My Nightmare Trying to Fix the Defects in my Brand New BTO

[Pic Credit: AFP]

Dear TRS,

I'm writing to you in hope that you can help to expose these irresponsible and poor management by HDB and PAP MPs.

To summarise, HDB officers are nonchalant towards our broken window pane which may cause a hazard. We have to liaise with the contractor ourselves to fix an appointment but the contractor didn’t show up. We also tried to seek help from our MP, Christopher De Souza, who gave us a stipulated time to meet him and HDB officers, but ended up got played out by him as well. Had also emailed Khaw Boon Wan and Vivian Balakrishna for help as well, but no reply from them.

We are writing these to share with everyone on what terrible jobs that PAP Ministers and MPs are doing! Taking reference from what Khaw Boon Wan once said in the parliament, aren’t these tell tale signs of something that is very wrong with the ruling government? They are painting a picture of irresponsibility, incompetence and negligence, especially towards the safety of citizens in Singapore. “In Japan, the CEO and board of directors will call a press conference and take a deep bow, and in the good old days, they may even commit hara-kiri.” - as quoted from Khaw Boon Wan.

Full story in detail:

Barely 2 weeks after moving into our new BTO flat, we had to contact HDB for assistance on our rusty keyhole which our key got stuck and 2 window panes which has squeaky sound and cracks on it. HDB Officer Mohd Zahir was nonchalant to our request for help and even told us it’s our own bad luck to blame. We then requested to speak to the supervisor on these issues, to which he promised and even took down our preferred day and time of contact. 

2 weeks passed and there wasn’t a single call from HDB. We then wrote an email to HDB QSM mailbox found in their website to feedback on Mohd Zahir’s poor attitude and lack of followup. A Seah Bin Seng and Tan Kuang Yem emailed back to us deflecting our queries. Tan Kuang Yem also replied back with nonchalently stating that “they were not aware there was such arrangement being made. Since you are one of the lessees, we thought you would have explained to you husband if it is necessary”. I can’t believe that this email reply came from HDB! Not only was there no assistance rendered for our broken window, his reply was nonsensical without understanding our purpose of the complain. All HDB officers also told us that we need to contact the contractor for this issue but they had never once given us their contact details or assist us to contact them despite us repeating the need to do so. Our emails were simply ignored and everyone are feigning ignorance.

We ended up having to seek assistance from our MP Christopher De Souza and Khaw Boon Wan since he’s in charge of HDB. Khaw Boon Wan had never reply back to any of our emails! We wonder by keeping quiet and ignoring our emails, is he condoning the attitudes and behaviour of the HDB officer, especially since he is in charge of HDB? Our MP, Christopher De Souza, then made representation to HDB on our behalf and we finally got HDB to liaise with the contractor to contact us. 

Dealing with the HDB contractor was another nightmare. We have been liaising with a lady by the name of Mui Fen from Ban Hong Aluminium Work and she was our ultimate nightmare. First, she called us asking if they can come down to our house now. When we replied that we were at work, she immediately rebutted back harshly that she doesn’t know our working hours. She then suggested Saturday herself, to which we agreed, only to have her retracting her statement stating that she need to check on her boss’ availability. Sure, we’ll let her check with her boss and she promised to get back to us soon. A few days passed and there was no call back from her. We had to email HDB again just to get them to get the contractors to call us. We are assuming HDB did assist since there was no reply from them again, although we did get a call back from Mui Fen right after. She asked about our preferred time and we told her that either morning or afternoon is fine but to let us know a stipulated time. She didn’t get back to us and we had to call her again 2 days prior to the appointment date. Her tone on the phone was nasty and was quick to claim and lie that she called us, which she never did. When asked since she claimed to have called us, what is the allotted time for her boss to come down, she rebutted with a “I thought you said anytime”. Now, she said it herself that she needs to confirm and will call us back with the timing in the previous call which she never did. Throughout the phone call, her boss sounded like he was sitting beside her, and she relayed the message to us that her boss will come to our houseon Saturday between 11am-12pm. She hastily ended the phone call shouting at us saying “anything else?”