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SETTING UP SAFTI
50
FOUR
V. FIRST AND FOREMOST
The construction of the first phase of SAFTI by the PWD began in February/March 1966.
When Ho Pak Thoe undertook to complete the bare essentials to facilitate the training of
the first intake in three months, his strategy had clearly been to make extensive use of wood.
Specifications for the complex had been broad-brush to begin with, because they had been
offered as a basis for discussion and the Chief Advisor had further modified them when
he sensed Dr. Goh’s urgency. It is possible that Pak Thoe had received his own briefing
by Dr. Goh or Mr. Bogaars before leaving for Pasir Laba for the first site meeting with
Ellazari but more likely, he simply reciprocated the latter’s display of initiative, did his sums
in his head on the spot and took personal responsibility, something that Dr. Goh famously
made a corporate value of MID staff. Dr. Goh’s personal touch is also evident from the
photographic records of numerous site visits by himself and the senior officials of MID
and PWD.
Subsequent phases were more methodical: PWD reverted to brick and mortar and it was
possible to identify the phases in the original SAFTI complex according to the finished plan.
But in 1966, the landmark Institute HQ building was about five years away and the HQ
offices were two single storey blocks (like all buildings in SAFTI then, except for two blocks
of two-storey barracks for HQ Staff behind the Medical Centre) in what later became the
rear (north) of the Institute HQ building. SAFTI kept growing year by year to incorporate
The site visits typically included a high power delegation. Present here are Mr. George Bogaars, Permanent
Secretary MID (third from left) and Mr. Howe Yoon Chong, Chairman, HDB and later Minister for Defence
(second from right). Pak Thoe is second from the left, Thiruchelvarayan fourth from the left.