Mr Tommy Lim, 58, visits his sister’s niche once a year for the annual Qing Ming Festival.

This year was no different.

But when the taxi driver and his mother, 86, arrived at his sister’s niche at Mount Vernon Columbarium last Friday morning, they were shocked to find that the marble plaque on the niche had been broken.

They had a bigger shock when they realised the urn containing her ashes had vanished.

He told The New Paper: “We were so upset and my mother started crying. Her first words were, ‘Who took her?’ I was also very angry. How could someone’s ashes go missing?”

He showed TNP what was left of his sister’s niche at Mount Vernon Columbarium on Wednesday.

Only the lower portion of the plaque – bearing his sister’s name Lim Hwee Huang and the dates of birth and death – was still intact.

His elder sister had died at the age of 30 in a car accident 30 years ago.

Mr Lim said: “We had no choice but to offer prayer and burnt offering to an empty niche and we did it with a heavy heart.”

He had intended to relocate his sister’s ashes to a temple in Aljunied, where he had bought a place for her, his father, his mother and himself.

His father’s ashes are now at Lim Chu Kang Cemetery. Mr Lim said: “But if my sister’s ashes are lost, how will we have a family reunion?”

The next day, Mr Lim reported the matter to Mandai Columbarium.

Both columbariums are managed by the National Environment Agency (NEA).

Mr Lim said: “They told me there is nothing they can do. They have no security, no CCTV footage, and it is a space open to the public.”

He said the management at Mandai Columbarium told him the ashes could have been illegally removed.

Mr Lim said he was shown a photo taken in April last year of his sister’s niche still intact and another photo taken last October showing it damaged.

WHY NOT INFORMED?

“This means her ashes must have gone missing during those six months. But why weren’t we informed?”

Mr Lim made a police report on Monday. A police spokesman confirmed the report and said the investigation is ongoing.

An NEA spokesman told TNP that it is in touch with the next-of-kin and is assisting the police with their investigation. (See report above.)

Mr Lim said his cousin helped him contact NEA on Tuesday.

NEA got back to him yesterday to ask if it could give his registration information for the niche to the police.

Mr Lim said his mother is still upset, but told him that if they are unable to recover the ashes, they will stop praying to his sister.

“My mother told me, ‘Thirty years ago, I lost my daughter. Thirty years later, I lost her ashes.’

MOVING ON

“Though she is sad, she is practical and we know that life goes on,” said Mr Lim, who did not want TNP to speak to his mother in case she becomes more upset.

By reaching out to TNP, Mr Lim hopes that anyone who might know where his sister’s ashes are will come forward.

He wondered if the ashes could have been stolen or if someone had mistakenly relocated the urn, because Mount Vernon Columbarium, which has about 20,000 niches, is undergoing a relocation programme to make way for the Bidadari housing estate development.

NEA announced last October that the next-of-kin should claim the ashes by June 30, 2017, so they can be relocated to other government-managed or private columbariums.

Mr Lim, who is the contact person for his sister’s niche, said he had not requested to claim the urn containing her ashes and did not receive any notification that it had been relocated.

“If it had been really relocated by mistake, part of the marble plaque would not have been left behind and the ‘hole’ would have been covered with a white board,” he said.

Mr Lim hopes his experience will alert others with niches at Mount Vernon Columbarium to check that the ashes of their loved ones are safe.

He also appealed to whoever might have taken his sister’s ashes: “All I ask is that you return them to us. I won’t be angry with you.”

NEA: No application to remove urn

The National Environment Agency (NEA) is aware of a case where an urn containing ashes was removed from a niche at Mount Vernon Columbarium.

Responding to queries from The New Paper, an NEA spokesman said it had not received any application for the cremated remains at the niche belonging to Mr Lim’s sister to be removed.

The spokesman said the agency is in touch with the next-of-kin and is assisting the police with investigations.

The agency said there had been previous cases where the next-of-kin removed the urn from the niche without first applying to NEA. These cases were resolved after further investigation.

When TNP went to Mount Vernon Columbarium on Wednesday, there was no sign of closed-circuit television cameras at the blocks housing the niches.

