PSP: Debate over Maju Forest is not just about housing. It’s also about how decisions are made.

SINGAPORE: On Tuesday (Aug 18), Progress Singapore Party weighed in again on the debate concerning Maju Forest, a significant portion of which was announced last month to be slated for housing.

Concerns were raised over the announcement, and on Sunday (Aug 16), more than 2,000 people attended the Maju For The People Rally at Hong Lim Park, including members of the opposition.

PSP chief Leong Mun Wai was among them, as were Organising Secretary Sani Ismail and Women’s Wing head Wendy Low.

According to the party’s PSP post, PSP members had joined the rally’s attendees “to listen, and to stand with those who believe that before another part of Singapore is changed forever, the case for doing so should be clearly made.”

PSP added that it believes that the debate around Maju Forest is not just about the need Singapore has for housing, as this is a given.

Instead, it’s “about how decisions are made.” 

Facebook screengrab/ Progress Singapore Party

Singaporeans today want to see the reasoning behind the decisions made by the government, and to have what may be difficult but reasonable questions answered, such as “What were the alternatives? What assumptions were used? What data informed the decision? Why this particular piece of land? What is the ecological cost, and how was that weighed against the need for development?”

PSP had first weighed in on the issue in an Aug 7 social media post, where it questioned whether Singapore has indeed run out of land for public housing.

“Earlier, we wrote that every reasonable alternative should be exhausted before an irreversible decision is made to clear part of Maju Forest. We still believe so,” PSP wrote.

The party also noted that in Malay, the word “Maju” means progress, adding that “progress today has to mean more than simply building faster or building more.”

“We would rather keep Maju Forest than one day name an estate, a road or a park connector after it,” PSP added.

SG Climate Rally organised the Maju for the People Rally. The group has called for the protection of Singapore’s nature areas, and, like PSP, for greater transparency and for citizens to have a say in decisions concerning related issues, as well as redefining progress in terms of wellbeing and fairness, and not merely as economic progress.

The Housing & Development Board said in July that Gillman Barracks and Sunset Way had been slated for development for housing, with around 15 hectares, or two-thirds, of Maju Forest and at least 10 hectares of forest at Gillman Barracks, set apart for this purpose. /TISG

Read also: ‘Please save the forests’: Opposition leaders attend Maju Rally at Hong Lim Park