The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew by Lee Kuan Yew

Author:Lee Kuan Yew
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9789814561761
Published: 2012-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

In spite of the stumbles in our first six months of office, we did lay the foundations of many important government policies, including the first move in a building programme that was to transform Singapore. In February 1960, we dissolved the Singapore Improvement Trust and divided its functions between the Housing and Development Board (HDB), which was placed under the minister for national development, and the Planning Authority, which came under the prime minister. We then made Lim Kim San chairman of the HDB. This was a crucial appointment. Kim San had been Keng Swee’s contemporary in Anglo-Chinese School and at Raffles College. He was a businessman, a practical, inventive person who had designed his own sago-processing machine. He managed his father-in-law’s pawnshops and his father’s petrol stations, besides being a director of one of the bigger local banks. He was a man of many skills. Keng Swee wanted to make sure that any money given to the HDB for housing the people would be well spent, and Kim San would see to it. Ong Eng Guan was not to be allowed to waste public money.

Shortly after he was appointed, Kim San came to see me. As minister for national development, Ong had ordered him to hire construction workers direct and so cut out building contractors who, being middlemen, were “exploiters of the workers”. He wanted the HDB to become a model employer. Kim San was nonplussed. He asked me, “Do you want me to build houses or do you want me to be an employer of construction workers? If you want flats, then I know how to get the flats built; you leave it to me, I will produce you the flats. If you want me to hire workers direct, better get another chairman. Every contractor has his own supervisors, his relatives and trusted foremen who are either related to him or old retainers. In turn, they hire their gangs of workers and they know every person in their group and pay according to results.”

This was another of Ong’s political gimmicks to put himself in a good light. I overruled him and told Kim San to proceed in the way he thought best. He produced the flats. There was a big fire in June 1960, when some 30,000 people in a squatter area, known as Bukit Ho Swee, were rendered homeless. Within 18 months, Kim San had housed them in one-room flats with communal kitchens and communal toilets. He also put up a block in my constituency along Cantonment Road, a prominent location. My voters could see it going up, and were looking forward to moving in. Had it not been nearing completion at the time of the next election, I might not have been re-elected.

All new governments want to prove themselves by passing many new laws and launching many new projects. We hit the ground running, before the phrase was coined. In February 1960, I announced plans for the reorganisation of the Singapore Harbour Board into the Port of Singapore Authority.

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