The NEA website states that the columbarium is open from 7am to 5.30pm daily. But Mr Lim said that when he and his mother went there last Friday at 5.15am, the gates were open.

“Anyone can go in and out as they please. I just hope that I can alert others to my case so they can go and check on their loved ones’ niches,” he said.

Other columbariums use CCTVs, guards

It is important that the deceased can rest in peace so their families can have peace of mind, said Mr Dennis Ng, 48, the general manager of a private columbarium, Nirvana Memorial Garden Singapore.

“Paying respects to deceased loved ones is very important in our culture, and in turn, we also want to provide the deceased with a good place to rest with dignity,” he said.

He said Nirvana has security features such as closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in all its three buildings and two resident monks and a caretaker to look after the place every night.

Nirvana has about 30,000 niches in closed quarters and the doors to the rooms that contain the niches are locked from about 5.30pm to 8.30am every day.

In front of each block of niches, there are glass doors that are locked every night.

“Not just anybody can open the door and walk in.

“Our customers won’t like it if anyone can come in and open the niche doors or vandalise them. We want to give them total peace of mind,” Mr Ng said.

Another private columbarium, All Saints Memorial Chapel, houses more than 27,000 niches and has CCTVs and security guards who patrol the area.

Its operations manager, Mr Samuel Chia, 47, said its caretakers and cleaners are responsible for reporting any damage to the niches. The niches, which are in closed quarters, are open to visitors only between 8am and 7pm every day.

NEXT OF KIN

“Only the next-of-kin or persons whose names are on the forms (used to book the niche) can make changes or relocate the ashes. The authorised person also has to be present when changes are being made,” he said.

Mr Ng said Nirvana has a similar system: Only the purchaser of the niche or someone with an authorised letter from the purchaser is allowed to make requests for relocation.

“It’s sad (for Mr Lim and his mother) that a loved one’s ashes is missing. It’s something valuable… I would also be very worried if I were them.”

This article was first published on April 16, 2016.
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tammei@sph.com.sg

A mystery buyer has offered $17.5 million for the ageing Beauty World Food Centre in Bukit Timah.

The sum was offered by investors through real estate agency PropNex, whose spokesman told The Straits Times that the final amount is still being negotiated.

The figure was reported by Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao yesterday, but PropNex declined to name the buyer.

If the sale is confirmed, the new operator could redevelop the outdoor hawker centre, located on the fourth floor of Beauty World Centre, into an air-conditioned food court.

Many stallholders have agreed to sell their stalls as they are growing old and their children have no interest in taking over the business.

One of them, who wanted to be known only as Mrs Goh and is in her 70s, has been running a fruit and drinks stall at the food centre for 30 years.

“I am planning to retire. I am getting old,” she said in Mandarin.

Mrs Chua Yow Ngoo, 61, who sells hokkien mee and char kway teow, is also likely to pull down the shutters in about a year’s time.

Mrs Chua, who has run the stall with her husband for about 30 years, has sold their unit for $500,000.

But the couple have no plans to retire. “I want to open shop in a school canteen so I can rest more on weekends and school holidays,” she said.

Built in the 1980s, the Beauty World Food Centre houses a total of 41 hawker stalls, many of which used to operate at the old wet market nearby.

Stall owners said they were notified shortly after the new year that investors planned to buy the facility.

In recent years, several major coffee shop chains have also expressed interest in buying the centre, but could not agree on a price, Zaobao reported.

Hawkers have sent a representative to talk to the buyer.

Those who wish to continue doing business at the site will have to rent a space from the new operator. Some are already searching for new locations.

This article was first published on April 16, 2016.
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Just over three years ago, the Transport Ministry removed taxis from the certificate of entitlement (COE) bidding process to take some heat off car bidders.

Now, three years after third-party taxi app provider Uber arrived, the heat is back on.

During last week’s COE tender, Uber-owned Lion City Rental submitted more than 800 bids, which accounted for 11 per cent of the total bids made for car COEs.

According to market talk, Lion City is looking to put 1,800 new cars on the road in anticipation of growing demand.

Rival company Grab is also expected to do the same.

The two already have between them some 10,000 cars – mostly old vehicles.

