xeqpuzia65 wrote:
Where is proof HDB double charge--1 charge is x, 2 charge is y
?
Land value 2x?
construction 2x?
selling price 2x?
888 said hdb is affordable if selling price is $100,000.00
give stats and back up your charge 2x by facts.
Ura land tender, if you don't know, is by price bidding and design
and completion dates amongst other conditions.
In the sale and purchase of HDB, it is a willing market and +95% of
the population owned and stayed in HDB accommodation--don't think
they are all stupid or victims of con by Government.
In the case of URA,it is not controlled by Government except land
is cleared of squatters or old buildings ; like casino land
parcels.
I personally speak with experience of a hotel site being won by
public tender promoted by URA--15 bids were received and the best
package won.
Do you have first hand experience with URA sites and the terms of
tender or you speculate as often to make a point.
How do you know government has no held robust communications with
the public--oh, you were not invited.
You have avoided answering how you would do the things your critise
yet.
HDB has acquired some of the lands at S$0.10 per square foot.
What milton expertise or first-hand experience or knowledge do we
need to know about this fact?
It was a statutory board set up with power to acquire lands at
cheap prices to provide people with low-cost housing.
The fact is that HDB has now over-built with 10,000 surplus stock
with the minister not even knowing much about the problem until
Journalist Lee Han Shih wrote an article in the Straits
highlighting HDB problems with lack of proper management. Should
people be penalised for such errors or should the ministers
concerned resign to take responsibility for mismanagement?
That HDB by 1990s has housed 90 % of the population should not have
given government the rationale or logic to say that now is the time
to start charging the public flats at market price as lands were
originally acquired cheap using citizens' taxes and not for the
purpose of allowing HDB to make a dirty profit.
Ms Kay of HDB has given very unsatisfactory and unconvincing
replies to readers of Straits Times recently who raised the issue
of HDB wrongful assumption that it is subsidising its flats
correcting HDB's claim that it is subsidising HDB flats by pointing
out that HDB was merely giving a trade discount rather
subsidy.
HDB officers and minister Mah in the ensuing public debates have
totally failed to give fortright honest reply to citizens on their
exposed wrongful claim of discount as subsidy. So this is yet
another instance of government's failing to engage people in robust
argument at all as PM Lee said government will.
In other words, government has now lost leadership standards and
leadership quality as it is no longer able to government by laws,
logics and reasoning.
A government which has failed to engage its people in rationalizing
its policies and practices is no longer a good government.
I hope government will see this defect in the present
administration - unable to engage public in debates and logics of
reasoning out government policies affecting their housing.
The double-charging on lands of HDB occurs when HDB has acquired
lands at dirt-cheap prices using taxations and powers under HDB Act
and Land Acquisition Act to do so but quietly, it is selling HDB
flats by giving a small discount (which developers are also doing)
to look good.
This kind of government is not good government if it charges the
lands acquired and paid for and owned by the people at market
price.
But when government is meeting challenges by bigger bullies like
the souzhou local authority or port palepas, it capitulated all too
fast. Where is the moral standard to govern - afraid of bigger
outside forces but refuses to relent on wrongs committed against
its own people.
HDB should have charged the public housing flats at reasonable
prices by using a fairer formula i.e. e.g. (4 room flat at Seng
Kang) S$200,000 (Market Price reflecting location) - S$120,000
(Land Cost) - discount (e.g. 35% given by HPL) = S$52,000.
This was what ex-Minister Lim Kim San has done, but Minister Mah
Bow Tan appears to be trying to make monies for the government all
the time to secure his position.
We cannot keep taxing on housing like this against the people if we
want to make our citizens committed to the country.
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