By Xinghui Kok
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore’s heritage board will assess if founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s home should be preserved as a national monument, the culture ministry said on Thursday.
The late statesman’s youngest child Lee Hsien Yang applied on Oct. 21 to demolish the single-storey bungalow on Oxley Road in central Singapore in line with his father’s wishes.
Preservation as a national monument would mean the heritage board can stop any operation or activity that could destroy, damage or alter the home.
It has been in the centre of a public spat between the three Lee siblings since the statesman’s death in 2015. The issue re-emerged recently after Lee’s daughter who was living in the house died on Oct 9.
“We do not think that any option should be precluded, or closed off, at this stage,” Minister for Culture and Community Edwin Tong wrote on Facebook.
In response, Lee Hsien Yang, who has become a political refugee in Britain as the feud snowballs, said: “Many expensive ministerial man hours were spent and expert input sought to study options and a detailed report was published in 2018. What need is there now to be studying this further?”
Lee Hsien Loong, the oldest of the Lee siblings who was prime minister from 2004 to May this year, thought it should be up to the government to decide.
In 2018, a ministerial committee laid out three options for the house, including conservation and demolition, and said the decision would be left to a future government.
At that time, Lee Hsien Loong said he accepted the committee’s conclusion and the range of options laid out.
Lee Kuan Yew told the Straits Times newspaper in 2011 that he wanted the house demolished because it would “become a shambles” if it were opened to the public, and he hoped its removal would improve land values in the neighbourhood.
(Reporting by Xinghui Kok; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
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