But in recent months, both have started sourcing for new vehicles, and are jostling with private car owners for fresh COEs.

Now, with the Government announcing “light touch” regulations governing third-party taxi apps, the proliferation of private-hire vehicles will accelerate.

Most of the taxi companies are also starting up private-hire subsidiaries to compete with Uber, Grab and other small players like Smove and Tribecar.

This will only intensify the competition for COEs, which explains why car premiums have not fallen in tandem with the growth in supply.

If the demand for private-hire services continues to grow, taxi operators are likely to shrink their cab fleets and switch. Again, this will fuel demand for COEs.

Most private-hire cars are smaller vehicles, so the pressure will be greater on COE Category A bidders (cars up to 1,600cc and 130bhp).

But some are gunning for Open Category too, such as Lion City.

At the last tender, more than 200 of the company’s Open bids were disqualified because they had identical values, which sources said was a move to manipulate the market.

The Land Transport Authority said: “As there were more than 237 bids with the same next lower bid amount, awarding the COE to all these bids would exceed the quota.

The 237 unallocated COEs will be carried over to the first open bidding exercise in May 2016.”

Uber was not reachable for comment.

Car-Sharing Association (Singapore) president Lai Meng said: “The fast growth in the private-hire car services like Uber and Grab is a validation of the sharing economy.”

This article was first published on April 16, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

There will be more certificates of entitlement (COE) in the coming months and this is expected to drive vehicle prices down further.

There will be 9,634 COEs a month, on average, from May to July. This is a 15 per cent increase from the previous three-month quota period.

Car COE numbers will rise by 14 per cent to 8,384 a month.

But the single biggest expansion will be in the commercial vehicle category, which goes up by 40.7 per cent to 456 a month.

The growth in COE supply, fuelled by the scrapping of old vehicles bought during the last supply bonanza about a decade ago, is expected to continue for another 18 months or so.

Bumper crop of COEs from May

There will be more certificates of entitlement (COEs) in the coming months which should, in turn, drive vehicle prices further south.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) announced yesterday that there will be 9,634 COEs a month, on average, from May to July. This is a 15 per cent increase from the previous three-month quota period.

Car COE numbers will rise by 14 per cent to 8,384 a month. This includes the Open category COE, which is almost exclusively used to register bigger cars.

The big car COE supply will rise by 21 per cent, while the small car quota will go up by 9.3 per cent.

Overall, the single biggest expansion will be in the commercial vehicle category. It goes up by 40.7 per cent to 456 a month.

Motorcyclists will see an 11.4 per cent increase in supply, to 794 COEs a month.

That the COE supply would grow is no surprise. The trend, fuelled by the scrapping of old vehicles bought during the last supply bonanza about 10 years ago, is expected to continue for another 18 months or so.

But the quantum of the latest increase was somewhat of a surprise.

Mr Ron Lim, general manager of Nissan agent Tan Chong Motors, said: “The numbers look much higher than expected. March deregistrations must have been very high.”

Indeed, according to data just released by the LTA, 13,580 vehicles were scrapped last month – 46 per cent more than the average of the preceding two months.

The figure would have been even bigger if not for a small wave of COE extensions. About 10 per cent of expiring car COEs are extended, when owners pay the so-called prevailing quota premium – a moving average of COE prices over the previous three months.

Previously, extensions seldom amounted to more than 5 per cent of an expiring batch of COEs.

The current trend to extend COEs is driven by relatively high car prices – which have not fallen fully in tandem with COE prices – restrictions on car loans, and rental companies which are building up a fleet of private-hire vehicles in response to third-party taxi apps such as Uber and Grab.

Still, the COE supply ahead will be enough to soften premiums further.

Mr Neo Nam Heng, chairman of diversified motor group Prime, said: “This latest supply should make many consumers happy.”

Besides the increased supply, he said prices will be driven down by other factors, such as the weakening economic outlook, and the easing of monetary policies.

The latter, he added, would raise the cost of car imports and erode profit margins. That in turn, will suppress the ability of motor companies to bid for COEs, weakening premiums further.

This article was first published on April 16, 2016.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.