One of a Kind (2nd Edition)

SETTING UP SAFTI

FOUR

as it turned out, it would have gone on to formulate or at least pencil in the establishment,

notional career paths, pay grades and the training of the administrators and supervisors. It

would have also filled up the instructor staff positions at SAFTI, while filling the slots that

were daily created by the evolving MID. Both the logisticians and the personnel managers

freely raided existing establishments: the one the putative but short-lived Army HQ and any

cooperative ‘resource bank’ of the British Far East Land Forces; the other, the civil service

and statutory boards. Invoking the authority of the Minister for Interior and Defence, Dr.

Goh Keng Swee, de facto Second-in-Command to the Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew

would silence any objection. Not many would have wanted to test Dr. Goh’s patience. In most

cases, however, the name of George Bogaars, the Permanent Secretary of MID, handpicked

by Dr. Goh and a legend in his own time, would have sufficed.

That Dr. Goh should also be a brilliant economist was perhaps, sheer luck of the draw, for

Singapore in those grim days after separation. Where others might have dithered with the idea

of a balanced rural and industrial economy, Dr. Goh had already, since self-government in

1959, launched a decisive initiative to turn Singapore into a world-class manufacturing base

in consultation with Dr. Albert Wensiemius, a renowned Dutch economic guru at the United

Nations. To Dr. Goh, Singapore’s acute lack of real estate did not warrant a second thought, for

agro-industry as an economic mainstay despite the natural ability of the Chinese community

for farming. From 1959, the Government had already been mapping out an economic strategy

that went beyond being the

entrepôt

to Malaya and Indonesia. Joining Malaysia in September

1963, added further incentive for industrialisation as it offered a bigger home market for

manufactured goods: Singapore planned to be the industrial heartland of the confederation.

But, being given the short shrift by Malaysia in August 1965 concentrated the minds of the

Singapore Government like nothing had ever done on the road to independence. Now, national

security concerns vied for priority with economic survival. By January 1966, clearing and filling

the swampland south of Upper Jurong Road was already well under way to create an industrial

park. As the ‘wild west’ of Singapore, with its relatively sparse population, the Jurong area was

the part of Singapore least disruptive to reconstitute in support of economic development. That

being said, the area had been the rural fiefdoms of famous towkays, successful Singaporean

and expatriate Caucasian entrepreneurs whose fruit orchards and rubber plantations were

household names among the initiated: Joo Lim Estate, Bajau Estate, Kian Teck San Estate,

Lam Kiong Estate, Soon Hin Estate, Ritz Farm, and farther out, Neo Tiew Estate. One can

only wonder at what the Singapore Government must have had to do to get the current owners

and proprietors, some of whom were based abroad, to relinquish their land.

The resettlement programme for the economic redevelopment of Western Singapore fitted

conveniently with the hilly topography of the terrain north of Upper Jurong Road and west

of Jalan Bahar and its remoteness from the main habitation centres of Singapore, to make the

farmlands of Pasir Laba a good choice military training big enough for the planned expansion