By In the midst of transitioning the town council, Workers’ Party (WP) Sengkang GRC team has started its ground work and walkabouts to meet the residents.
WP MP-elect for Sengkang GRC Jamus Lim wrote on his Facebook on Monday (20 July) that he has met with the residents of Anchorvale and scouted out the locations for his Meet-the-People Sessions (MPS).
According to Mr Lim, the void decks of 308A and 330A at Anchorvale were chosen to be the location of MPS sessions given that the location is easily accessible, which is nearby Tongkang and Farmway LRT stations respectively as well as it’s distribution within Anchorvale.
“I will rotate between these two spots weekly, and on weeks I’m further north, I’ll do my weekly house visit at a more southerly block, and vice versa,” he wrote on his post.
Noting that the team will not hold physical MPS session before the lifting of Phase Two restrictions, Mr Lim said that they have already started to receive appeals and feedback from residents via virtual medium, adding they look forward to face-to-face sessions when the time comes.
WP’s He Ting Ru updates on the handover of Sengkang Town Council
On Sunday (19 July), WP’s Sengkang GRC team leader He Ting Ru also updated residents on the handover matters of Sengkang Town Council in a Facebook post.
“The Sengkang MPs-elect have informed the Ministry of National Development that we intend to run Sengkang TC on its own without merging it with any other constituency, and that I will be the Chair of the Sengkang Town Council,” Ms He wrote on her post.
For the handover process of the newly created Sengkang GRC, she mentioned that it would require the team to work with the existing town council, which are Ang Mo Kio Town Council (AMKTC) for Anchorvale, and Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council (PRPTC) for Punggol East and Sengkang Central.
She noted that the team, therefore, had written to both town councils on 11 July to request a preliminary meeting to discuss the handover.
According to Ms He, the team specifically requested for copies of the contracts for Managing Agent services and use of Town Council Management software to be provided to them as soon as possible on 15 July.
She continued, “PRPTC, whom we understand to be coordinating the handover with AMKTC, suggested a virtual meeting on Friday 17 July.”
She went on to said that they have repeated the same request during the virtual meeting on 17 July and requested for a physical meeting next week to further discuss the handover as well as to get a briefing on operational matters relating to both town councils.
In response to this, Pasir-Ris Punggol GRC MP-elect Janil Puthucheary said on his Facebook on Sunday that the PRPTC and AMKTC are “ready to carry out a smooth handover to Sengkang Town Council as soon as Sengkang Town Council is ready, in the interest of residents.”
“Our team and the PRPG and AMK TC Chairmen designates have been ready to proceed since last week,” said Dr Janil.
However, he noted that their initial contacts had been through individuals who were not the elected members of Sengkang Town Council, and thus “we had requested that the discussion should be with the SKTC Chairman and duly appointed team.”
He also said that the Sengkang Town Council team “were not ready to receive the briefing” during the meeting on 17 July, but he is looking forward to discuss the issues at the in-person meeting on 23 July.