Changing land pricing to lower cost of HDB flats risks destabilising entire property market: DPM Wong
Mr Wong also crossed swords with WP MPs over two paragraphswith the Deputy Prime Minister saying there is “no shame” in the opposition party admitting that its call to reduce BTO flat supply then was a mistake.
In a protracted back-and-forth at the close of the debate, Mr Wong said there would be a “much bigger supply-demand imbalance” today if the Government had heeded WP’s 2019 proposal to cut back the annual BTO flat supply to just 9,000 flats at a time when HDB was building between 16,000 and 17,000 BTO flats.
“There’s no shame in acknowledging that you got that wrong because many people did... And we are not here to pass judgment because, with the benefit of hindsight, it’s of course very easy to say no one would have predicted that you would have a Covid-19 crisis and what has happened in the last three years.”
Replying, Mr Wong said many PAP MPs had also suggested that the Government should calibrate its BTO programme. “So I really hope the PAP will stop propagating this falsehood that our 2019 paper called for a cutback to BTO supply in 2019. And if it does not do that, I would really question if the PAP has become a party that propagates falsehoods to gain political mileage,” he said.
Addressing concerns that the increased grant will prompt sellers to ask for higher resale prices, he said that is why the measure is targeted at first-timers rather than a broad-based policy move.
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