Chip Eng Seng Contractors (1988) Pte Ltd (CESC) has been building Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats since 1982. It's typical contract scope involves the design and construction of residential buildings and the supporting parking and community facilities. CES has won many contracts from HDB in the past, and the contracted values of projects awarded in recent years provide fascinating insight about the costing of subsidised public housing:
- Sengkang (698 units) $123 million, awarded June 2008
- Queenstown (1,394 units) $188 million, awarded June 2008
- Hougang (792 units) $113 million, awarded August 2011
- Bukit Panjang (862 units) $137 million, awarded August 2012
If all the numbers are added up and divided, it looks like the average cost of construction for one HDB unit is about $150,000. Needless to say, the units are a mix of 2-room to 4-room units, with selling prices to match.
Another HDB contractor boasted that its unit cost of $547/m2 (of constructed floor area) was lower than HDB's industry average of $590/m2 for design & build (BTO) projects. The latest data we have for BTO projects come from the boast that 4-room flats will be affordable at listed prices of $285,000 and up. 4-room flats also come in different layouts and floor areas. Using the more common figure of 93 sq m, the cost of construction based on HDB's own industry average is about $54,870 for a 4-room unit.
One opposition party member once got into serious trouble when he shouted, "Mr Goh, Mr Goh, where is the money, Mr Goh?" Before you jump up and yell, "Mr Lee, Mr Lee, where is the money, Mr Lee?", recall what the guy said at his National Day Rally (NDR) speech, "And people say HDB is making money. Something is wrong."
Something is definitely wrong here since the same guy who graduated from Cambridge with Double First Class Honours in Mathematical Statistics and Mathematical Economics and a distinction in a Diploma in Computer Science also said in his NDR 2013 speech, "I stare at a page of Math with the formulas; I do not understand what is going on sometimes." Maybe one needs a Doctorate to understand HDB math, or deal with a character who boasted about his $8 open heart surgery to showcase affordable health care.
Tattler
*The writer blogs at singaporedesk.blogspot.com