January 11, 2010
Senior Minister of State for National Development Grace Fu told
Parliament today that there are adequate housing, facilities and
infrastructure to meet the demands of a growing population.
However, there are cases where short-term demand is not met
because it is very hard to “predict” such demand, such as for
housing.
“This is because there is always a lead time involved,”
she said without elaborating more on it.
The National Development Ministry led by Mr Mah Bow Tan had come
under intense criticisms from the public of late due to the
shortage of public housing for Singaporeans which is exacerbated by
a growing population contributed largely by the relentless influx
of foreigners.
The floodgates appear to open a few years ago when Prime
Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced an ambitious plan to increase
Singapore’s population to 6.5 million people via immigration.
A quick check on the HDB Infoweb reveals that the number of HDB
flats built between the years 2005 – 2008 are fewer than the
preceding four years.
In the face of rising demand and limited supply of flats, the
prices of HDB flats sky-rocketed in Singapore, reaching a record
peak high in June last year.
Mr Mah admitted lately that he was “caught off guard” by the
spike in prices and reassured Singaporeans that HDB flats will
remain “affordable” to the majority of the population.
Despite repeated reassurances from HDB and government ministers,
there is a prevailing sentiment on the ground that ordinary
Singaporeans are being priced out of reach in the public housing
market.
Even for those who can afford to pay for these over-priced
flats, they will probably have to deplete their CPFs in order to do
so.
The situation is worsened by PRs who “spoil” the market by
paying higher than market prices for resale flats. For example, one
Indonesian PR forked out $653,000 for a four-room resale flat in
Queenstown when he could well afford a private apartment.
As prices of new flats are pegged to the recent transaction of
resale flats in the vicinity, this contributes indirectly to the
high prices fetched by two BTO projects launched in Queenstown
lately with an average price of more than $500,000 for four-room
flats and $600,000 for five room flats.
According to Mohamad Ismail, the CEO of real estate agency
Propnex, as high as 20 per cent of the buyers of resale flats are
PRs. Another agency C&H Realty quoted a figure as high as 50
per cent, yet Mr Mah claimed that PRs form only a “small
proportion” of the buyers of resale flats.
Some PRs eventually sell their flats for a generous profit after
they leave Singapore for their homeland where they can retire
comfortably for the rest of their lives while locals continue to
pay the high price for the ruling party’s pro foreigner policy.
Being the highest paid ministers in the world, it is
unforgivable for Mr Mah and Ms Fu not to foresee the rise in HDB
prices with more foreigners coming into Singapore.
Furthermore, the Singapore cabinet is blessed with a “forecaster
extraordinarie” who does nothing much other than to “do
forecasting.”
Perhaps he should spend more time “mentoring” the junior
ministers to ensure they don’t make such a disastrous mistake again
instead of flying around the world to lecture others on how to run
their countries.
