Dear MND,
It is after great consideration that I decided to post the following on your facebook page regarding the recent report on “Public parking rates set to rise after review” (http:// www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/ public-parking-rates-set-to-rise-after-review).
Firstly, according to annual reports of HDB (http://www.hdb.gov.sg/cs/infoweb/about-us/ news-and-publications/annual-reports) and URA (https://www.ura.gov.sg/uol/publications/ corporate/araspx), income for HDB from “car park income” was $595,247,000 and income for URA from “Parking fees and other charges” was $71,284,000 for FY14/15. Expenses for HDB from “Operating fee for car park maintenance expenses and others” was $78,859,000 and expenses for URA from “Property and car park maintenance” was $11,955,000 for FY14/15.
Total combined income and expenses were $666,531,000 and $90,814,000 respectively.
Why would the 2 agencies want to increase the car park rates when currently the income is at 7.33x of the expenses?
Secondly, in the above report, both HDB and URA “noted that the last price revision was in 2002” and a URA spokesman said “Since then, the cost of managing and operating carparks have increased substantially,”.
According to the annual reports of HDB and URA, carpark income for HDB increased from $522,942,000 (FY09/10) to $595,247,000 (FY14/15) averaging increment of $14,461,000 per year and carpark expenses for HDB increased from $38,729,000 (FY09/10) to $78,859,000 (FY14/15) averaging increment of $8,026,000 per year; carpark income for URA increased from $50,581,000 (FY02/03) to $71,284,000 (FY14/15) averaging increment of $1,725,250 per year and carpark expenses for URA increased from $6,813,000 (FY02/03) to $11,955,000 (FY14/15) averaging increment of $428,500 per year.
It is obvious that income had increased ‘more substantially’ than the cost.
Lastly, both agencies operate and manage public car parks. The key word here is ‘public’. Both agencies are government agencies. They should have public in the mind when making decisions, not comparing with private car parks nor global cities car park rates. We pay taxes to government to manage the country, not for government to fleece the public and increase their profit from the existing ‘huge profit’.
