For several years, residents living at Block 670 Jalan Damai have been plagued by problems with their lifts.

Lifts have many problems

According to a Straits Times report, "both elevators at the HDB block have been intermittently faulty for several years".

The residents have been facing a myriad of problems, such as the lift travelling up and down a few times without opening its doors, and the door being unable to close fully.

These lifts were built in 1995 by Express Lift, a company that is no longer registered in Singapore.

Currently, the lifts are managed by Aljunied-Hougang Town Council, and maintained by 9G, the Town Council's appointed lift maintenance contractor.

Pritam Singh apologises

Pritam Singh, Secretary-General of the Workers' Party as well as Member of Parliament for the Aljunied-Hougang GRC, spoke out about this issue in a Facebook post on May 14.

Jalan Damai is located within Eunos ward, the ward that he oversees.

Sharing the ST article, he sincerely apologised "for the inconvenience this episode has caused" and provided some updates on the situation.

He explained that the Building and Construction Agency (BCA) has since instructed the Town Council to shut down the lift. An Authorised Examiner will check the lift before it can be certified for operations again.

Pritam added that, in his experience, this process "can take up to a few weeks depending on the extent of repairs/parts replacement."

Lift replacements

HDB guidelines recommend Town Councils to upgrade or replace lifts around the 28-year mark.

According to Pritam, the Town Council has already proceeded on a five-year lift replacement for all 23 blocks in Jalan Damai starting last year.

The lifts at Jalan Damai are approximately 23 years old this year.

He stated the Town Council management will work with the lift maintenance contractor to assess the state of the other old Express lifts in the ward.

This includes a review of "the breakdown/malfunction records of all the remaining Express brand lifts" and to "re-prioritise the new lift installation schedule" depending on their assessments.

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This is Pritam Singh's full Facebook post:

Top photo from Workers Party & SRX Property