W.Minh Tuan
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was born on September 16, 1923, and graduated from Fitzwilliam University of Law – England in 1949.
After graduating from university in England, he returned to Singapore to practice law in Singapore.
In 1954, he founded the People’s Action Party PAP-People’s Action Party, and he became General Secretary of the PAP party from 1954, to 1992, for 38 years.
He became the first Prime Minister of independent Singapore since 1959, and served as Prime Minister for 31 years.
He may be called as Dictator, but Singapore do not call him as Dictator, instead, Singapore people want Lee Kuan Yew to be a Singapore PM forever.
In 1990, he asked the people of Singapore to let him retire, at the age of 77, but still served as Prime Minister advised the Government, until his death in 2015, at the age of 92.
When Mr. Lee Kuan Yew began serving as Prime Minister of Singapore in 1959, Singapore was still a British colony. In 1963, Singapore gained independence, and became a member state of the Federation of Malaysia.
In 1965, Singapore separated from Malaysia, becoming a completely independent country to this day.
One of the first tasks, when Mr. Lee Kuan Yew became Prime Minister of Singapore, was that he wanted to build Singapore into a “home-owning society”, people have a house of its own.
Because Mr. Lee Kuan Yew thinks that if every Singaporean owns his or her own home, people will be happier, society will be more stable, patriotism will increase, creativity, and ability to work will increase. work also increased.
Marxist-Leninism says it will build a just and charitable society, but it never talks about a family owning its own, cozy and happy home.
Lee Kuan Yewism is much more humane and beautiful than the empty MacLeism.
In September 1963, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew established the Housing Development Board – HDB – Housing Development Board.
HDB’s mission is to build low-cost houses, but high quality, to sell to workers.
Firstly, the first task of HDB is that all houses and apartments built by HDB must ensure cheaper prices than private companies.
Singhapore country has an area of just over 600 km2, (today, every year they fill up land and sea, so the area in 2023 will be a little more than 1000 km2, equal to 1/2 of the capital Hanoi of Vietnam today), population 2 million people in 1963. (in 2023 the population is more than 5 million people)
Land in Singapore is more expensive than gold.
So how to make a cheap house?
Although land in Singapore is more expensive than gold, building houses on public land belongs to the State, the State takes cheap land prices, so it ensures that people can buy cheap houses.
Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP Government believe that each Singaporean citizen has the right to own a part of Singapore’s land, the State only represents the public ownership of the entire people.
Furthermore, HDB’s purpose is to serve the people, so HDB does not take as much profit as private companies. Therefore, the prices of HDB houses and apartments are always much cheaper than the prices of houses made by private construction companies.
So in Singapore, more than 90% of residents own their own houses, 90% of them buy houses from HDB, the remaining 10% build their own houses, or buy houses from private companies.
Private real estate companies in Singapore only account for about 10% of the real estate market, the rest is handled by the state-owned HDB company.
Thanks to that, the administrative procedures for issuing red books and pink books of ownership to Singaporeans are very simple and compact, the Singapore State does it directly, and housing quality standards are also guaranteed, and people can sue simply, resolved directly by the Singapore State, without the hassles and complications caused by manipulation by private real estate companies like in Vietnam today.
The second thing is that even though the house is cheap, buying a house is not like buying a bicycle, buying a house is still a large sum of money.
How do people have enough money to buy a house?
HDB comes up with a credit solution for Singaporeans to buy houses.
-Buy a house in installments, installment period is 20 years.
-People who buy a house for the first time have priority to buy a house first. People who buy a house for the second or third time must wait.
-Before gaining independence from the British, the British Protectorate established the Central Provident Fund – CPF – similar to the Savings Fund, automatically deducting 5% of workers’ salaries every year,
put into this fund.
This is a very good job of the British Protectorate Government. Mr. Lee Kuan Yew allowed this CPF fund to be used by workers to make their first down payment when buying a house, worth 20% of the house. The remaining 80% will be paid by the employee over 20 years.
