Phillip Ang, a resident at Pasir Ris, sent out an email to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday (3 Nov) penning his frustration on the lack of action taken to address a flooding issue at Joo Seng that has been going on for 10 years.
In the email, Mr Ang cited a video uploaded on Facebook by Singapore People’s Party (SPP) chairman Jose Raymond earlier on Monday (2 Nov), which highlighted the issue of flooding at Block 14 Joo Seng.
According to Mr Raymond, the flooding has been an ongoing concern in Joo Seng for a decade.
“The live video makes it very clear why this is a problem which needs to be solved through better rainwater management, widening of drains for quicker flow or even the use of permeable pavements in the affected areas,” he wrote in his post.
Although Mr Ang is not a resident at Joo Seng, he understood what residents at Block 14 Joo Seng have been going through – having been in a similar situation some years ago.
The Paris Ris resident shared that his place of residence – Block 608 Elias Road – had the same flooding issue back in 2011, which persisted for nearly two years.
Mr Ang said that in 2013, he highlighted the issue to his “disinterested town council”. He then met up with engineers from the Public Utilities Board (PUB) to come up with a solution.
“The issue was resolved in about a year by constructing a new drain and widening existing drainage,” he noted in his email, adding that there has been no flooding since then.
Coming back to the decade-long flooding issue at Joo Seng, Mr Ang questioned why nothing has been done to address the matter despite the fact that the PUB clearly have the means to do so.
“Has the part-time MP [Member of Parliament] also been sleeping on the job? Perhaps our civil servants need to be constantly reminded to serve the people,” he added.
