The Civil Servant in Charge of Clean and Green Singapore, Lee Ek Tieng

Samantha Boh
So, you can imagine the street hawkers slaughtering chickens, and the feathers and the blood just flowing into [the Singapore River]. We didn't have proper sanitation back then. No flushing toilets near the Singapore River. So, very convenient if you needed to do your business, you just did it in the Singapore River. And of course, the oil from the boats and all that. So, there was just a lot going on, and it was extremely dirty. 

Early on, Lee Ek Tieng and his team realised that, okay, you need to do it systematically, right? Being the engineer that he is. So, the first thing they did was to figure out, okay, who are these people using the Singapore River? And of course, they came up with a huge list. I think there were altogether, there were definitely, you know, tens of thousands of individuals using it. 

Jimmy
Tens of thousands. 

Samantha Boh
Yeah. 

Jimmy
That’s a big number. 

Samantha Boh
Yes. So, after they figured out, okay, you know, there are all these people, there are also the pig farmers. Because the thing is, it’s not just at the Singapore River, right, because the waterways flow there. So even upstream, there were people using it. 

[Music playing] 

Jimmy
You’re listening to BiblioAsia+, a podcast produced by the National Library of Singapore. At BiblioAsia, we tell stories about Singapore’s past. Some familiar, others forgotten, all fascinating. 

The Singapore River is now a place where fish thrive, where otters frolic, and where people actually swim in as part of a triathlon leg. For those of us of a certain age, though, this is a miracle. We remember a time when the Singapore River was much more closely associated with dead things floating in it, rather than live things swimming in it. 

When the stench from the river was its most prominent feature, the Singapore River cleanup was mooted by founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, but making it happen fell on the shoulders of a group of civil servants led by the young, then Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of the Environment from 1972 to 1986. The Singapore River clean up was not his only achievement during his long service to the nation, which reached its pinnacle when he became the head of the civil service. 

Among other things, he was also instrumental in overhauling our sewage system and our method of dealing with the trash that is collected daily. The life of this remarkable man is captured in a book entitled Lee Ek Tieng: The Green General of Lee Kuan Yew. It was written by Samantha Boh, Pearl Lee and Matthew Gan. 

Today we have Samantha in the studio with us to talk about the life of this pioneering civil servant. Morning, Samantha. Welcome to the BiblioAsia+ podcast. Thanks for coming on the show. How are you? 

Samantha Boh
I’m good. Good morning. 

Jimmy
Do we call you Samantha or Sam, or what would you prefer? 

Samantha Boh
Sam? Sam. Samantha is just a bit long. 

Jimmy
People with three syllables in their name tend to contract it. So, Sam is good. You and two other people, your colleagues, have written a book about Lee Ek Tieng, but maybe for the people who don't know, give us a little bit more about Lee Ek Tieng. Who is he? And why should we care about him? 

Samantha Boh
So, everyone knows Lee Kuan Yew? Our founding father. Singapore wouldn’t be what it is today without him. 

Jimmy
And the other guys as well, right? 

Samantha Boh
Exactly. So, he was supported by his cabinet ministers, and those men are well known. We know their names. But of course, he was also supported by the civil service. And I guess you could say that the civil service was sort of the engine that drove the efforts that allowed him to bring his vision into reality. 

And in the 1970s and 80s, there were these eight men who seemed to be very powerful, because they sort of together controlled the entire civil service and they were given the nickname The Immortals. And one of the men was Lee Ek Tieng. He spent, I guess, about 50 years in the civil service, and much of it was actually in the Environment. He started as an engineer in the Sewerage Department. 

But when it came to leadership roles, the first was, head of the anti-pollution unit. Then after that, he was permanent secretary of the Ministry of Environment, chairman of PPB. In his later years, he went to finance, where he was Managing Director of GIC and MAS. 

Jimmy
Right.

Samantha Boh
And, I guess most people do not know who he is because a lot of his work was behind the scenes. 

Jimmy
Tell us a bit about his background. You mentioned he was an engineer. 

Samantha Boh
Yes. If you go way back, I can tell you more about his earlier years. 

Jimmy
Okay. Yeah. Why not? 

Samantha Boh
Yeah. He was born in Malaya, I think, as with many of our founding fathers. 

Jimmy
Would have been born – 

Samantha Boh
in Malaya. Yes. So, he was the second youngest of eight children, and his father was a Methodist pastor. Mother was a homemaker. So, they moved around Malaysia quite a bit, because of his father's work. So how he ended up in Singapore – it was because they were in Singapore for a Methodist conference just before World War II broke out. So that was how the family ended up here, making a life here. He had said before that he was lucky that when the war ended, he was off school. 

Jimmy
Right. 

Samantha Boh
Because I think for many people in that generation, I think higher education was really not something that came by easily. He has five sisters, and none of them actually went on to tertiary education. Two brothers, only one went to university and eventually became a dentist. So, he was quite fortunate. He went to ACS and later on he went to the University of Malaya. 

Samantha Boh
So, engineering was kind of, I guess a natural route for him because, when he was young, he liked to tinker with things, fix things, you know? And then I guess back then he would know that this is engineering, but that let him down that path. 

And actually, when he just entered university, they didn't have engineering beacuse they – 

Jimmy
Didn't? 

Samantha Boh
Yeah. Those were early days. So, there was only science. So he started, he enrolled in science. Then he thought, “Never mind. In the second year I will switch”. So, in his second year he switched to engineering. And I think, a lot of what he learned, during his time at university, he relied on that as he tackled large projects because I think when it comes to engineering, it's about problem solving. It's about planning, being able to see the big picture, how different aspects of an issue fit together, and how you do different things together to solve a problem. And when you are dealing with huge issues like the clean up, the Singapore River, I think that comes into play. And I think that made him successful in what he did. 

