing estates? For example, there are two neighbourhood parks in Bukit Panjang which can be connected by a 1.2 km park connector. This connection will definitely promote healthy living and strengthen community bonding among the residents.

Dr Jennifer Lee: Sir, National Parks has done a wonderful job developing all the little pockets of greenery all over the island that we Singaporeans and residents and our families can escape to in our free time, mainly during the weekends.

The really popular parks however are the big ones with facilities that allow people the ability to get some active exercise and participate in a variety of activities. The East Coast Park, for example, with its great long stretch of 20 km of parkway is a wonderful venue for walking, jogging, in-line blading, and bicycling.

Well, Sir, I am obviously not the only one who thinks so, because on most weekends, with good weather, you will find the East Coast Park chock-a-block with people, adults and children, in typical Singaporean style generally in total disregard of staying within the appropriate walking or cycling tracks.

While it is very well to take a good humoured and easy going approach to this, the truth of the matter is that sometimes it gets dangerous because of the congestion, and particularly with young children who are totally oblivious to the chaos they create swerving unsteadily or stopping suddenly dead in their tracks in the middle of a thoroughfare.

Clearer signage and reminders to keep people to the appropriate tracks, simply to minimise accidents, would be good. Provisions for in-line bladers, whose population I have watched grow by quantum leaps over the last couple of years, and who are caught in no-man's land between cyclists and strollers, need to be taken into consideration.

A suggestion, if space is not available to create wider and more tracks for different users, is to separate the traffic going in opposite directions, that is, to have dual carriageways, so to speak. This will lessen the confusion and hazards of the variety of types of traffic moving in different directions. In other words, you have different types of traffic but going in a single direction.

With regard particularly to facilities for in-line bladers and skateboarders, may I make a plea specially for more facilities for them.

Although I have seen some senior citizens happily blading away, these two pastimes are a wonderful way to put the energies of the group of young people, with what you might call "attitude" to positive use. I met a gentleman a couple of months ago who had trained a group of young bladers for the National Day celebrations last year, and he shared with me the unstinting effort and enthusiasm these youngsters put into months of practice and the pride they took in the enterprise.

These are restless young people with excess energy, and the opportunity to occupy them in developing their skills and taking pride in this, and building self-esteem, is certainly worth some investment of physical resources. Currently, there are very few of the parks that have facilities specifically for in-line bladers.

I am not sure how park utilisation is measured, but I would like to suggest that measures of usage should not be averaged over the week, unless and until we have staggered work weeks, as currently poor stressed out working Singaporeans, PRs, foreign talent, as well as foreign workers of other categories, are all out there on Sundays, using every available open space that we have.

I hope the Minister will take this into consideration.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for National Development (Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee): Time is running short and my answers will be brief. I will ask my officers to follow up with Members' suggestions as well as their questions.

Dr Ker asked about the problems faced by tenants of commercial centres. This is a problem that the town council must resolve with the commercial centre's management association. I will ask my HDB officers to also look at the many suggestions he has put forward.

In the case of the Bras Basah Complex Merchants' Association, I understand that they have yet to approach the City Centre Town Council. I hope the advisor of the Bras Basah Complex Merchants' Association will do so quickly.

On the upgrading of private estates, Members have posed various questions about what the Government is doing for private residential estates and have made some suggestions last Monday. I was unable to give specific answers to specific questions last Monday on a question filed by Mr Heng Chiang Meng because my Ministry and the Ministry of Finance were working out the final details. I am happy to report this evening that Cabinet has since approved a budget of $10 million for the upgrading of private estates and this $10 million is over and above the routine maintenance programme offered by LTA, ENV and NParks and so forth. Perhaps Mr Singh would be convinced that this Government does work at web speed.

$10 million is a global budget but for individual precincts the funding level would be $4,000 per dwelling unit. Members would note, as Dr Ker has now very cleverly pointed out, that this level of funding is founded on the same basis as the IUP, in other words, the beneficiaries of the private residential dwelling estates do not need to co-pay for the improvement works.

Some of the questions posed by the various Members, I hope my officers will come back to them. I hope they will pardon me because time is running out. There are many speakers after this.

