Minister Lawrence Wong Promotes Lease Buyback Scheme, Singaporeans Unhappy

The promoting of the Lease Buyback Scheme (LBS) by National Development Board on social media has drawn intense backlash from Singaporeans from all walks of life. Minister Lawrence Wong also earlier said that all HDB flats would be returned to the government once their 99 year lease has run out, with no compensation paid to “home-owners”.

Now, in a drive to encourage Singaporeans to make some money out of their HDB flats that were once considered iron clad assets, Wong and his Ministry is encouraging homeowners to sell part of the end-portion of their lease back to the government to monetise their flat somewhat while continuing to live in the unit without having to sell it off entirely. Of course, we all know by now that the Govt’s past promises that HDB flats are nest-eggs and assets that will keep rising in value, have long since been revealed as the greatest lie to Singaporeans.

Now that Singaporeans know that the govt will stoop to making empty promises to the citizens in order to keep winning votes, and then many years later revealed the promises are not meant to be kept, has started to wise up. Many are questioning if the LBS will benefit the government again, and not Singaporeans. This is simply in the fact that once our 99 year HDB lease runs out, the govt takes over for free, can build new houses at the sites taken over, and sell them off for huge amounts of money.

The LBS also is paid out in amounts determined by the govt, so it is clear who benefits from this arrangement. No wonder Singaporeans are plain unhappy at this latest development on their HDB flats.