Lift upgrading no longer a hot-button issue
Published 5 hours ago
Once part of PAP's campaign promises, the Lift Upgrading Programme had benefited 500,000 households by end-2014
Janice Heng
A decade ago, Housing Board lifts were making headlines. Tempers flew, but the problem was not with existing lifts. Rather, it was over lifts yet to be built.
In the early to mid-2000s, lifts were a hot political topic, thanks to the Housing Board's $5 billion Lift Upgrading Programme (LUP).
The scheme was for blocks built before 1990, which did not have lifts that stopped at every floor.
At its inception in 2001, the Government made it clear that the LUP was not free of political considerations - quite the opposite.
In announcing the LUP, then National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said that "upgrading programmes are possible only because our people continue to support the Government" which generates budget surpluses. "That is why... the Government has given priority to those who have actively supported these programmes," he said
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