I refer to the article: http://therealsingapore.com/content/sengkang-west-residents-shoud-have-s...
Do residents have the right to request for the Prime Minister to call a by-election if they feel that their MP is not representing them? Can we call for a vote of no confidence in our MP and force him to seek a fresh new mandate?
The MP for Sengkang West, Dr Lam Pin Min does not seem to be protecting residents' interests. At the dialogue, he was not open to the possibility of building the columbarium elsewhere. Instead he was siding HDB and Life Corp and only trying to clarify about what services the "Chinese Temple" cum columbarium would carry out. Does it make sense to build a columbarium in the centre of a residential estate populated by mostly young families? A new home symbolizes a new beginning for young families. A columbarium in the centre of the estate only brings dread and reduces the quality of life. It is not mentally, spiritually or physically healthy. There's no way the columbarium would be out of sight to surrounding buildings given it's present location. It is not fair to have death shoved into the faces of our little ones who barely started living, in the form of hearses, mourning families in black or being told not to play or run around the respect the dead. It is not fair to them and it is not fair to us. How can residents expect to live in peace when everyday there's going to be a funeral and new ashes being brought into the columbarium? Why should we be mourning with the families of the dead everyday?
This is not just an issue for Fernvale Lea future residents but for all Sengkang West residents. We do not want a columbarium in the heart of our town. Most of us believed that it was just a normal Chinese Temple being built there but as it now turns out, the details for a columbarium were hidden in the fine print of the HDB brochures. It is not even being built by a Buddhist or non-profit organization but by some shady private company with only $1 of paid up capital. And this private company somehow outbid religious organizations for that land space near Fernvale Lea.
This is a new estate. Residents did not pay for a BTO flat with their own hard earned cpf savings just to have a columbarium built in that area. Nobody was even told that a columbarium would be built there. Creating a conducive environment for living is not just about providing infrastructure and shelter but also includes considering the wishes of residents when building sensitive facilities like columbariums. Some churches ( e.g. St Anne's Church in Rivervale) and temples ( e.g. Chinese temple at Anchorvale) have a columbarium in their premises and are situated beside HDB estates. BUT this is different. This is going to be a privately-run "integrated-columbarium" ( in other words, it is mainly a funeral parlour with columbarium). We do NOT want Sengkang West to be a bereavement hub!
A columbarium of this size is capable of housing up to 90,000 urns! It is as good as living at a graveyard! Traffic jams and carpark hogging will surely happen whenever Qing Ming festival comes. Even the government cannot stop Singaporeans from burning joss paper at the road side during the 7th month festival, so how do you expect an Australian private company to manage that? Furthermore, the proposed building is itself shaped like an urn and this isn't good fengshui.
The mainstream media has completely distorted the concerns of the Sengkang residents. They are being portrayed as petty people who just think "Not In My Backyard" (#NIMBY). And the Straits Times makes it look like residents are greedy and just want refunds or compensation for the drop in future resale prices of their homes. We feel cheated by HDB and furthermore, there are many questionable points of the awarding of the bid. Our anger is not really with the resale value because this is our first flat and most of us intend to stay here for a long time.
Today, TNP even ran a propaganda piece, trying to tell us that living next to a columbarium is no big deal!
Not only is the mainstream media against the residents, the MP is as well! Why is our MP defending the project on behalf of the company, Eternal Pure Land?! If even the MP is not on our side, then who is our representative?! How can the voices of future and current Sengkang West residents of Lea, RiverGrove, Lush, Riverbank, Palms and Ridge be totally ignored by this MP?! Why is Dr Lam SUPPORTING this columbarium project which almost all of us don't want?! Doesn't he understand how much stress this has caused? People who are going to collect the keys for their new flats are now worried sick about living in this town. We DO NOT trust a shady $1 company to run a columbarium. There is a big difference between a columbarium run by a real temple and one run by a private company. We are deeply concerned about the unethical practices that led to this problem.
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Since our MP is not getting the gist of what we are trying to articulate and is instead siding the private company which wants to build the columbarium, he is not representing us at all. Since he is no longer representing residents' interests, he has lost the mandate to lead us. I urge Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to call a by-election in Sengkang West to allow Dr Lam to seek a fresh new mandate. A by-election is the only way out of this. If we wait till the next general election (which could even be in 2016), we will end up voting in anger. But a by-election will give residents the chance to air local issues and seek solutions from our country's leaders who will then pay attention to the constituency. This is what happened in Rivervale last time. During the by-election, there was more attention to the problems in the constituency and ministers and MPs were actively trying to find solutions. To me, I don't care which party wins the by-election, so long as there is attention on the constituency's problems. I am aware that there are some future residents who have not gotten their keys and cannot vote in Sengkang West but that is not the point. We need the by-election to air our constituency issue, regardless of whether or not all of us can vote. We want our country's leaders to be accessible and out there trying to help us find solutions, not put more obstacles in our life. If our MP is not empathizing with us, how else can we get him to understand us? Since this year is SG50, why not try for a more consultative form of governance? If there is a by-election, I will be attending every rally in the hope of hearing a solution. We are young families and we want Sengkang West to be a conducive home where we can live our dreams.
James Ang
TRS Contributor