Dr Cheong Koon Hean will step down as HDB CEO from 1 January 2021. Succeeding her is Mr Tan Meng Dui who, as NEA CEO, spearheaded the SG Clean campaign and was “instrumental” in the response of NEA to Singapore’s fight against COVID-19.
The Housing and Development Board (HDB) will have a new chief executive from 26 February next year following the appointment of National Environment Agency (NEA) CEO Tan Meng Dui to the position.
He will succeed Dr Cheong Koon Hean, who will relinquish her role as HDB CEO from 1 January 2021, reported Channel News Asia (CNA) citing a release from the HDB and the Ministry of National Development.
From 1 January to 25 February, Fong Chun Wah, who is currently serving as HDB’s Deputy CEO (Building), will be appointed as HDB’s acting CEO.
Luke Goh, who is currently the Deputy Secretary (Trade) within the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI), will succeed Tan as NEA’s chief executive from 26 February.
Serving as HDB’s CEO since 2010, Dr Cheong oversaw the “formulation and review of housing policies and building programmes, to meet the evolving housing needs and aspirations of Singaporeans, and promote community bonding across different demographics of society”, said HDB and MND.
She also spearheaded several initiatives, including the expansion of housing options for low-income households as well as the enhancements of housing grants for first-time home owners.
Under her leadership, HDB was also steered towards new approaches in delivering sustainable homes with a focus on building strong communities.
“She has pushed for higher quality design, and adopted new building technologies that have significantly improved the quality of HDB developments,” said the agencies.
This has resulted to “new generation public housing projects” that raised the bar for HDB living.
Meanwhile, Tan, who has been NEA’s CEO since October 2018, made significant progress at NEA by reviewing key policies, rolling out new programmes and building new capabilities to ensure that the city-state’s environment remains clean and sustainable, revealed the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE).
During his tenure, several key infrastructure developments, policy reviews and regulatory changes were implemented.
Among them were the review and enhancement of new hawker centres’ management model, the launch of the Tuas Nexus development, development of infrastructure to facilitate recycling as well as the implementation of Singapore’s first No Smoking Zone at Orchard Road.
“Under Mr Tan’s guidance, NEA led the national response to the haze episode in 2019 and managed the historic dengue outbreak in 2020,” said MSE.
He also spearheaded the SG Clean campaign and was “instrumental” in the response of NEA to Singapore’s fight against COVID-19.
MSE said Tan oversaw “the rapid ramp-up of a wastewater-based surveillance capability to assess COVID-19 transmission in foreign worker dormitories, and the development of a national strategy for wastewater testing for disease surveillance within the community”.
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