Therefore, all Singaporean workers with stable jobs can buy a house immediately, without having to have any savings of their own.
After that, the Singapore Government annually increased the deduction rate to save money from salary from 5% to gradually higher, by 1990 it was as high as 40% of the employee’s salary.
But workers Singapore has hardly felt this increase in the Reserve Fund, as the annual rate of increase is only approximately 1% to 2%, and workers’ wages have also increased, despite automatic deductions to the Reserve Fund increase.
Mr. Lee Kuan Yew said State must to do how to help all Singaporean workers pay off their house rent within 20 years, without having to leave the debt for their children and grandchildren to bear.
But to do this – money to pay for housing increases, and wages also increase – it must ensure that the economic growth rate must continuously increase.
Third, since 2013, HDB has established a series of new house construction programs, such as: building houses with priority for couples with children – Parenthood Priority Scheme – PPS.
Furthermore, couples with children under 16 years old, while waiting for the PPS house-apartment to be built, can use temporary housing loaned by the State while waiting for the purchased house to be completed.
This program is open to all married couples, including couples in love, unmarried couples, divorced families, and widows and widowers.
Since 2014, the Singapore Government has launched a new home construction program, MCPS-Married Child Priority Scheme, to:
-Parents and children who are married want to live together in one house, which is a 3-generation family model, as we say in Vietnam. Such families will be given priority in purchasing homes under MCPS. An apartment like this is built with 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms (including 2 bathrooms in 2 large bedrooms, and 1 shared bathroom), and one bathroom. The yard is as large as the living room, the total apartment area is 115 m2 to 150 m2 for the whole family.
-Parents are living in a household that has already paid off, now want to buy a new house, or want to sell the old house, to move to a place near their children’s home.
Fourth thing:-BTO-Build-To-Order program to sell houses to 2nd and 3rd time home buyers,,,.
Fifth thing: – HDB Housing Development Department also has a program to build houses for single people who do not want to get married, Single Singapore Citizen-SSC Scheme, 1 or 2 fully furnished rooms.
Sixth thing: -HDB also has a program to build houses for the elderly, Studio Apartment, for people over 55 years old. These apartments are equipped with convenient facilities for the elderly. Old people can buy, or just rent, no need to buy.
Regarding apartment building techniques, HDB uses prefabrication techniques.
Modern 50-storey apartments, with 3 to 4 bedrooms, 1 living room built according to this prefabrication technique are built in Hougang, Yishun, Tampimes,,,,.
The apartments are also built according to eco-friendly environmental standards, with many trees, and use solar power, solar panels installed on the roof.
To date, in 2023, HDB has provided houses and apartments to 90% of Singapore residents, of which 90% are privately owned, only 10% are rented.
The remaining 10% are Singaporeans who build their own houses, or buy them from other private construction companies.
Since 2011, HDB has also started a series of high-end house construction projects – integrated water supply-sewerage-clean energy-Eco Precinct-energy-water-waste management.
-My Waterway @Punggol complex – My Punggol Canal – modern high-rise apartments located along both sides of Punggol Canal.
-Skyrise Greenery-Skyrise Greenery.
-The HDB Greenprint program, whose design focuses on community relations of those living in the apartment complex, is built in the West Yuhua area.
This apartment building applies advanced techniques such as the Pneumatic Waste Conveyance System, using rainwater, solar panels, bicycle parking, and green roofs.
–The 50-storey Pinnacle@Duxton apartment complex is designed like a bridge across the sky, with parking, shopping areas, and community living areas.
And there’s more.
Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore is truly a State of the people, by the people, for the people.
I think that Vietnam should also learn from Singapore, the Vietnamese State builds houses to sell cheaply to the people, and does not let real estate tycoons dominate the housing and real estate market like today. Vietnamese real estate sharks make billions of dollars on public land, the fruits of the Vietnamese revolution fall into the hands of real estate sharks, and the Vietnamese people cry to the heavens and earth.///