After all the protest and complains about foreign workers, the Singapore Ministry of National Development (MND) is now considering how to build townships for foreign workers. Foreign Minister George Yeo told reporters that the aim of these townships is that they will be “sustainable and self—contained". In short, Singapore aims to build ghettos for our foreign workers.
Will this work? I think only if they build these ghettos far from Singaporeans housing estates. In the furor on the foreign workers hostel at Serangoon Gardens estate, the one thing that made me laugh was the reaction of one the resident there. This guy was looking for housing for his company’s workers for the past 1 year but without much luck. Here is one chance for him to get rid of his housing problem yet he is totally against foreign workers in his own estate.
The irony of the situation was totally lost to the man but then what else is new? Singaporean treats foreign workers as something to be tolerated; a “out of sight, out of mind” kind of thing. So the proposed dormitory will work, but only if it is build far, far away with no Singaporeans within a kilometer or more.
Since that’s not really possible in land scarce Singapore…I guess it’s time for more reclaim land.
4 comments:
Maybe MIWs can consider buying back Christmas Island :)
Or maybe we can now reclaim all the way to Pedra Branca.
pedra bianca perhaps?
"This guy was looking for housing for his company’s workers for the past 1 year but without much luck. Here is one chance for him to get rid of his housing problem yet he is totally against foreign workers in his own estate."
It seems that what was reported in the press is not the whole story. According to a resident who was at the dialogue, this guy tried renting some houses in the area for his workers but was not allowed due to zoning rules. Now that the govt wants to get into the act, it is allowed.
Maybe others who were there can verify this.
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