Dear Prime Minister Lee,
On behalf of the residents and my elderly mother as well as speaking for myself, I’m urging you to look into the matter of the worsening security and well-being of the residents here at Jalan Suka.
I have written to URA to clarify on the matter that many residential units here have been converted and also in the process of turning into brothels. The URA officer whom I’ve corresponded with have clearly stated that the units here are meant for residential and institutional and added that SPF should be the ones whom we should approach.
I have written to my MP, SPF (for at least 5 years now) and more recently the DPM to ask them to intervene as it is within their power to take action against the owners and brothel operators. Strangely the replies which I’ve received so far are archaic and generic. Their standard replies are predictable and are in the likes of ‘we are cognizant of the situation’, ‘we will forward the feedback to the relevant department’ and ‘we will step up enforcement against the streetwalkers under the Women’s Charter’. SPF have been avoiding taking the most obvious, and probably the most effective way to deal with the matter systemically that is to take action against the owners and brothel operators!
I have serious doubts about whether our pleas are really heard and whether the safety and well-being of the citizens matter. Every day and every night, we are victimised by the incessant noise that goes on throughout the night and even the day, large crowd of foreign workers filled the streets, streetwalkers chatting loudly and turning on the music on their radio/mobile phones to in order to keep them awake in the night and day, pimps becoming de facto authority in the streets. Even last Sunday, a pimp intimidated my girlfriend when she was driving out of the lane! The pimp slammed his hands on my girlfriend’s car and she is still traumatised by the incident.
Open-air illegal gambling still happens on weekends, peddlers selling contraband cigarettes still sell them freely for the last few years and last month, my immediate neighbouring unit has become a brothel and from where I stand I can see an opposite unit is being renovated and soon it’ll be another brothel. We have not been resting well either in the day as well as night and it is beginning to take a toll on us, emotionally and physically.
I’ve been following your speeches, your desire to begin a new chapter for Singaporeans after the watershed election and building a more inclusive society and yet we still feel so neglected and helpless.
Mr Prime Minister we urge you to take a personal interest on this matter as not only we have lost faith in the policing ability as well as authority of SPF in this area as the agency so far is only interested in sending patrol cars and police officers on foot on rare occasions which doesn’t amount to improvement to the situation given their brief and inconsequential presence. I also have doubts whether our previous mails to the DPM and the relevant departments were read at all. Otherwise how can no concrete actions be taken? Could this be a case of negligence, just like the recent MRT inquiry which has exposed LTA flaws?
I’ve included a lestest image taken outside my house for your perusal. For your information, Jalan Suka has two surveillance cameras installed and the footages (if the cameras are even operational at all) which prove that I am not exaggerating.
Please help us; we just want a safe and reasonably peaceful neighbourhood and I believe it’s not too much for us to ask.
Yours sincerely
Adam Goi
