PM Lee threatened to gazette 38 Oxley Road: Lee Wei Ling
The house at 38 Oxley Road (centre) is at the heart of the dispute surrounding Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his siblings. Reuters file photo
SINGAPORE — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had "threatened angrily" to gazette 38 Oxley Road, after the will of the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew was read to the family, said Dr Lee Wei Ling on Saturday (July 1) as she continued her criticism of her brother and sister-in-law for abuse of power.
Writing on Facebook, Dr Lee said that PM Lee was willing to go against their father's wishes - Mr Lee Kuan Yew had spoken of his desire to demolish the house after his death on several occasions - "as soon as Papa was gone", and it "greatly disturbed" her.
"He is a dishonourable son," she wrote.
Saturday's Facebook post is the latest in the war of words between PM Lee, and his siblings over the fate of their family home.
Dr Lee and Mr Lee Hsien Yang want the house demolished, saying that this would be in accordance to the late Mr Lee's wishes.
They have claimed that PM Lee intends to preserve the house for political gains.
"I want Singaporeans to see the true face and motives of Lee Hsien Loong and Ho Ching," said Dr Lee.
It was their "abuse of power" that led her to "(make) up my mind to expose them", she said. "It makes him a bad PM and she an even worse Mrs PM, especially as there is no official position as Mrs PM. It is not just that he is not a filial son. His behaviour as PM is not okay."
Dr Lee added that she "resented Ho Ching and Hsien Loong's attempt to build a 'Lee family cult'". She cited how Mdm Ho "took sabbatical to 'help sort out Lee family affairs'", like spending time at the Oxley Road house, cataloguing items — tapping on a photographer from the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) in the process — to be sent for storage, and tried to "recreate the way Oxley looked decades ago".
"She had no business doing this at all," Dr Lee said.
An MCI spokesperson said in response to media queries that the ministry's photographers had continued to support Mr Lee Kuan Yee after he stepped down from Cabinet in 2011. "This is in line with MCI's policy of supporting former Prime Ministers and Presidents after they leave office," the spokesperson said.
"After Mr Lee's passing, MCI photographers were deployed to take photos of various personal and official items belonging to Mr Lee at 38 Oxley Road. This was done for the purposes of national archival and documentation."
Similar "photographic recordings" were done when Mr Lee Kuan Yew was alive of his home's study and basement dining room, the spokesperson added.
In her Facebook post, Dr Lee also accused Mdm Ho of handing over "many things ... (she) wrongfully took to the National Heritage Board (NHB) ... so many that they had enough to create a 'Lee Kuan Yew Museum'".
Dr Lee noted that when the NHB had selected enough items for the exhibition, the Prime Minister's Office then refused to hold the event, as Dr Lee and Mr Lee Hsien Yang had "required that the last paragraph of Papa's will be simultaneously displayed" as a reminder of "his desire for 38 Oxley Road to be demolished".
"Hsien Loong and Ho Ching angered me very early on. Both were not straight and were taking advantage of the fact that no one would dare criticise them for acting improperly," said Dr Lee.
PM Lee had previously said his siblings' continuous allegations were "mostly inaccurate". He will make a ministerial statement to address the allegations in Parliament on Monday.
