The Secretary-General of Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) Chee Soon Juan took to Facebook on Friday (2 July) to expose the dangerous state of lampposts in Bukit Batok. He said the lampposts are left in perilous condition where wires were found exposed, missing fuse boxes, wires held with just electrical tapes, among others.
In the post, Dr Chee attached pictures of the hazardous looking lampposts in and around Blk 162-164 in Bukit Batok, noting that he went to inspect on the lampposts after receiving a complaint from a resident.
“I went down to BB yesterday to check out a complaint from a resident regarding wires dangerously exposed in lampposts. If I didn’t take these photos, you would think that I’m making this stuff up.
“These lampposts are in and around Blk 162-164 in BB. The first photo is at a playground in front of a busy NTUC store. As you can see, the cover of the post is missing, exposing electrical wires.”
About two weeks ago, Dr Chee posted on Facebook about two teenagers who were electrocuted by a lamp post while they were playing near a playground in Toa Payoh.
Speaking about this incident, Dr Chee said in his Friday’s post that the earlier event should have caused MPs to step up their vigilance regarding electrically exposed facilities in their estates.
However, that’s not case, particularly in Bukit Batok, said the alternative party chief.
“A quick check (and this is just on the concourse around a few blocks, I dread to think what goes on in the other parts of the estate) showed that there were multiple lampposts whose conditions were in a decrepit and dangerous state,” explained Dr Chee.
He added, “Not only did covers of control panels and fuse boxes go entirely missing, some were held in place by electrical tape, others had wires coming out of the control box that fed power to lights at a pavilion, etc and so on.”
Dr Chee went on to note that after the incident at Toa Payoh, it looked like no lessons were learnt and the dangerous state will just continue until something bad happens – like people suffering from injuries or even deaths.
When that happened, the MP of the estate will come forward, apologise profusely and “accept responsibility”, said Dr Chee.
In fact, he said this is exactly what the MP of Bukit Batok Murali Pillai did after an elderly woman died in 2019 after suffering from injuries sustained in a fire that broke out in Bukit Batok.
“I warned at that time that MPs, in this case Mr Murali, needed to spend more time taking care of the estate and looking into matters that jeopardised the safety of his residents. This warning has apparently gone unheeded,” he said.
He continued, “I urge – as I have on countless occasions over numerous other situations – Mr Murali to personally attend to this sorry state of lampposts in BB. If any of the residents are electrocuted as a result of the negligence, no amount of saying sorry and accepting responsibility will suffice.”
Dr Chee went on to assert that Singaporeans, especially residents of Bukit Batok, deserve better than this “dangerous nonsense” given that MPs are paid high and the Government collects high sum of money from the people.