On the question on the design guidelines with respect to car park usage by the elderly and disabled, their needs are taken care of by the code on barrier free accessibility in buildings. In this code, the parking lots must be provided for drivers and passengers with disability. The allocation rate is one per 50 parking lots, but the first 100 lots, and one for every subsequent 200 parking lots.

As to the overhead clearance which Dr Teo suggested, I will ask my officers to look into his suggestion.

Dr Teo also asked us to speed up the implementation of the park connectors network. We will do so in the new budget. He may be happy to note that we will be proceeding with a connector that links the Zhenghua Park and the Pang Sua Pond Park, which is within his estate, later in Year 2000 and will incorporate a park connector from Zhenghua Park to the neighbourhood park (Pang Sua Pond). This is in Dr Teo Ho Pin's constituency in Sembawang GRC.

Dr Jennifer Lee gave very good suggestion on how to make the East Coast Parkway, one of our jewels on the island, more friendly for everybody, from the young to the old, even to the disabled. I will ask NParks to look into all her suggestions. 6.l5 pm

Mr Iswaran: Before the Senior Parliamentary Secretary resumes his seat, just a clarification. Is the $10 million allocation for upgrading of private estates for a particular duration or period? And, secondly, when it comes to the implementation aspects of this, will the scope be broadened and will he be considering more than two pilot projects for this year?

Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: The $10 million global budget for this upgrading of private estates will be for next year; in other words, for the financial year 2001/2002. But we will start the programme in the later half of this year. Because if we start the programme this year, the payment will be made next year. So the money will be available after April next year, and we will pay the contractors after April. We can start the project in the later half of this year.

We will start with two because we want to test out the projects. This is something that is new that we are going in, unlike the MUP and IUP which have gone on for about 10 years now. The $10 million is over and above what the other agencies are doing. Next year, if the budget surplus is healthy, we will go to Finance Ministry and ask for more money to provide more upgrading projects for more private estates.

Mr Sinnakaruppan: May I ask which are these two areas that will be in the pilot project? Is it appropriate to announce now?

Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: We want to invite Members of the House to put in their nominations, and then we will rank them based on our criteria. One of the important criteria, of course, is age. There will be other criteria like people factor, cleanliness, etc. On people factor, the people must want these upgrading projects in their private estates.

Mr Sinnakaruppan: What about the percentage of private households as against the total households in the ward? Is that a criterion?

Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: We are open to suggestions. We will look at the nominations, and then we will prioritise them.

Dr Teo Ho Pin: Sir, I would like to thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for agreeing to build a park connector in Bukit Panjang. May I know what is the time frame for the construction?

Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: It will start soon. It will start at the end of the year.

The Chairman: Mr Lew Syn Pau, the time allotted to this amendment has expired.

Mr Lew Syn Pau: Sir, although some of the questions have not been asked yet, I would like to thank the Minister, the Minister of State and the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for their attempts to answer as many questions as possible and for the comprehensive replies. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Chairman: Amendment No. (2), Dr Wan.

Dr Wan Soon Bee: Sir, I beg to move,

That the sum to be allocated for Head U of the Main Estimates be reduced by $10 in respect of Code UE 2100.

Sir, given our limited land and the projected increase in population, the only way to optimise our land resource is to have higher density and taller buildings. In the private housing market, I would like to suggest that the Government reduces the land set aside for landed housing and allow for higher density condominiums. While I fully support the Government's long-term plan to provide a greater variety of housing types and allow more people to own private housing, I believe this can be better achieved through more innovative designs for high rise, high density housing rather than landed housing with smaller land areas and more storeys. The typical new landed property is so crammed and has so many storeys that it is like a mini high-rise building. When you sit in your living room of your landed house and can only look out to a concrete jungle outside, then I believe we are better off with high-rise, high density housing. The Singaporean family may still aspire to own a landed property but this preference may change in the future.

Sir, may I take the next cut?

The Chairman: Yes.

Dr Wan Soon Bee: Sir, with the Government actively pursuing its policy to attract more foreign talents and workers, I would like to ask the Minister if there are any plans in place to accommodate this influx of foreigners. Will there be a surge in demand for housing that will distort the housing market?

