Lim Kim San

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Lim Kim San (born November 30, 1916 in Singapore , † July 20, 2006 ) was a Singaporean politician. He is credited with running a successful social housing program that alleviated the extremely acute housing shortage problem in Singapore in the 1960s.

youth

Lim Kim San was born in Singapore on November 30, 1916, the first of six children. He enjoyed his education at the Anglo-Chinese School and later at Raffles College , where he studied economics .

When in the course of World War II , the Japanese troops in February 1942 British garrison in Singapore overran and Singapore occupied, Lim was one of many residents, who point to the suspicion that he was communist pro-and British pro-caused by the Japanese were tortured. Long after the end of the occupation, Lim said that those who survived the Japanese reign of terror in Singapore "will never be forgotten". But Lim also said that - although traumatic and humiliating - this decisive decision had decisively politicized his generation and contributed to the Singaporean attitude "never to let others determine one's fate".

After the war ended, Lim was, in his own words, "a young man in a hurry to earn a living" to make up for the wasted years. He became a millionaire soon after he invented a machine that made it possible to produce sago pearls cheaply. After that he took up director positions in a number of banks.

Worked on the Housing and Development Board

In the 1960s, over 400,000 people in Singapore lived in completely overpopulated, ailing "chophouse" buildings or as squatters under degrading living conditions due to the limited living space. These were the general conditions that Lim found in 1960 when he filled a position on the Housing and Development Board (HDB) in Singapore, for which he had volunteered and in which he received no salary for the first three years. In this position, Lim Kim San carried out a huge house and apartment construction program, in the course of which Singapore was built with extensive high-rise complexes, which is still the most widespread type of apartment in Singapore today.

House plan

Lim made a name for himself early on with his organizational and planning skills. Rather than following a detailed work plan, Lim chose a less detailed planning framework in order to address the problem as quickly as possible based on only rough estimates of housing needs. This approach resulted in 25,000 new homes being built over the first two years of the home construction program, more than in the entire decade. With this, Lim gave the lie to all skeptics, especially the Singapore Development Board, which had stated that it would be impossible for him to build 10,000 new homes or even more within a year. As part of this skepticism, the Singapore Development Board opened a committee headed by Lim Tay Boh to determine whether the Housing and Development Board could even achieve the ambitious goal of the house building program with the capacities and resources available to it. Ironically, the house building program reached its goal of building 10,000 new homes in a year before the committee finished its report.

Success of the home construction program

With regard to the HDB's First Five-Year Plan, which envisaged the construction of 51,000 new apartments, the HDB achieved this goal by 1965. The largest project of the time was Queenstown , a satellite city with 17,500 apartments which could accommodate almost 150,000 people. To address the growing problem of congested traffic routes, the construction project was planned as a self-sufficient development in which all shops and facilities are located in the development, so that the residents of Queenstown would not have to travel to other parts of the city. This approach to the Queenstown project, which ultimately became the general philosophy for social housing in Singapore, is held responsible for the fact that traffic problems in Singapore's urban center have decreased significantly since the 1960s and 1970s.

In May 1961, more than 16,000 people were left homeless as a result of the Bukit Ho Swee fire . Under Lim's leadership, the lost housing capacity was rebuilt in less than four years and 8,000 new apartments were made available to the people who had lost their shelter in the course of the fire.

The success of the state house building project is attributed by some to the standardized architecture used in planning the high-rise design. Another factor is Lim's decision to refer many of the construction projects to private construction companies instead of directly employing construction workers. This allowed the HDB to concentrate on guaranteeing and maintaining quality standards and relieved it of operational details that the private construction companies could deal with better. Finally, the lower costs compared to state-run housing construction led to low housing costs for large parts of the population.

This success led some in Singapore to say that Lim had saved the rule of the People's Action Party (PAP) through his house building program , which was exposed to severe criticism in the 1960s due to the problematic housing conditions. On the other hand, Lim stressed that the success of the house building program would not have been possible if the government had not made social housing one of its top priorities and had given and continued to support it.

Political Relations

A decisive success factor for the state house building program was the close relationship between Lim Kim San and the then incumbent Prime Minister and founding father Lee Kuan Yew , because of which Lim enjoyed Lee's trust and he largely gave him a free hand. Another close political relationship existed with the then finance minister Goh Keng Swee , which enabled Lim to secure essential financial resources for the house construction program. Finally, a wide network of political relationships between Lim and MPs contributed significantly to Lim's ability to circumvent or overcome hyper-bureaucratic processes and structures, which had a major impact on the speed and efficiency of the construction program.

Honorary positions and political career

In June 1962, Lim was awarded the Order of Temasek , Singapore's highest governmental honor, as well as the Ramon Magsaysay Prize for his work as a leader for the good of the community, which was described as exemplary for a developing country. In September 1963, Lim was put up by the PAP as a candidate for a post in the Singapore Legislative Assembly for the Cairnhill district, an election which he won by a huge two-thirds majority. His political and administrative success led to Lim being appointed Minister for Development in October 1963. Furthermore, Lim was appointed by the PAP as a "talent scout" due to his ability to accurately assess the merits of others.

Political career after independence

After Singapore gained independence in 1965, Lim served as Minister of Finance for two years before becoming Minister of Home Affairs and Defense. He held this post from 1967 to 1970 when he was promoted to chairman of the Public Utilities Board, which was supposed to address another pressing problem in Singapore, the scarcity of drinking water, by building new water reservoirs. He held this position from 1971 to 1978.

Other work and honorary positions

In addition to the offices associated with his political career, Lim was chairman of the Port of Singapore Authority for 15 years and only passed the office on in 1994. In this role, he oversaw the development of Singapore's port capacities, which led to Singapore becoming the world's largest port and a hub between goods traffic in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. To date, the port of Singapore remains the world's largest port in the category of handled transport volume and was only surpassed by the port of Shanghai in the categories of freight volume and number of containers in 2005 and 2010.

In addition, Lim served the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Singaporean monetary authority, from 1981 to 1982 as deputy operations manager, as well as chairman of the board of the Singapore Press Holdings. In the latter position, he transformed the company into a globally active media group. Lim also served as Chairman of the Council of Presidential Advisors and was the first Chancellor of the Singapore Management University (SMU).

Withdrawal from politics

Even if Lim withdrew from daily political events in the 1980s, he remained an active figure in public life until he was old.

After a long illness, Lim finally died on July 20, 2006 in his house, leaving behind five children, twelve grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. In recognition of his services to Singapore, flags were hoisted at half-mast on all Singapore government buildings on the day of his funeral.