Man ‘who made water engineering sexy’ to help with rail transformation

SINGAPORE — In a bid to make rail service here as reliable as the national water agency’s services, Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan has roped in PUB chairman Tan Gee Paw as his Advisor on Rail Transformation.

The immediate priority for Mr Tan — the man who “made water engineering sexy”, in Mr Khaw’s words — is to ramp up rail reliability.

This will require a serious re-focus on strong engineering expertise and capabilities by both transport regulators and transport operators, wrote Mr Khaw in a blog post today (Oct 9).

Mr Tan was the first person Mr Khaw consulted when told of his new Cabinet posting. 

Calling Mr Tan a respected engineer who built up a core of good engineers at PUB and who made smart research and development investments, Mr Khaw said he and Mr Tan shared much in common on how the future transport system could be like.

“We discussed the problem of rail disruptions, its possible causes and how we can make rail service as reliable as PUB services. We also discussed the industry structure for bringing about better alignment of incentives. We wondered aloud on how we would structure our rail companies, if we were to start afresh,” he wrote.

“We also discussed the larger vision of a Singapore where public transport could be so convenient, reliable and hassle-free that there would be no need to own a car. The city should be for pedestrians, as envisaged by our founding (Prime Minister) Lee Kuan Yew decades ago.”

At PUB, Mr Tan ensured a steady stream of scholarships to bright students and personally showed that engineering was a meaningful career, said Mr Khaw, who did not mention when Mr Tan’s appointment would take effect. 

By delivering on NEWater, Mr Tan and his team permanently removed the strategic risk of water dependency on Malaysia, and helped create a new, globally competitive industry for Singapore companies, the minister added.

Mr Tan became PUB chairman in 2001 and was formerly permanent secretary for the environment. According to his biography on the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) website, he started out as an engineer in the then Public Works Department and joined the then Ministry of the Environment in 1974. 

He was responsible for drawing up the master plan to clean up the Singapore River and chaired the inter-agency committee for the project. 

Mr Tan also spearheaded the development of the Deep Tunnel Sewerage System to make the collection, treatment and disposal of used water more efficient and cost-effective. 

Both the water and rail systems comprise infrastructure that need maintenance on a large scale, said NUS mechanical engineering associate professor Marcelo Ang Jr. 

Mr Tan’s experience in ensuring that Singapore’s water supply and used-water systems function well will be useful in his latest appointment, said Assoc Prof Ang. “There’s the same challenge in maintaining a train system, though it’s hard to say which is more complicated.”

Mr Khaw also said he welcomes feedback from his engineering friends and called on engineers to unite and get on with “rail transformation and real revolution”.

“We are no miracle workers, but given political will, clarity of purpose dogged determination, we are confident that we will arrive at where we want public transport to be,” he wrote.