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Ministerial Committee ‘refused to identify’ full membership for almost a year: Lee Wei Ling

Goh Chok Tong, ministers comment on Lee family feud
The Oxley Road house at the centre of a public dispute between the children of former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. (Photo: Reuters)

Lee Wei Ling has again questioned the transparency of the Ministerial Committee that had been set up to explore options for the house of her father Lee Kuan Yew amid the ongoing Lee family feud over the late prime minister’s estate.

In a post on her Facebook page on Friday (23 June), Wei Ling said the Committee “refused to identify its full membership for almost a year.” It also “refused to state terms of reference despite many requests from LKY’s estate”, according to Wei Ling, who is a co-executor and co-trustee of the estate along with her younger brother Hsien Yang.

In addition, Wei Ling said Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean “never disclosed” to the estate the options that the Committee is looking at for the house at 38 Oxley Road.

Teo revealed for the first time last Saturday (17 June) that he chairs the Ministerial Committee. “The Government has the responsibility to consider the public interest aspects of any property with heritage and historical significance, and this applies to 38 Oxley Road,” said Teo in a statement. “The committee’s interest in Mr Lee’s will is confined to the light that it sheds on (Lee Kuan Yew’s) wishes for the house.”

Teo noted that the Committee is currently studying “various intermediate options”. For example, demolishing the house but keeping the basement dining room where many important historical meetings took place, with an appropriate heritage centre attached.

He also denied the younger Lees’ assertion that the Committee was “secretive” and disclosed the identities of three of its members: Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong and Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam.

Wei Ling said in her post, “Only when forced into the daylight do they say that their purpose is to make a ‘recommendation’ to future governments.”

Her older brother, PM Lee Hsien Loong, will be making a Ministerial Statement in Parliament on 3 July to address the issues arising from the feud.

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