SINGAPORE - The Housing Board (HDB) has appointed Mr Tan Meng Dui as its new chief executive as part of changes in the agency's senior leadership.
Starting on Feb 26, 2021, he will take over from Dr Cheong Koon Hean, 63, who has been HDB's chief executive since 2010, the Ministry of National Development (MND) and HDB said in a statement on Monday (Nov 30).
Mr Tan, 53, is currently the chief executive of the National Environment Agency (NEA), an appointment he has held since October 2018.
From Jan 1 to Feb 25, 2021, Mr Fong Chun Wah, HDB's current deputy chief executive of buildings, will be appointed as acting chief executive.
Mr Luke Goh, 45, who is currently the deputy secretary of trade in the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI), will succeed Mr Tan as NEA's chief executive.
Dr Cheong, who will relinquish her appointment as HDB's chief executive on Jan 1, 2021, oversaw the formulation and review of housing policies and building programmes throughout her decade-long service. These include the Build-to-Order, Enhancement for Active Seniors, Home Improvement Programme, and the Lift Upgrading Programme.
Trained as an architect-planner, she spearheaded several HDB initiatives, including the expansion of housing options for low-income households and the enhancement of housing grants to benefit more first-time home buyers.
Dr Cheong also introduced the smart HDB town framework, which guides the application of smart technologies to make HDB towns and estates more liveable, and the biophilic town framework, which incorporates aspects of the natural environment into all public housing developments.
She will be succeeded by Mr Tan, who led the SG Clean campaign at the start of the Covid-19 outbreak on February to galvanise collective action from individuals and businesses, in order to keep public premises clean and thus reduce the risk of community transmission.
He also oversaw the rapid development of wastewater-based surveillance capability to assess Covid-19 transmission in foreign worker dormitories, and the formulation of a national strategy for wastewater testing for the purpose of disease surveillance within the community.
During his two years at NEA, he oversaw the development of improved infrastructure to enhance recycling, such as dual chutes for non-landed housing developments and new recycling labels under the National Recycling Programme, reviewed and enhanced the Social Enterprise Hawker Centre model, and implemented Singapore's first no-smoking zone in Orchard Road, among others.
Under Mr Tan's leadership, NEA led the Government's response to the haze situation in 2019 and managed the historic dengue outbreak this year.
Mr Tan was previously the deputy secretary of development at MND.
