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Tag: 38 Oxley Road

  • Commentary: 38 Oxley Is Not The Address Of Singapore

    Commentary: 38 Oxley Is Not The Address Of Singapore

    38 Oxley is Not the Address of Singapore

    After a noisy 2 days in Parliament the matter of Singapore’s Founding Prime Minister’s Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s home at 38 Oxley Road will now be settled through private channels among his three children. This is arguably how it should have been done all along. As the dust settles it is pertinent to make some observations on what this all means.

    First, Singapore works. Our economy continued to hum, people got up and went to work and spent time with their families, the water still ran and the lights still came on. Our institutions and systems have held firm.

    This is the most reassuring and reaffirming observation to make. In fact, it is the only one that really matters. If this had not held true nothing else would be material.

    Second, ending the fiction of a ‘natural aristocracy’. Many of our leaders overinvest in the concept of meritocracy to conclude that we have a ‘natural aristocracy’ that deserves its rights and privileges because they are very intelligent.

    Singapore has special people – they are Singaporeans, and not just Singaporean ‘leaders’. It is Singaporeans who define, embody and refresh the spirit that is Singapore.

    Let us cease the practice of making demi-gods of political leaders. They are only human and in recognising them to be so we are paying them the respect they deserve for coping with life just as we all have to and yet rising (or trying to) above its travails to focus on the bigger picture and the longer term.

    For their part political leaders should not forget that they serve at the pleasure of the people. Leaving aside the matter of the quality of the debate, there was no better affirmation of this than the debate in Parliament. It was a political display to retain the confidence of the people and a necessary one to underscore that we have a democratic system that must not just work but be seen to work.

    Third, 38 Oxley Road is an address in Singapore. It is not the address of Singapore. It is time for Singaporeans and for politicians, current and aspiring, to grasp that Singapore is neither about land or Lee.

    That is a very good thing. It shows that Singaporeans have matured, can keep perspective and know how to separate past from present and also know the difference between myth, however attractive, and practical matters.

    While the personalities involved in this family fracas come out of this politically scarred, Singapore emerges from this stronger and better.

    The Merlion may have been spitting in disgust recently but it is not drowning in despair. Its eyes look out at the horizon not at its navel or its tail. Our future lies out there and with it, dangers to deal with and opportunities to seize. Nothing has changed that and nothing will.

     

    Source: Devadas Krishnadas

  • Lee Hsien Loong: I Did Not Deceive My Father

    Lee Hsien Loong: I Did Not Deceive My Father

    In response to MP Cheng Li Hui’s question if he had deceived Mr Lee Kuan Yew on whether the house was gazetted, Lee Hsien Loong said, “The simple answer is that I did not deceive my father”.

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

  • Rahayu Mahzam: Using Statutory Declaration Appears Like Backdoor Approach To Challenging Validity Of Will

    Rahayu Mahzam: Using Statutory Declaration Appears Like Backdoor Approach To Challenging Validity Of Will

    “As a grant of probate has been granted and there is no challenge, the will should be taken as valid and proper. You (PM Lee) have, however, in your statutory declaration submitted to the ministerial committee alluding to certain questionable circumstances upon which the will was executed,” MP Rahayu Mahzam said.

    “This may appear to be a backdoor approach in challenging the validity of the will. Could you therefore clarify why you found it necessary to affirm the statutory declaration and your intentions in doing so?

    “Why could you not just rely on the words of the will which in itself contemplated a situation where the house is not being demolished?” she asked.

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

  • Pritam Singh: In The Interest Of Fairness, Let Lee Wei Ling And Lee Hsien Yang Speak In Parliament Too

    Pritam Singh: In The Interest Of Fairness, Let Lee Wei Ling And Lee Hsien Yang Speak In Parliament Too

    Some Singaporeans have asked about Parliamentary Select Committees. What are they?

    Parliament hosts powers to appoint Select Committees of MPs to look at issues in depth, including calling for evidence and summoning witnesses if necessary. My WP colleagues and I have filed a number of parliamentary questions that relate to allegations of the Prime Minister abusing his powers in the matter of 38, Oxley Road. The Prime Minister has announced he will make a statement in Parliament and welcomes vigourous debate. There is one problem though. Unlike the Prime Minister, Mr Lee Hsien Yang and those who support him will have no opportunity to clear the air on 3 July 2017.

    In the interests of fairness, Mr Lee should be allowed to tell his story to Parliament too. A Select Committee would allow MPs the opportunity to call up any witness, including the Prime Minister or anyone else to get to the truth of the matter behind the allegations of abuse of power.

    By way of a parliamentary question, I have asked the Prime Minister to support the setting up of a Select Committee to look into the serious allegations made against him. The use of Select Committees for such a purpose is nothing new. The PAP have used Select Committees to look into allegations made against the Government in the past.

    On 21 Mar 1996, Parliament resolved to appoint a select committee to verify the Government’s healthcare expenditure, amongst other reasons, to verify statements made in the Singapore Democratic Party publication, The New Democrat and in a speech made by SDP MP Ling How Doong in Parliament where he said, “healthcare costs are not subsidised at all.”

