PM’s siblings slam panel’s ruling

Singapore report places LKY’s home in future govt’s hands

The brother and sister of Singapore’s Prime Minister on Tuesday said that a ministerial panel’s declarations about the future of a home lived in by their late father, the modern island state’s founding leader Lee Kuan Yew, were inaccurate.

In a sign that a family feud over the property may be far from over, they criticized a report published by the committee on Monday which said a future government should make the final decision about the home’s use. It laid out three options: preserving the house as a national monument, preserving part of it, or demolishing it.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s younger brother, Lee Hsien Yang, who owns the property, and sister Lee Wei Ling, who still lives there, want the house to be eventually demolished in accordance with what they say were their father’s wishes as stated in his will.

But the prime minister last year questioned whether his father really wanted the home at 38 Oxley Road, near Singapore’s bustling Orchard Road shopping district, to be knocked down. He has said he has recused himself from government discussions on the matter.

A spokesperson for deputy prime minister Teo Chee Hean, the chair of the committee, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“It is clear that our father was not endorsing alternatives to demolition,” the siblings said in a joint statement on Facebook. “The Committee’s statement does not accurately represent Lee Kuan Yew’s wishes.”

In a separate Facebook post, Lee Wei Ling said: “Papa was as direct as me. He made absolutely clear what he wanted done with the house. He and Mama had long decided they wanted it demolished after they were gone. It would require unbelievable lack of intelligence or determined denial to not understand what Pa & Ma so unambiguously wanted.”

The feud over the home gripped Singapore for at least a month last year, and included accusations by the prime minister’s siblings that he was prepared to use the organs of the state against them.

In a statement on Facebook on Monday after the committee’s report was issued, the prime minister said that the committee was correct to point out that there was no need for a decision now as his sister was still living in the house.