Mr Mah Bow Tan: Sir, I agree with Dr Wan that high density housing such as condominiums would lead to better land use as compared to landed housing. But this does not automatically mean that we do away with all landed housing and set aside land just for high density housing. I think the pleasant fact is that we do have sufficient land for both. In the first place, not every piece of land can support a very high density housing development. As I indicated earlier in my reply, there are many parts of Singapore where there are height constraints because of flight paths, and so on. Other areas, there are safety buffers that are required by industries for utility installations. Then, over and above that, not every area can support the high density housing because of capacity constraints of infrastructure and services. By this, I mean roads. I think earlier on Dr Lily Neo already complained that too much high-rise housing in her constituency has given rise to traffic jams. So we have to take this into account. We have to take into account sewerage and drainage facilities. So all these prevent very high density housing from taking place in the short term and in all areas. What such constraints do create, of course, is a mixture of buildings of different heights. And I think that is not a bad thing, because it does result in varied and interesting landscapes for our environment.

That is on the technical side. I think equally important, if not more, is to recognise that Singaporeans do aspire to landed housing. There is a percentage of Singaporeans who do aspire to landed housing and I think we should strive as far as possible within the constraints of limited land that we have, within the constraints of providing for other uses, within the planning norms of a higher population, within all these things, we should still try to meet people's aspirations to the best of our ability.

But having said that, I think I cannot disagree with the Member when he says that this preference may change over time. It is not fixed. As I indicated earlier, all these planning norms really should not be cast in stone. We need to keep a certain flexibility in our planning. If people's tastes change and they decide that high-rise housing is a good alternative and developers are able to provide an attractive alternative to landed housing, then so be it.

Sir, the question of housing mix between low density and medium density or between medium density and high density is an important issue, and this will be taken up in the current Concept Plan review that we are undertaking. If the Member has any other suggestions or views, we will be very happy to take them in.

The other question about accommodation for foreign workers and foreign talents, I think I did indicate earlier that we have set aside sufficient land at the moment for the higher population. There are many housing options readily open for the foreign workers and foreign talents in our midst. If you are an employment pass holder, you can rent or you can purchase houses through the private housing market. Condominiums, you do not need approval; even landed property, if you are a PR and you apply, you may be given approval. Of course, you can rent rooms in HDB estates; you can rent flats from JTC; or you can be accommodated in dormitories or boarding houses.

So there are currently quite a lot of options available for these workers and the foreign talents. But we will monitor the demand. As the Member indicated earlier, I think this is something that cannot distort the housing market, and therefore we will also study this as part of our current Concept Plan review, as I indicated in the earlier reply.

Dr Wan Soon Bee: Sir, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Chairman: Amendment No. (3), Dr Wan.

Dr Wan Soon Bee: Sir, I beg to move,

That the sum to be allocated for Head U of the Main Estimates be reduced by $10 in respect of Code UF 2100.

Sir, the question of GM foods has been raised by Mr Heng Chiang Meng and Assoc. Prof. Low Seow Chay. I would like to raise it again because I think it is a very important issue. Fortunately, or unfortunately, GM food is here to stay. GM foods, as far as we have gathered and known, will certainly bring many benefits to the world. However, there is the important issue that concerns our safety and the safety of our future generations. In the longer term, who knows what will become of us after consuming these GM foods?

Sir, since the emergence of genetically modified foods, many including scientists have raised concern regarding safety of consuming such foods. They are also concerned about the long-term side effects of GM foods on the future generations and the environment. There have been cases of GM food gone wrong.

Most of the scientists' concerns are that these GM foods could cause unexpected adverse effects that could result in serious damage to health and the environment. Some of the damaging effects on health caused by GM foods are food allergy, antibiotic resistance and introduction of new toxins in the food. In many cases, the problems are only discovered after people get sick. The new toxins and allergens in these non-food sources could cause serious damage to us and our children. These are real concerns that we need to seriously consider, especially in view of the introduction and the influx of these foods into Singapore consumer market. Hence, I would like to ask the Minister whether the foods introduced into the Singapore market are safe and for large-scale consumption, and whether tests have been carried out to ensure that these GM foods would not bring ill health or allergy or even trigger long-term side effects as a result of prolonged continuous consumption. I would also like to know whether there is an appropriate national regulatory framework established to ensure that strict bio-safety procedures and measures are observed.

