PAP MPs admit that ethnic enclaves have emerged in the HDB heartland
January 29th, 2010 | 
Author: Written by Our Correspondent
The Housing Development Board (HDB) announced lately that it is now considering introducing a separate ethnic quota for permanent residents to prevent them from forming enclaves in public housing estates.
However, it is too late as judging from the feedback from some PAP MPs, ethnic enclaves may already have emerged in the HDB heartlands.
In an interview with the Straits Times, MP Lim Wee Kiat from Sembawang GRC related a notice he saw pasted on a wall in his Canberra ward written entirely in Burmese.
It was from a real estate agent offering his services solely to Myanmar permanent residents (PRs) looking for flats in Sembawang.
He said there are some floors of HDB blocks in his ward where more than half the residents are foreign.
“They are a mix of nationalities. So although there is no ‘ethnic’ enclave as such, there is a high concentration of foreigners ‘to the point where Singaporeans feel threatened and become a minority. When that happens, then it becomes an issue,” he added.
Another MP Ho Geok Choo recalled a visitor describing her Boon Lay ward as being so cosmopolitan that it felt like being overseas. She felt imposing an ethnic quota will “make it more difficult for PRs to artificially inflate prices in certain areas by all snapping up flats there.”
“It would also assuage the concern of those Singaporeans who feel besieged in their neighbourhood by new sights and smells. On her house visits, every block throws up at least two or three Singaporeans who voice their concerns about this,” she was quoted as saying in the Straits Times.
Due to the ruling party’s liberal immigration policies, foreigners now make up 36 per cent of Singapore’s population, up from 14 per cent in 1990. Of the remaining 64 per cent who are citizens, an increasing number are born overseas.
Foreigners are now ubiquitous everywhere in Singapore. Besides Sembawang and Boon Lay, ethnic enclaves have emerged in Geylang, Changi, Sengkang, Tampines and Jurong as well.
It is no exaggeration to say that one can find Chinese from almost all the 23 provinces of China congregated in Geylang or Indians from across the Indian subcontinent in Sengkang.
While PRs make up “only” 5 per cent of the buyers of resale flats, many of them rent HDB flats which are not subjected to the ethnic quota.
The root cause of the problem lies in the relentless influx of foreigners into Singapore which shows no signs of abating despite recent promises by PAP leaders to “moderate” and “slow” the inflow.
At the rate the PAP is “mass-importing” foreigners into Singapore, we may soon find little Hunans, Liaonings, Yangons, Dhakas and Delhis emerging all across the island and it will be Singaporeans who need to “integrate” themselves into a new Singapore dominated by these newcomers instead of the other way round.
Posted in Editorial
Ordinary S’poreans have been trying to tell PAP that there are such enclaves in our estates….but the mainstream media are giving full credit to PAP MPs and ministers for “noticing” the enclaves!!!!
No wonder the local media ranks very poorly by global standards.
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Come to my HDB estate in the evening, China gathering everyday!! Whole playground will be taken by them, together with the badminton court and table-tennis area. I have elderly Chinese nationals men taking lifts half naked with me before. Weekend mornings even worse, screaming and shouting by the China kids and their grandparents. No enclaves in HDB estates, I’ll be glad to prove the MPs other wise.
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They are never effective and only solve problem after they occur.
These are very lazy pigs we have in the parliament.
A bunch of kiss ass mp from the PAP.
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this is called a real “multi-racial” singapore.. !
more than just chinese, malay, indians of original singapore..
now it is china, india, burma and philippines in singapore !!
racial diversity !!
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Now when election is forthoming, all these buggers suddenly admit that there is problem in their screw-citizen policies, and all sing the same tune together with Old fart orchestrate the musical tune of admitting there are some problems. In other words, they can no longer feign ignorance and denial to coming election, and that they already know these problem beforehand but pretend it is no problem. Now everything must pacify the nation, and after election, the screwing will be greater due billion dollars loss.
Such a lying, dishonest and deceitful government that screw and cheat the citizens that vote them in ? This must be world’s most evil government because where else can you found a government that is so wayang and insulting to citizens ? Can even give surreal nonsense and false statement in parliament (remember the false statistic given by female minister ?).
