Lee Ek Tieng

In this Chinese name, the family name is Lee.

Lee Ek Tieng DUBC PJG
李一添
Lee in New Zealand in 1970
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Environment
In office 1972–1986
Prime Minister	Lee Kuan Yew
Preceded by	Position established
Head of the Public Utilities Board
In office 1978–2000
Prime Minister	Lee Kuan Yew Goh Chok Tong
Preceded by	Lim Kim San
Succeeded by	Chiang Chie Foo
Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance (Revenue)
In office 1986–1989
Prime Minister	Lee Kuan Yew
Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore
In office November 1989 – December 1997
Prime Minister	Lee Kuan Yew
Preceded by	J. Y. Pillay
Succeeded by	Koh Yong Guan
Head of the Singapore Civil Service
In office 12 October 1994 (1994-10-12) – 21 September 1999
Prime Minister	Goh Chok Tong
Preceded by	Andrew Chew
Succeeded by	Lim Siong Guan
Personal details
Born	(1933-09-21) 21 September 1933 (age 91) Perak, British Malaya
Spouse	Patricia Lee
Children	2
Alma mater	University of Malaya (BS) Newcastle University
Chinese name
Chinese	李一添
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Lǐ Yītiān Eastern Min Fuzhou BUC Lī Ék-tiĕng

Lee Ek Tieng DUBC PJG (born 21 September 1933) is a Singaporean former bureaucrat. As Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Environment, Lee oversaw the cleaning of Singapore's rivers. He also held leadership positions at the Monetary Authority of Singapore, the Public Utilities Board, and the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation. From 1994 to 1999, Lee was the head of the Singapore Civil Service.

Early life and education

The seventh of eight children, Lee was born on 21 September 1933 in Perak, British Malaya. His father was a Methodist pastor.[1] Lee attended Anglo-Chinese School and was a member of its table tennis team. In 1958, Lee graduated from the University of Malaya with a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering. In 1965, he obtained a diploma in public health engineering from Newcastle University on a Colombo Plan scholarship.[2]

Career

Early years

In 1958, Lee joined the City Council (later the Public Works Department) as an engineer and was responsible for drafting Singapore's first Sewerage Master Plan. In 1970, he was appointed as the first head of the Anti-Pollution Unit (comprising himself, Phang Phui Yong, and Chua Yong Hai) at the Prime Minister's Office.[1][3] Lee was posted to Australia and New Zealand for seven months to study their pollution management methods.[4] From 1971 to 1972, Lee was the Permanent Secretary (Special Duties) of the Ministry of Health, succeeding Tan Teck Khim.[2]

Ministry of the Environment

In 1972, Lee became the first Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Environment.[1] At the time, Singapore's waterways were significantly polluted. On 27 February 1977, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew challenged Lee and his team at the Ministry of the Environment to clean up the Singapore River and the Kallang Basin within ten years.[5] He also pledged to give those spearheading the effort a solid gold medal each, should they be successful.[6]

In addition to banning bumboats, hawkers, and squatters from the area, Lee Ek Tieng also commissioned contractors to dredge the bed of the Singapore River by 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) and replace its mud and waste with sand. This resulted in the stench that had hung in the air for years disappearing within a week.[7] A network of sewage pipes that would send waste to centralised treatment plants was also established.[8]

The entire operation, which ended up costing approximately S$300 million, was deemed a success, as evidenced by the return of fish and other sea creatures to the Singapore River.[9] A Clean River Commemoration was held at the Marina Mandarin on 2 September 1987.[10] As Lee Kuan Yew had promised a decade ago, Lee Ek Tieng and nine other civil servants[a] were each presented with a solid gold medal worth around S$1,000.[6] Lee Kuan Yew later remarked in his memoirs: "There would have been no clean and green Singapore without Lee Ek Tieng."[12]

Public Utilities Board

In September 1978,[13] while he was still overseeing the cleaning of Singapore's rivers, Lee succeeded Lim Kim San as head of the Public Utilities Board (PUB).[14] Together with Tan Gee Paw, Lee—then the head of Singapore's Water Planning Unit—had drafted the country's first water master plan in 1972, which emphasised that Singapore needed to be at least 75 per cent self-sufficient in water. After assuming leadership of the PUB, Lee made the production of reclaimed water one of his top priorities. When the technology became more cost-efficient in the late 1990s, Lee greenlit the construction of a Bedok-based facility that would produce 2,200,000 imperial gallons (10,000,000 L; 2,600,000 US gal) of reclaimed water each day.[15] Mindful that there was a "yuck factor" to reclaimed water, Lee christened the PUB's product "NEWater". As he reasoned, "Something 'new' will always attract attention. The word NEWater is neutral, it doesn't tell you the source of the water."[16]

Later years

Lee left the Ministry of the Environment in 1986 to become Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance's Revenue division, a position that he held until 1989.[2] He was also appointed as a director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in 1986.[17] Lee served as the managing director of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) from November 1989 to December 1997.[18][19]

