Little Ironies

ST Oct 17, 2005
Community spirit will see us through, says PM
He says it will help S'poreans tackle municipal and national issues
By Zakir Hussain

PUNGGOL and Sengkang may be new housing estates, but residents there are already starting to build a sense of community.

Yesterday, despite the pouring rain, they turned out in the thousands to take part in community activities.

Such a spirit, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, is what Singaporeans need to tackle municipal as well as national issues.

He assured the residents that the Government and grassroots leaders would work together to solve problems they faced in the new estates.

'Progressively, we'll be able to deal with these problems one by one,' he told some 160 grassroots leaders after visiting Punggol North.

'And if we can do that, then we can also tackle national issues,' he added, citing examples such as dengue fever, restructuring and
terrorism.
.....

He also urged residents and grassroots leaders to speak candidly to him.

'We need to be able to talk together, candidly, openly, and I must know what you think and you must know what my concerns, shared with you, are,' he told them.

Snigger, snigger, snigger. Sorry, I cannot help it. Coming so soon after the saga of the Endangered White Elephants of Buangkok, I think that one can be forgiven for taking PM Lee's words with a double pinch of salt.

Or is this PM Lee's method of damage control? An attempt to rebuild the faith of his own grassroots leaders?