Facebook user Norman Ng claimed that he was stopped by a staff of the Building & Construction Authority (BCA) as he was cycling around the reclaimed island at Seletar, taking some pictures. The BCA staff allegedly claimed that the user was in a restricted area, pointed to the signboard and insisted that it was.
The staff insisted to see the pictures Norman had taken and even threatened to call the Police on him. Norman wondered if the BCA was running any covert operation or illegal activities which the public is not aware of. A picture of the signboard posted by the user (see above) did not say that the site was restricted.
Some commenters on his post suggested that he could have been stopped by the staff because they did not want him to take pictures of the stockpile of sand at that site. In Feb 2016 an Australian newspaper The Sydney Morning Herald, accused Singapore of using some underhanded tactics to gain access to Cambodian sand.
The report said: “Environmentalists estimate that more than 500 million tonnes of sand has been removed from Koh Kong’s estuaries (Cambodia) to Singapore over the past seven years, decimating a pristine mangrove eco-system and small village fishing communities.”
Anyone who wants to import sand into Singapore needs a license from BCA.
Responding to the commenters Norman said that if that was the BCA staff’s intention then they had to cordon-off the entire island as stockpiles of sand can be seen everywhere.
In sharing two pictures side-by-side, Norman further said that “you can tell some of those sands are from inland as they are brownish in color and not as white as those from the seas {those on the right). Much like those found around Lorong Tai Seng in the early days.”
He added: “In fact it’s not just sands. There are granite chips as well. They have covered up some areas with high walls though as you can see on the right of the first picture.”