A resident by the name of Eileen Tan had written in to the Straits Times Forum asking where the funds will come from to replace the 1,260 lifts in Tampines.
Ms Tan is responding to an earlier article published by the Straits Times which lauded Tampines Town Council for scoring “top marks” for its lifts.
The Town Councils in Singapore will be graded by a nationwide benchmarking exercise and the report will be released in June next year.
The Tampines Town Council gave its residents a peek at its preliminary results in a bid to them more involved in the running of the estate.
It did best on lifts, recording nearly no breakdowns and also for arrears management, with overdue payments making up only 27.4 per cent of the conservancy fees collected each month.
Its worst grade was in estate maintenance. With an average of 5.7 defects per block, it scored only a level three. Cleanliness got a level two, with an average of 3.1 cleanliness problems per block.
Ms Tan expressed concerns that the town council did not reveal how much it spent on maintaining these lifts, nor give an estimate of their future replacement cost and, more importantly, how this cost will be financed.
She asked the town council to reveal how it intends to fund future lift replacements:
“The council now has about 1,260 lifts and the replacement cycle is 28 years. The council keeps a sinking fund for such replacement works. At the current replacement cost of $100,000 for a lift, the council needs $126 million to replace all its lifts.
But according to its latest financial statement, it has only $32 million in its residential sinking fund, an annual contribution of $11.8 million and an annual expenditure of $24 million.
Considering this, the town council should tell its residents how it intends to fund the future lift replacements.
With advancement in technology, there is no doubt that lift performance is getting better and better, but there is a price to pay for the maintenance and replacement. Will future generations bear the burden of paying for these costs?”
Needless to say, the costs will be bored by the residents via their monthly conservancy charges.
Over 85 per cent of Singapore’s population lives in public housing built by the HDB, a government agency under the purview of the National Development Ministry.
The funds used for maintenance and upgrading of estates are disbursed from the government’s coffers which was used perennially by the ruling party to intimidate Singaporeans into voting for them in past elections.
The residents of the two opposition wards of Potong Pasir and Hougang have been denied essential upgrading of their estates till lately though they pay income taxes and serve National Service like the rest of the population.
As the value of HDB flats is partially dependent on the estate’s amenities, many Singaporeans are persuaded to cast their votes for the ruling party though they may not have any affinity for it.
This enables the ruling party to romp home with “landslide” electoral victories one after another.
Even with this obvious advantage, the ruling party managed to garner only 66.6 per cent of the valid votes during the 2006 elections.
In spite of one-third of the population voting for the opposition, they are represented by only 2 out of 84 seats in parliament.
Ms Tan is responding to an earlier article published by the Straits Times which lauded Tampines Town Council for scoring “top marks” for its lifts.
The Town Councils in Singapore will be graded by a nationwide benchmarking exercise and the report will be released in June next year.
The Tampines Town Council gave its residents a peek at its preliminary results in a bid to them more involved in the running of the estate.
It did best on lifts, recording nearly no breakdowns and also for arrears management, with overdue payments making up only 27.4 per cent of the conservancy fees collected each month.
Its worst grade was in estate maintenance. With an average of 5.7 defects per block, it scored only a level three. Cleanliness got a level two, with an average of 3.1 cleanliness problems per block.
Ms Tan expressed concerns that the town council did not reveal how much it spent on maintaining these lifts, nor give an estimate of their future replacement cost and, more importantly, how this cost will be financed.
She asked the town council to reveal how it intends to fund future lift replacements:
“The council now has about 1,260 lifts and the replacement cycle is 28 years. The council keeps a sinking fund for such replacement works. At the current replacement cost of $100,000 for a lift, the council needs $126 million to replace all its lifts.
But according to its latest financial statement, it has only $32 million in its residential sinking fund, an annual contribution of $11.8 million and an annual expenditure of $24 million.
Considering this, the town council should tell its residents how it intends to fund the future lift replacements.
With advancement in technology, there is no doubt that lift performance is getting better and better, but there is a price to pay for the maintenance and replacement. Will future generations bear the burden of paying for these costs?”
Needless to say, the costs will be bored by the residents via their monthly conservancy charges.
Over 85 per cent of Singapore’s population lives in public housing built by the HDB, a government agency under the purview of the National Development Ministry.
The funds used for maintenance and upgrading of estates are disbursed from the government’s coffers which was used perennially by the ruling party to intimidate Singaporeans into voting for them in past elections.
The residents of the two opposition wards of Potong Pasir and Hougang have been denied essential upgrading of their estates till lately though they pay income taxes and serve National Service like the rest of the population.
As the value of HDB flats is partially dependent on the estate’s amenities, many Singaporeans are persuaded to cast their votes for the ruling party though they may not have any affinity for it.
This enables the ruling party to romp home with “landslide” electoral victories one after another.
Even with this obvious advantage, the ruling party managed to garner only 66.6 per cent of the valid votes during the 2006 elections.
In spite of one-third of the population voting for the opposition, they are represented by only 2 out of 84 seats in parliament.