The Minister for the Environment in his reply had said that the assessment had got to be rational. I agree with him. But if we do not have facts about GM foods nor its long-term effects, how can we be rational in our assessment? Under the circumstances, I think it is better to err on the side of caution. Perhaps, I still believe labelling might not be such a bad idea and costs should not be the main concern.

Dr John Chen Seow Phun: Sir, Dr Wan raised the subject of GM food. GM food is not new but, of course, the concern is real. GM food has been around for many years in the form of soya beans, corn and canola oil. Such GM food has been approved for sale in major countries, such as USA, EU, Australia, Canada and Japan, after extensive toxicity and allergenicity tests as well as animal and field trials. This is to ensure that they are safe for consumption and have no adverse impact on the environment. In fact, GM food is generally put under more stringent safety scrutiny than conventional non-GM foods.

To-date, there is no evidence of adverse long-term health effects of consuming such approved GM food. But the concern is still there of such a new kind of food and how do we control their import and use. To oversee and advise the Government on GM products, a Genetic Modification Advisory Committee, or GMAC, has been formed. The Committee is chaired by Prof. Lim Pin who is the Vice-Chancellor of NUS with members from various agencies, including PPD, ENV and Ministry of Health. GMAC has established a set of bio-safety guidelines on the release of agriculture related GM products. However, the mechanism to regulate GM product such as labelling and so on, has yet to be worked out. While we can ban GM products that have been scientifically shown to be unsafe for consumption or detrimental to the environment, established by the advanced countries, or even by our own tests, the issue of mandatory declaration of all GM products and their derivatives at import is complex as it involves many factors, including trade implications and enforceability. These issues have been clearly debated at international forums, but there has yet to be any clear international direction. GMAC is closely monitoring world trends on the regulation of GM products before making its recommendations to the Government. So there is a national agency that is looking after that. In the meantime, any produce found to be unsafe for consumption or harmful to the environment based on toxicity tests and allergenicity tests, and so on, whether genetically modified, or otherwise, would be banned from import or consumption. 6.30 pm

Dr Wan Soon Bee: I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The Chairman: Amendment No. (4), Mr Chiam.

Mr Chiam See Tong (Potong Pasir): Sir, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. I was cut out the last time. Sir, I beg to move,

That the sum to be allocated for Head U of the Development Estimates be reduced by $10 in respect of Code UI 5200.

Sir, may I take all the three cuts together?

The Chairman: Yes, you may.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, my first cut is on HDB resale levy. Sir, the HDB imposes a levy on the resale of flats at 20% or 22% depending on the size of the flats. The levy can sometimes amount to $20,000 or $30,000, which are large sums of money. Lessees of HDB flats who sell their flats after staying in them for 10-20 years are angry that the HDB also wants to make part of the money. HDB flats bought in the early years have all greatly appreciated in prices. A 3-room flat bought at, say, $9,500 can be sold 20 years later for at least $130,000. The HDB does not allow the seller to make all the money but imposes a 20% levy, which is about $26,000 for the amount that I have just mentioned for the flat sold. The $26,000, if not deducted as a levy, would have been earned by the seller.

Sir, in the example given, the profit of $94,500 with deduction for levy seems a lot of money. But it is not so because prices of HDB flats have risen greatly over the years. In this case, if the seller wants to upgrade himself to buy a 4-room flat, he probably has to pay half of that amount which he has earned as the required 20% down payment and the other half is used for renovation of the newly purchased flat. The net result is that he makes no profit at all. All the profits, minus the levy, are paid back to the HDB when he buys a 4-room flat from the HDB.

Sir, the levy imposed by the HDB tantamounts to a capital gains tax. Singapore has no capital gains tax on private properties. Why does the Government allow HDB to impose such a tax in respect of the sale of the flat? I know what the HDB will say. HDB will say that the flats sold are subsidised and it is right for them to impose a levy. My answer is that the levy is in effect a capital gains tax, and it has nothing to do with the subsidy. If the HDB wants to claim that the flats are subsidised, then the levy should be based on the original subsidised price, and not the appreciated selling price.

