Jamus Lim goes full ‘Contractor Lim Kopi’ while rolling out cooling paint in Sengkang

SINGAPORE: In a lighthearted video posted over social media on Tuesday (May 19), Workers’ Party Member of Parliament (WP MP) Jamus Lim (Sengkang) put on a neon vest and pretended to paint a wall as he announced that the initiative to apply cooling paint had begun in Anchorvale Gardens and would be extended to another 15 precincts over the rest of 2026.

This is part of the Sengkang Town Council’s scheduled Repairs and Redecorations works, he said.

Playfully introducing himself as “Contractor Lim Kopi,” he said he would “wayang wayang a little bit” and, as he painted a grey wall an off-white shade, explained that research has shown that this type of cooling paint can lower temperatures by 2 degrees.

“Then, it is ultimately win-win. Why? Well, not only does it lower the temperature, at the same time, save you money. Good ah?”

In the caption to his video, he added, “When your block is slated for a refresh, I hope you will participate in the community polls. Let’s bring about a more vibrant and (literally) cooler #SengkangGRC.”

Assoc Prof Lim also noted how punishingly hot it has been in the past month, in spite of occasional rainy days. 

“Whenever friends visiting from abroad boldly suggest that ‘you must be used to it by now,’ I just say that Singaporeans aren’t uniquely tropically-evolved humans, we just know where the aircon is,” he wrote, adding that although there is no magic fix to the problem of heat and humidity across the city-state, there are some measures that help mitigate their effects, including applying cooling paint.

He also explained that the technology behind the paint allows it to lower temperatures indoors as it reflects sunlight better and reduces the amount of heat it absorbs. The MP highlighted the promising results the technology has shown.

The idea of cooling paint first made local news in April 2024, when the industrial developer JTC said that a project would cover buildings in Bukit Batok and Sin Ming. It was inspired by an earlier experiment conducted by researchers at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) between 2018 and 2019.

In February, Senior Minister of State for National Development Sun Xueling noted in a Facebook post that HDB had announced that after a two-year pilot in Tampines, the cool paint initiative would be extended to all existing HDB estates. /TISG

Read also: Singapore to coat buildings with reflective paint to cool urban areas by up to 2°C—NTU pilot study