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Town councils to get over S$63m a year to maintain, replace lifts

SINGAPORE — The Government will be increasing funding for town councils to maintain and replace lifts in public housing blocks through two new grants announced on Thursday (Feb 2).

A BCA engineer checking the wear and tear of the main hoisting rope by measuring the diameter, while on the car top of a lift at Blk 273D Compassvale Link on 8 Jul 2016. Photo: Ooi Boon Keong

A BCA engineer checking the wear and tear of the main hoisting rope by measuring the diameter, while on the car top of a lift at Blk 273D Compassvale Link on 8 Jul 2016. Photo: Ooi Boon Keong

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SINGAPORE — The Government will be increasing funding for town councils to maintain and replace lifts in public housing blocks through two new grants announced on Thursday (Feb 2).

The grants, worth over S$63 million a year, will increase government funding for town councils to over S$220 million a year.

Town councils welcomed the Ministry of National Development’s (MND) announcement on Thursday, with two town council chairmen saying that the new grants will ease the pressure to increase service and conservancy charges (S&CC) in the coming year.

The Lift Maintenance Grant will provide town councils with S$600 per lift that is owned and maintained by the town councils to help them cope with higher servicing and maintenance costs, and this will cost the government S$13 million a year.

The Matching Grant for the Lift Replacement Fund that town councils will have to set up from April will see the MND matching 50 per cent of the town councils’ quarterly contributions. It is expected to cost more than S$50 million in the coming year, and the ministry said the grant amount is likely to increase as town councils build up their Lift Replacement Funds over time. Under the fund, town councils must set aside at least 14 per cent of their S&CC collections and government grants from April.

Lift accidents in recent years, including one that was fatal, have cast the spotlight on lift safety and reliability and the Building and Construction Authority had introduced tougher lift maintenance requirements last year.

The new grants will “definitely help the People’s Action Party Town Councils to enhance the safety and performance of the lifts”, said Dr Teo Ho Pin, coordinating chairman of the ruling party’s town councils. The grants will pay for part of the lift maintenance and replacement costs, but Dr Teo said that with “over 22,000 lifts operating 24/7 in the 15 PAP town councils”, rising maintenance costs remain challenging.

Pasir Ris-Punggol Town Council chairman Zainal Sapari said that before Thursday’s announcement, an increase in service and conservancy charges was needed. “We have made our projections and we really need more funds, especially our sinking fund, in order to do cyclical maintenance,” said Mr Zainal, who is Member of Parliament for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC. “With (the new) grants, we need to relook at it and perhaps the increase will not be as much compared to without the grants.”

Marine Parade Town Council chairman Lim Biow Chuan said an increase in S&CC was “very likely” before the two grants were announced, and it would now review its financial situation again. The need to “ringfence” funds under the Lift Replacement Fund would hurt the town council’s finances quite a bit, and Mr Lim, who is MP for Mountbatten, said town councils’ appeals to the MND for help “got louder”.

MP and Nee Soon Town Council chairman Louis Ng said it would work the grants into its projections and “see how it’ll help in the long term”. He said there are new Build To Order flats coming up, as well as lifts whose defects liability period will be expiring in the town council.

Last September, the Government said it would provide S$450 million over 
10 years to town councils under the Lift Enhancement Programme, through which the Housing and Development Board would co-fund about 90 per cent of town councils’ cost of retrofitting older lifts with safety features and enhancements found in newer lifts. That amount, together with the two new grants, will double the Government’s funding to town councils. Its other funding support is through the S&CC operating grant (S$100 million a year) and Goods and Services Tax subvention grant (S$20 million a year).

Town councils have the responsibility to manage and maintain common property in public housing estates and need to do their part to plan ahead and take appropriate steps to ensure sustainable long-term finances, MND reiterated.

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