Speech by Minister Lawrence Wong at the MND Huddle 2015
Nov 20, 2015
A very good evening to all of you, and it is very good to see all of you here this evening. This is our regular, annual MND Huddle. It is my first time attending an MND Huddle, I think it may be for some of you, but for many others I am sure you have joined us before. I think it is a very good event for us to gather all the people who have contributed to our MND work, and I particularly want to thank all of you for your dedication and contributions to the MND Family.
This year has been a busy year for all of us – all of us in the Government, and all of us in MND as well. The staff and the officers are doing their usual workload, but on top of that we have had many SG50 activities and events.
For example, we have the SG Heart Map project led by HDB where we had crowdsourced, identified and mapped out 50 places special to Singaporeans, and next week we are doing a festival at the floating platform to bring it altogether. We have had the largest ever tree planting event this year – more than 5000 trees planted all over Singapore. Earlier this year we also had the UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed for Singapore Botanic Gardens.
It has been an eventful year; all of you have been involved in MND work in one way or another. I thank you all for your many contributions in making SG50 and 2015 a really special year for all Singaporeans.
MND work covers a broad remit, from urban planning to public housing; from parks to animals, from property market to real estate, from architects to engineers, from construction to food security. It is quite a broad range of work, but underpinning all these areas is a common goal – because it is ultimately about building an inclusive and endearing home; building a sustainable and thriving future for Singapore. It is an aspirational goal, it is a good ambition for us to strive for, but it cannot be achieved by our civil servants or by the Government alone. It can only be achieved by working together in partnership with all Singaporeans.
That’s why all of you are so important to our work – you speak on behalf of your communities, and you help us shape the vision of what we want for Singapore. So I thank you all for contributions and leadership in helping us chart the way forward, for MND and for Singapore as a whole. There are particular groups of people I want to thank tonight.
First of all we have many pioneers with us, members of the pioneer generation and pioneers of the MND Family. You are the ones who have helped make today’s Singapore possible and we are grateful for your many years of service with the MND Family, so we thank you and appreciate all of our pioneers. Please continue to keep in touch and impart your invaluable experience and knowledge to our younger officers, so that we can continue the legacy that you have left us.
I also want to thank our GPC members. In Parliament they ask the questions, they reflect the concerns on the ground, and help to scrutinise every policy and every bill. I am glad that we have our GPC members here, Er Dr Lee Bee Wah, outgoing chairman of the committee, but she will be staying on in the committee, and we have some new ones who are coming in. Mr Alex Yam – who is not here tonight, is the new chairman, and deputy chairman Mr Chong Kee Hiong, welcome on board and we look forward to work closely with all of you.
We also have many volunteers and volunteer leaders amongst all of you –people who are serving, some of you are on the boards, some of you are serving as volunteers in different capacities, and some of you are volunteer leaders leading other volunteers. You serve across many areas – in the Botanic Gardens and in Parks, as Community-in-Bloom Ambassadors, as Green Building Ambassadors. We thank all of you for the different work you have done for us, and I am glad to see the volunteering spirit burning brightly in our MND Family.
MND Medallion and Dedicated Service Awards
Later this evening, I will be presenting several awards to recognise individuals who have provided outstanding service to the MND Family, and I want to just highlight two recipients.
One of them is Mr Tan Lian Ker, who will be receiving the MND Medallion. He is one of our longest serving board members, having served as President of the Strata Titles Boards for 22 years. Under his leadership, STB resolved over 1,400 cases of property disputes, of which 85% were mediated without trial. Thank you, Mr Tan. We are grateful for your dedication and years of outstanding service.
The second individual is Mr Yusof Alsagoff. He will be receiving the MND Dedicated Service Award for his 25 years of service to the former Primary Production Department, now known as AVA, as well as NParks. Mr Yusof is better known as Mr Orchid and has been instrumental in helping to develop the orchid programme at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. In fact, he has been actively involved with the Gardens since the 1950s and continues to contribute as an expert orchid breeder and a mentor to our staff at the National Orchid Garden. Thank you Mr Yusof for your inspiring dedication and service as well.
Special Tribute
I would also like to pay tribute to a man who was dear to the MND Family, Mr Kwek Leng Joo, deputy chairman of City Developments Limited (CDL). We were all deeply saddened to hear of his passing a few days ago.
Leng Joo was a very strong advocate for the work that MND did. First of all, he was a strong advocate of green building innovation. Under his leadership, CDL has been pushing the boundaries of quality, productivity and environmental sustainability in the built environment sector.
He was also a big fan of the Singapore Botanic Gardens – when we announced our UNESCO bid for the SBG, he spoke to me and pledged his support; helped to raise awareness for our bid, and raised funds for the Gardens. He believes strongly that the private sector should partner the government and do its part. Which is why he was also the President of the Singapore Compact and he was always pushing for Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainable practices by companies and Singapore corporates.
I will also remember him as a talented photographer – he had a passion for nature, heritage and the visual arts. As someone who walks the talk, he would also personally champion and sponsor many arts, culture and nature projects, both in his own name as well as through CDL. In fact, many of our museum and arts projects I did in my previous ministry, MCCY, were done in collaboration with him and CDL. Leng Joo exemplified the spirit of service; his demise is a loss to the MND Family and to Singapore.
I know all of you here have the same heart of service and wanting to serve Singapore. This is what binds us together. This is what makes Singapore special. We’re all different and we come from diverse backgrounds, but we’re all connected together with a shared conviction to make Singapore better; to make this an endearing home for all of us.
As SG50 comes to a close, we should also start looking ahead at what we can do together to build the foundations for our next 50 years. One of the things we will be doing is to launch the Future of Us exhibition. This is our last SG50 project. As part of the exhibition, we will have a series of conversations to write the next chapter of the Singapore Story together.
One theme will be on the Future of Greening – on how we can create a more sustainable and liveable environment through our greening efforts. I would like to invite you, our Family volunteers and partners, to join us in the conversations, share your ideas, and work together with us in co-creating a greener Singapore.
Finally, tonight’s appreciation event is for all of you, to thank you for your leadership, passion, service and dedication. Thank you for walking this journey with us. Together, we have achieved much over the past year, and certainly over the past 50 years as a nation. I look forward to an even stronger partnership with all of you, so that we can achieve a brighter future beyond SG50.