From 1991 to 1995, Lee was the chairman of Raffles Country Club. He left the civil service in September 1993,[20] but retained his positions at GIC, the PUB, and the MAS.[21] On 1 June 1994, Lee succeeded Andrew Chew as head of the Singapore Civil Service. He was appointed as deputy chairman of the MAS in January 1998,[17] before becoming group managing director in April 1999.[2]

Lee stepped down as head of the civil service on his 66th birthday, 21 September 1999.[13] He was awarded the Darjah Utama Bakti Cemerlang (Distinguished Service Order) in 2000. He retired from public service altogether in December of the same year.[1] At the time of his retirement, Lee was a Staff Grade Administrative Officer—the highest rank in the civil service.[21]

Personal life

Lee is married to Patricia Lee.[2] They have two sons.[22]

Awards and decorations

• Darjah Utama Bakti Cemerlang (Distinguished Service Order), in 2000.
• Pingat Jasa Gemilang (Meritorious Service Medal), in 1984.[23]

Selected works and publications

• Lee, Ek Tieng (January–February 1983). "Energy conservation in Singapore". Energy. 8 (1–2): 137–141. Bibcode:1983Ene.....8..137T. doi:10.1016/0360-5442(83)90018-X.

References

Notes

1. Namely, Chen Hung, Chiang Kok Meng, Loh Ah Tuan, T.K. Pillai, Tan Gee Paw, Tan Teng Huat, Wang Nan Chee, Wong Keng Mun, and George Yeo.[9][11]

Citations

1. Boh 2022, p. 137.
2. Chua 1999, p. 35.
3. Tan, Lee & Tan 2015, p. 10.
4. Ho 2022.
5. Cheong 2019, p. 169.
6. Khalik 1987, p. 12.
7. Cheong 2019, pp. 169–170.
8. Boh 2022, p. 131.
9. Tan, Lee & Tan 2015, p. 33.
10. Boh 2022, p. 136.
11. Lee 2016.
12. Lee 2012, p. 174.
13. Chua 1999, p. 34.
14. Tortajada, Joshi & Biswas 2013, p. 114.
15. Boh 2022, p. 140.
16. Boh 2022, p. 142.
17. Lee 2000, p. 8.
18. Wong 2016.
19. Monetary Authority of Singapore 2021, p. 11.
20. Ibrahim 1993, p. 1.
21. Chan 1993, p. 40.
22. Boh 2022, p. 143.
23. "Service to the community is recognised". The Straits Times. 9 August 1984. p. 5.

Bibliography

• Boh, Samantha (2022). "Lee Ek Tieng: Aquaman". In Peh Shing Huei (ed.). The Last Fools: The Eight Immortals of Lee Kuan Yew. The Nutgraf Books. pp. 126–145. ISBN 9789811843631.
• Chan, Sue Meng (3 August 1993). "Lee Ek Tieng to carry on at MAS, PUB after retiring". The Straits Times. p. 40.
• Cheong, Suk-wai (2019). The Sound Of Memories: Recordings From The Oral History Centre, Singapore. World Scientific Publishing Company. ISBN 9789811208034.
• Chua, Mui Hoong (11 October 1999). "From Mr Rubbish to Mr Reserves". The Straits Times. pp. 34–35.
• Ho, Karen (2022). "Pioneers of Pollution Control". National Heritage Board. Retrieved 2 January 2025.
• Ibrahim, Zuraidah (31 July 1993). "Pay of civil servants to be raised". The Straits Times. p. 1.
• Khalik, Salma (3 September 1987). "10 get their gold medals as PM keeps his promise". The Straits Times. p. 12.
• Lee, Marissa (21 January 2016). "Pioneers lauded for building a clean, safe Singapore". The Straits Times.
• Lee, Kuan Yew (2012). From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1965–2000. Marshall Cavendish. ISBN 9789814561778.
• Lee, Yew Meng (30 December 2000). "MAS deputy to retire". Today. p. 8.
• Tan, Yong Soon; Lee, Tung Jean; Tan, Karen (2015). "Reflections on Singapore's Environmental Journey". In Yong Soon Tan (ed.). 50 Years Of Environment: Singapore's Journey Towards Environmental Sustainability. World Scientific Publishing Company. ISBN 9789814696241.
• Tortajada, Cecilia; Joshi, Yugal; Biswas, Asit K. (2013). The Singapore Water Story: Sustainable Development in an Urban City-state. Routledge. ISBN 9780415657822.
• Wong, Siew Ying (16 February 2016). "What key work does Singapore's central bank do? Find out at the new MAS Gallery". The Straits Times.
• Monetary Authority of Singapore, ed. (2021). Resilience, Dynamism, Trust: 50 Landmark Statements By MAS Leaders. World Scientific Publishing Company. ISBN 9789811250132.