Schedule and Budget Drawn Up for Scheme to Prioritise Inspection of Condition of Occupied HDB Rental Flats

24 Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng asked Minister for National Development (a) whether an update can be provided on the revised approach to prioritise inspections of occupied HDB rental flats; and (b) what is the annual schedule and budget allotted under the revised approach for proactive regular maintenance of these flats beyond the repairs requested by tenants.

The Minister of State for National Development (Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim) (for the Minister for National Development): Mr Speaker, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) proactively visits occupied rental flats annually to identify those that require repairs or maintenance. However, this practice was disrupted when COVID-19 Safe Management Measures (SMMs) were imposed. Currently, HDB conducts physical inspections in response to tenants' feedback and seeks to do so promptly.

Nevertheless, HDB aims to resume the proactive inspection and maintenance regime and is studying options, such as outsourcing. We will share more details on the revised approach when ready.

In the meantime, tenants can continue to alert HDB on areas requiring repair or maintenance, and HDB will attend to these requests promptly.

Mr Speaker: Ms Denise Phua.

Ms Denise Phua Lay Peng (Jalan Besar): Mr Speaker, first, I just want to commend again the local HDB officers and also, the HQ's rental department, who have been extremely helpful and caring when I raise such issues to them.

My question stems from a desire maybe from a systemic level, to speed up and to give more allocation and discretion to these officers. I see in my rental house visits – and some of us actually have quite a number of them – quite a bit of rusty gates, defective windows, spalling concrete in ceilings due to wear and tear. I do not think it is the fault of anybody. It is due to wear and tear. I thought there is a need to speed up and revive the proactive preventive maintenance programme, and want to ask if HDB and the Ministry of National Development (MND) could look into this. Perhaps we could also think of other creative methods, other than just outsourcing to typical vendors, maybe to engage, say, workers from the Yellow Ribbon movement that the Senior Minister of State is also very actively involved with or halfway houses like New Charis Mission – to employ and deploy them so that these preventive maintenance exercises could be revived soon and our residents can live in even better conditions.

Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim: Sir, I thank the Member for the supplementary questions and I thank her for commending our officers. I would also like to thank her for being proactive and working in partnership with our officers on the ground to see how we can help our rental tenants.

I want to assure the Member and the House that we are studying various options. We want to see how the options can be practical and also get collaboration and partnerships with the community organisations. While we offer repairs or replacements for fittings and fixtures of rental flats if they are spoiled or dysfunctional, that is one part. For items which are aesthetic and less functional, these are essentially the tenants' responsibility. Nevertheless, for the needy ones, this would be where we work with community organisations and grassroots organisations, to assist them. There are many good-hearted people, on-the-ground groups, who have reached out proactively to help these tenants.

So, we will continue to look at some of these options. Again, I want to thank the Member for being very proactive and positive in this area.