    One submission to this Select Committee defined the role of Select Committees perfectly:

    “The public has every right to know the facts and to receive from the Government the fullest possible information….The Select Committee serves a useful and informative field of public education and members of the Select Committee would seek to produce agreed reports in the best interest of the public.”

    In a voluminous report (hyperlinked below), the Select Committee on Healthcare Subsidies published all the questions MPs put to various witnesses who were asked to give evidence to the committee. But things did not stop there. In view of the replies given to the Select Committee by Mr Chee Soon Juan and other witnesses, then Minister of Health George Yeo filed a complaint of contempt of Parliament to the Committee of Privileges against several witnesses arising out of the Select Committee hearings. I remember watching clips of the Select Committee hearing on TV, with PAP MPs relentlessly questioning Chee Soon Juan.

    Like many Singaporeans, no one knows how long the current episode is going to drag on for with new information and allegations coming out almost on a daily basis, and perhaps even after 3 July 2017.

    The allegations of abuse of power by the Prime Minister need to be looked into. A Parliamentary session as a forum to hear only one side of the story will just not do. After all, it was the late Lee Kuan Yew who said:

    “No government in this part of the world will open willingly when it need not open a problem like this and take it out, whether a Commission of Inquiry, debate in Parliament, Select Committee, or even a prosecution if a case could be made out.”

    Useful links:

    30 Sep 1996 – Report of the Select Committee on Verification of Healthcare Subsidy of Government Polyclinics and Public Hospitals: goo.gl/zgk6ie

    22 Nov 1996 – Report of the Committee of Privileges: Complaint against Representors from the Singapore Democratic Party: goo.gl/xG6ER3

     

    Source: Pritam Singh 

  • Home Of Former PM Lee Kuan Yew At 38 Oxley Road At Centre Of Dispute

    Home Of Former PM Lee Kuan Yew At 38 Oxley Road At Centre Of Dispute

    A long-running question over what to do with the home of the late former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew at 38, Oxley Road has come into focus again after two of the late Mr Lee’s children, Dr Lee Wei Ling and Mr Lee Hsien Yang, issued a statement on the matter on Wednesday (June 14).

    In their statement, they reiterated their father’s wish that the house be demolished upon his death.

    The two siblings, who are joint executors and trustees of their father’s estate, also said that their elder brother, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and his wife Ho Ching had opposed this wish as “the preservation of the house would enhance his political capital”.

    The issue of 38, Oxley Road made the news back in 2015, several weeks after Mr Lee Kuan Yew died at the age of 91 on March 23 that year.

    In April 2015, Dr Lee and Mr Lee Hsien Yang stated publicly that the late Mr Lee had asked for his house to be demolished after his death, and asked Singaporeans to respect this wish.

    In his will, Mr Lee Kuan Yew said that the house should “be demolished immediately after my death or if my daughter, Wei Ling, would prefer to continue living in the original house, immediately after she moves out of the house”.

    If demolition is made impossible owing to changes in the law, rules or regulations, it was the late Mr Lee’s wish that the house should not be open to anyone except his children, their families and descendants.

    There had been calls after Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s death to turn the pre-war bungalow, which he had lived in since the 1940s, into a museum or heritage site.

    PM Lee told Parliament at a sitting on April 12, 2015, that Mr Lee Kuan Yew knew about calls from the public to turn his Oxley Road home into a museum and a memorial to him, but was adamant the house should be demolished after his death.

    Mr Lee Kuan Yew had written formally to the Cabinet at least twice to put his wishes on the record, PM Lee told Parliament.

    The first time was soon after his wife, Madam Kwa Geok Choo, died in October 2010, and the second time was after he stepped down from the Cabinet in May 2011.

    In his statement delivered in Parliament, PM Lee said that his father’s position on 38, Oxley Road was unwavering over the years, and added that Singaporeans should respect his wishes.

    PM Lee explained that his father was averse to the idea as he had seen too many houses of famous people “kept frozen in time… as a monument with people tramping in and out”, and they invariably “become shabby”.

    The prime minister also said that a decision on the fate of the house was not required as his sister, Dr Lee Wei Ling, continued to live there.

    In December 2015, PM Lee and his two siblings said in a joint statement that they hoped the State would honour their late father’s wishes regarding the house.

    The statement also announced that PM Lee and Mr Lee Hsien Yang had each agreed to donate half the value of Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s Oxley Road house to eight charities, in honour of their father.

    “Dr Lee Wei Ling and Mr Lee Hsien Yang would like to honour the wish of the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew that the house at 38, Oxley Road be demolished after Dr Lee Wei Ling ceases to live in it,” the statement said.

    “Mr Lee Hsien Loong has recused himself from all government decisions involving 38, Oxley Road and, in his personal capacity, would also like to see this wish honoured,” it added.

    A online poll released later in December 2015 by Hong Kong-based market research firm YouGov found that a majority of those surveyed supported demolishing the house. Of the 1,000 people it polled online, 77 per cent said they backed Mr Lee’s wish and 15 per cent of wanted the house preserved.

     

    Source: http://www.straitstimes.com