Sir, my next cut is on HDB's bias against the Opposition. When I was elected into Parliament in 1984, soon after that, the HDB walled up a void deck space for me to use it as my MP's office. In the 1991 general election, a record of four Opposition MPs were elected. Suddenly, the HDB announced that it was not going to provide all MPs with offices in their premises. My MP's office at Potong Pasir was demolished within half a day and the place was restored to its original condition, not a trace of my former MP's office existed. I had no room to hold my weekly meet-the-people session. I had no choice but to hold them at the void deck in the open.

I do not mind to meet my residents in the open if the meeting was just for a chit chat, or for a social gathering. But the weekly meet-the-people sessions are for a business purpose, ie, the business of the residents. They have problems which they need to tell their MP and for which they want their MP to help them on those problems. Those problems are often very private matters and are confidential in nature. Therefore, there is a need for privacy when such matters are dealt with. As it now stands, I have to meet the residents to hear their very private problems in the open. The only thing I have is a cloth screen which is not sound proof. I would like to request the HDB again to wall up a space for me in the void deck so as to provide me with an MP's office.

Sir, the last time I made the request it was refused. I know the HDB has provided all PAP MPs with proper rooms in the void decks of HDB flats to be used as their MPs' offices. In the case of my constituency at Potong Pasir, the HDB has provided Andy Gan, the prospective PAP candidate who is not even an MP. He has a proper office, equipped with air conditioning and computers, to hold his meet-the-people sessions. Whereas I, a duly elected MP, am left in the open to hold my meet-the-people sessions. I hope the HDB should immediately stop its discrimination and bias against the Opposition MPs and provide them the same facilities as those of the PAP MPs at the void decks.

Sir, my third cut is on change of HDB rules. The frequent change of rules by the HDB is well known. Lessees of HDB do not mind the frequent changes if the changes of rules do not affect them materially. In one instance, HDB's change of rules in regard to the residence period affected lessees materially. At first, the HDB said that you have to stay five years in a flat before you can sell it in the open market. Then suddenly, the HDB says, "No, you cannot sell the flat after staying for five years. You have now to stay for 10 years before you can sell the flat."

Sir, I have known of one case where this couple has purchased a flat and hoping to stay there for five years and after that, to sell it so that they could upgrade to a bigger flat. But before the five years' residence period is up, the HDB changed its rule to make the waiting period to 10 years. In such instances, the HDB, in my view, has acted in bad faith. The HDB, after making a representation to lessees that they can sell their flats after staying in them for five years, is wrong in not allowing them to do so at the end of five years. Sir, I hope that in future, when HDB does make such material change, it should give clear cut-off dates so that the existing lessees do not suffer.

Dr Tan Cheng Bock (Ayer Rajah): Sir, I move this amendment to highlight a problem that we encounter at our meet-the people sessions. A majority of our HDB dwellers get along with each other pretty well. However, occasionally, we do come across some HDB residents who are inconsiderate and they cause problems to others. I am sure you must have many instances of residents coming to your meet-the-people session to complain how some residents just throw the rubbish along the corridor right in front of somebody's flat, or making a big nuisance in the evening when they come back at 11 pm and blast the radio very loud. There are so many instances, and I do not want to quote all of them.

When such complaints are received, usually the MPs, the Residents' Committees and even the police are all involved. They will try to settle the dispute. Very few times, we succeed; most times, we fail. I think it is not fair that we should allow these inconsiderate residents to even stay there. I am sure HDB has a lot of rules to protect the interest of the majority. I wonder whether HDB has ever evicted any resident who has been found guilty by a court, if he is caught for misconduct. I want to find out whether HDB has ever evicted such a resident.

If there are no such rules, is it not time for such a ruling to be imposed to ensure harmony in the neighbourhood? I know it is a very, very serious thing. Perhaps, HDB could buy back the flat from the offender and bar him from buying or renting a HDB flat for perhaps five years. I think we should not allow all these inconsiderate residents to make a nuisance of themselves and make life very difficult for the residents of HDB dwellers.

Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: Sir, Mr Chiam has come back on the HDB resale levy a bit late because my colleague, Dr Vasoo, raised it some time ago, and I have convinced Dr Vasoo to look at the right picture and he agreed with me that the resale levy was necessary. But, nevertheless, I will reiterate the main points.