It is time citizens reclaim back their pride and dignity. Kick out those bastards.
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Whatever govt said is right, whatever netizen of S’pore voice out or said, they will turn deaf ears..
So what’s the point of talking to those deaf govt, only create frustration… Let the election shows all!!!
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Can the government plan a 10billion programme to help us locals to integrate with the foreigners?
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Having enclaves in HDB area is very dangerous for its citizen. If there is an outbreak of trouble in their home country, the whole entire clan and countrymen can easily gather and protest. They can even kidnap little children to make ransom against our government to act against their government.
It is very dangerous.
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Oh, why didn’t our Forecaster Extraordinaire foresee this? Isn’t that what he paid himself to do, forecasting, at a cost of a 7-figure yearly salary?
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Even any area quota cannot be a solution.
In time to come, they can still congregate in huge numbers at certain chosen places. That will be not much different from enclaves.
Singaporean silly sheep and lambs will need to kowtow to them because they out-number us.
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Blk 7XX Jurong west ave 5,have 3 indian mama shops,
lift lobby evening becomes little India,weekend is worse.;full of litterings,spitting,rancid smell in the air and lift becomes public toilet.Please help….
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Never mess with the new citizens and PR as they are the untouchable !!!
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It’s amazing what election can do…it can make an immortal starts listening to a lesser mortals…but alas it’s only temporary…til the next election year.
cycle,rinse and repeat.
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Easy, just give me $3M a year and you can have as many so called FT’s as you want!
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//Old Guy
Tell that to your pig mp.
they are the ones reflecting to the old pig that singaporeans didn’t like it.
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Where oh where are you Singaporean?
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Not to worry people. In time to come the PM of s’pore will be a China national (most probably from pap) and he will integrate the country into China as a state. So every one happy.
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We must mix the different ethnic races and new citizens together for better integration.
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I like the idea of having a singaporean rediscovering our home program…. can some MP propose that we have a fund … say $10 million to help singaporeans who feel disenfranchised feel more at home too…
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Fascist twats.
http://www.according2ed.com/2010/01/singapores-multiculturalism-in.html
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No enclaves in OxLEE Road leh
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Have to give you guys at TR for not deleting the above link or ad hominem. Good one TR. I’m glad to see you’re not too into censorship. There’s hope for us yet.
ed
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I also have to add that besides my taking issue with your fascist impulse, you gals and guys deserve much credit for your excellant investigative journalism. For that, i’ll have to say, ‘Keep up the great work’.
Cheers,
ed
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@Bey on Fri, 29th Jan 2010 5:34 pm
Talking about rancid smell in the air, nowadays in MRT, 50% of the time you have human smell waiting you. SMRT probably has to charge more for higher maintenance cost just to refresh the train.
@joehancl on Fri, 29th Jan 2010 7:09 pm
Anything wrong with Hong Kong’s one country two system? No right? Don’t you want PRC send army to protect our island and we no longer need serve NS? And everytime we (PRC/SG) win an olympics gold medal or golf/tennis grand slam, we cheer. Life will be more shiok and cheerful!
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My ENTIRE neighbourhood park and its exercise facilities are used exclusively by PRCs from 8pm-10pm daily. Ching chong ching chong with their super loud handphones blasting the coolest ever Chinese pop.
I feel so rich and lucky to live where I do.
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How come these smarts are behind the curve…we knew it long time ago!
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you can’t really blame those MPs in Parliament.
They are just Sheep being led by the Lion.
Rice bowl will break if they raise any question that Lion needs time to think.
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30/1/10
Good to read that the PAP MPs are aware of this and my argument on our unwritten Social Contract is valid and time to put the wrongs right again.
Regards
Andrew Chuah
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it looks to me both hdb and minister in charge mbt did not take into account the enclaves problem, although it can be easily forecasted if they have did their homework.
so to manage these minor hiccups, do we really need super brainy people like Mah or team hdb? any qualified person can perform the task.what we need is honest and truthful people. this is more important for singaporeans in the long run.
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