In the mid-90s, many upgraders took advantage of the bouyant property market to cash in on the existing HDB flats and apply to buy another subsidised flat from the HDB, in other words, a second flat. As a result, HDB's waiting list ballooned to something like 150,000 at the peak in 1997. With upgraders making up 52% of the applicants, what this means is that upgraders are depriving first-timers of an opportunity for a first flat. Is this fair? The answer must be "no". 6.45 pm

In order to address this problem, HDB implemented this resale levy. But in doing so, HDB was mindful of the fact that families that live in smaller flats, ie, 3-room flats and 4-room flats should not be unduly disadvantaged. Therefore, we pitched the resale levy such that for smaller flats, the resale levy is smaller. For example, for a 2-room flat, the resale levy is 15%; a 3-room flat, 20%; a 4-room flat, 22.5%, and a 5-room flat, we pitched it at 25%. One does not need to pay the resale levy unless one goes back to the HDB for a second subsidised flat. This is fair because the upgrader already has his first flat. He has lived in the first flat for some years. He has enjoyed the benefits. He has now cashed in his capital gains, and he must decide whether he wants to pay the resale levy and get a second subsidised flat, or he can buy a resale flat with the capital gains and still have some money in the pocket.

Mr Chiam quoted the example of a 3-room flat which was sold by the HDB to the owner a long time ago at a low price. For this owner, the resale levy is reasonable. If I read him correctly, Mr Chiam pointed out that for a person who bought a 3-room flat or a 4-room flat in the 1980s or even 1990s, he or she may not find the resale levy acceptable because in the 1980s and 1990s, HDB sold these flats at much higher prices than the flats sold in the 1960s and 1970s. I have an example of a 4-room flat owner. The HDB sold this flat to a 4-room flat owner in 1992 in Toa Payoh. At that time, the selling price was $160,000. Today, the resale price for this 4-room flat or its equivalent in Toa Payoh is something like $375,000. If you factor in the resale levy of 22.5% for a 4-room flat, that comes to $84,000. If you take $375,000, which is the price of a resale flat today, minus the resale levy of $84,000, this resident has a profit of $290,000. The original selling price by HDB to this owner was $160,000, so he has a capital gain of $130,000 which is tax-free. On this count, even if he pays the resale levy upfront, he has a capital gain of $130,000.

Suppose now he wants to upgrade and go for a direct purchase of a HDB flat in the same locality in Toa Payoh, the selling price of a new 5-room flat now is something like $347,000. The resale price of a 5-room equivalent in Toa Payoh is today half a million dollars. The market subsidy, which this owner will get if he were to go to HDB to get a new flat, is something like $125,000. If he pays the resale levy of $84,000, he still gets a second subsidy of $41,000 which is substantial. Either way is a win-win for this owner. When he sells, he gets a capital gain, tax-free of $130,000. He goes to the HDB, buys a new flat and gets a second market subsidy of $41,000, no doubt a reduced one. I do not know how Mr Chiam See Tong has come to the conclusion that the resale levy penalises Singaporeans. It reduces the market subsidy for the upgrader but it in no way takes away his second subsidy. I hope he is convinced.

Mr Chiam See Tong claims that HDB provides PAP MPs with free meet-the-people session office. This is factually incorrect. PAP MPs run their meet-the-people sessions from the PCF education centres. The HDB rents the void deck space to the PCF at a concession rate because PCF is doing a community service. Mr Chiam can also set up his own PCF if he forms his own educational foundation under section 29 of the Companies Act, and HDB will similarly rent him a void deck space and his political party can rent a room from his education centre, provided the education foundation has a paid-up capital of $5 million.

Mr Low Thia Khiang: Could the Senior Parliamentary Secretary clarify what are the criteria for eligibility for concession from HDB?

Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: Sir, I have just clarified that. There is only one condition, that is, whoever can form an education centre with a paid up capital of $5 million, which in today's context is not very big. In fact, this criterion was drawn up in 1991. I have asked HDB whether we should revise it because $5 million in the context of today's dot.com fever is very small.

An hon. Member: Maybe $10 million.

Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: Mr Chiam has got it factually wrong. Mr Chiam has got it factually wrong the third time when he quoted the example where a resident could not sell his flat after five years of occupation in his flat. No, he can still sell the flat after five years' occupation, but he cannot go to HDB and register for a second new flat. He can only do that if he has served up a ten-year period from the time he took possession of his first flat. All HDB rules are fairly applied across the board. It does not discriminate between party, creed or race. Mr Chiam should get his facts right before coming here again on these issues.

Mr Chiam See Tong: On the point of the levy on HDB flats, did the HDB make known to the purchaser of HDB flats at the point of purchase by saying, "Look here, at a later date, we are going to impose a levy on you." Did they do that? That is my first point.

My second part is: is PCF not an educational facility? If it is an educational facility, is it a charity? If it is a charity, the premises must be used for charitable purposes. Can you say that PAP MPs are using those premises only for charitable purposes? The other point is: can the Senior Parliamentary Secretary say for sure that if the Opposition do apply, the HDB will have its premises open to them if they can raise $5 million? Can he assure that?

The Chairman: Order. Prof. Koo, before you give Mr Chiam his clarifications, can you please reply to Dr Tan, to be fair to him?

Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: My apologies. In my enthusiasm to reply to Mr Chiam, I forgot to answer my hon. colleague, Dr Tan. Members of Parliament and advisors should try to provide this service of mediating between families who run into problems with each other. It is very difficult for the Government to come in to try and settle family disputes. The Chinese has a saying, "jia jia you ben nan nian de jing". It is very difficult for us to ascertain who is right and who is wrong. But HDB has done due diligence. Even before a dispute goes to court, HDB would normally visit the family and try to settle the dispute amicably, failing which, the two families fight it out in court.

The Chairman: Order. It is "guillotine" time. Mr Chiam, can you please withdraw your amendment?

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The sum of $343,862,420 for Head U ordered to stand part of the Main Estimates.

The sum of $17,654,273,100 for Head U ordered to stand part of the Development Estimates.

Head P -

The Chairman: Head P - Ministry of Health. Amendment No. (1), Mr Bernard Chen.

Mr Bernard Chen (West Coast): Sir, I beg to move,

That the total sum to be allocated for Head P of the Main Estimates be reduced by $100.

The announcement of the Ministry's plan to form two healthcare delivery networks is a step in the right direction. The networks will achieve better coordination between the acute hospitals, national centres and the polyclinics. With the setting up of so many medical establishments, it makes sense to try to coordinate the activities for these centres providing different types of medical care. I am, however, concerned with the six national centres which have been established over the years. These include the Eye Centre, Oncology and Heart Centres, and so on. While it is good that specialties be concentrated in these centres, there are several perceived disadvantages. The first is the coordination with the acute hospitals. Patients, especially older ones, do not suffer from just one ailment. They may be afflicted with multiple illnesses. How do we ensure that all the expertise is brought to bear to effect total treatment without having to refer to specialists residing in different places or, worse still, refer the patients from hospitals to these national centres and vice versa?

Second, the national centres, being new buildings, give the impression that they are very expensive affairs. I understand patients referred to these centres by private practitioners have to pay "A" class charges. Some of them may not be able to afford these charges because they may have been referred to by GPs in housing estates. Even with the public hospital network, there may be occasions when patients are levied higher charges had they been treated in the hospitals themselves. I hope that this is only a perception, but there could be possibilities that eventually, the medical cost will rise because of these increased charges.

Thirdly, in the event that more national centres are to be set up, acute hospitals may be deprived of the entire range of specialties to render total treatment. This will add to the so-called to-ing and fro-ing of patients between the hospitals and the centres. I would like to have the Minister's comments on these several areas of concern.

The Chairman: We have got one minute left. I think we can stop here. Do I have the consent of Members that we stop here?

Hon. Members indicated assent.

Thereupon, Mr Deputy Speaker left the Chair of the Committee and took the Chair of the House.

The Minister for Health (Mr Lim Hng Kiang): Mr Deputy Speaker, I beg to report that the Committee of Supply has made further progress on the Estimates of Expenditure for the financial year 2000/2001, and ask leave to sit again tomorrow.

Mr Deputy Speaker: So be it.