Jimmy
Very. I guess if you're systematic in your problem solving. And you’re not afraid to try and tackle these big issues. We always talk about him in the context of cleaning up the Singapore River, but apart from that, what would you say as some of his key achievements? 

Samantha Boh
Because there are so many. 

Jimmy
Yeah, exactly. Which is, there are so many. We can’t go through all of them because obviously we want people to read your book. But if you had to pick like, apart from the Singapore River, two or three others, what would it be? 

Samantha Boh
Okay. If I were to pick a few to highlight, one of it would be evolution, how he played a key role in ensuring that air pollution doesn’t take root in Singapore. The second would be [the modernisation] of our sanitation system. 

Jimmy
That’s very important. 

Samantha Boh
That’s very important. And I think we definitely benefit from that. You’re right. Yeah. Especially when we travel, I think then we realise that we cannot take it for granted. And the last that I would like to highlight would be, how he put Singapore on the path towards water self-sufficiency. Okay, achievements. On top of the clean-up. You know what I would like to talk about. 

Jimmy
We’ll go through all these three or actually four because we want to talk about the Singapore River. I don’t know how old you are, Samantha but you look very young, and I’m a little bit older than you. The Singapore I remember, is very different from the Singapore of today. Right. And it took 10 years. Is it just picking up little of the surface things and dead things floating on the river? Is there more to it? 

Samantha Boh
I think the main issue they faced was that there were just so many people using the river. So, you had people who were living along the river, or those who were living on the river itself. Then you had the shipyards, the boatyards. You had street hawkers who were playing there. Where? Nearby. So, the thing was that everything was going into the Singapore River so fast. 

Jimmy
Very convenient. 

Samantha Boh
Yeah. It’s so convenient. You throw in, and it’s like out of sight, out of mind, right?

So, you can imagine the street hawkers slaughtering chickens, and the feathers and the blood just flow[ing into the Singapore River]. We didn’t have proper sanitation back then. No flushing toilets near the Singapore River. 

And of course, the oil from the boats and all that. So, there was just a lot going on, and it was extremely dirty. Early on, Lee Ek Tieng and his team realised that, okay, you need to do it systematically. Being the engineer that he was the first thing they did was to figure out who are these people using the Singapore River? And of course, they came up with a huge list. I think there were, altogether, there were definitely, you know, tens of thousands of individuals using it. 

Jimmy
Tens of thousands. 

Samantha Boh
Yeah. 

Jimmy
That’s a big number. 

Samantha Boh
Yes. So, after they figured out, okay, there are all these people, there are also the pig farmers. Because the thing is, it's not just at the Singapore River, because the waterways flow there. So even upstream, there were people using it. So, after they figured out who are these people, they then had to figure out, how do we move them? Because they realised that it was not possible to clean up the Singapore River if the inhabitants continued to use it. 

Jimmy
That makes sense. 

Samantha Boh
It makes a lot of sense. You clean it up, but then the problem will resurface. And, to do that, you had to find better alternatives because you mustn’t forget that. I think as much as it was an engineering problem, it was a social issue because these were people’s homes, people’s livelihoods. And if you [were] going to move them away, you’d have to give them a better alternative. 

So, I think that was a big challenge for him because he had to figure out how do we give them a better proposition? One example would be street hawkers. And they [would] say my business here is good. if you move me to the back, what if my business, my livelihood, is affected? And so, they had to give them a better alternative. And that was [the] hawker centers because they [told] you, okay, at the hawker centre, you have piped water. It’s clean. You have a proper disposal and then, yeah, it’s a catchment. Right. They will make sure of that. Yeah, we will locate it. We will make sure it’s somewhere pleasant for people to visit. So, they had to entice them. I think they managed to do that, of course, with a lot of persuasion. And it was quite a long process because you had to license them as well. 

It was definitely, a lot, I mean, and then when it came to the squatters who were living there, they looked to HDB for help. So, it was about giving them housing, buying flats, for them to move into. And of course, again, you say, you’ll have proper sanitation, you’ll have proper toilets, you’ll have water coming out of your pipes, proper disposal, your rubbish that should be working for you. So I think, it was a lot of persuasion and showing people that there was a better life if you agree to move away from the Singapore River. 

And, the biggest difficulty was, of course, it was not something that the Ministry of Environment could do on its own. 

Jimmy
Exactly. Right. Because they don’t, they don’t run. 

Samantha Boh
Yes, exactly. So, his role was really to coordinate all the different agencies. I think at some point he was probably working with eight to 10 different agencies. 

Jimmy
Wow. 

Samantha Boh
Yes. Because anything to do with boats and ships and all that, they had to work with them. And then pig farmers – there was also another group of people to persuade them, to talk to them: okay, give you another space. So, I think a lot of it [came] down to his personality. People saw it. 

Jimmy
What was his personality like? How did that help? 

Samantha Boh
He was able to see what needed to be done but also realised that there were limits. So he didn’t just push for the sake of pushing. So, okay, if this had to be done, but you [told him] that there’s a difficulty. He knew: okay, maybe now I need to pull back. And that ability to frame the issue and to be able to see different sides and how people, addressed, so I saw that problem. He was able to, I guess you could say, get everyone to pull in the same direction, because they could see that [he understood] the limitations that hit. But you try to find a way to accommodate that. 

And that's how he got everyone to pull in the same direction, and to be able to frame the problem and the outcome, to let people see that, okay, this is where we are going. And the reason for the problem statement, right, how we are going to get there and why is it that I need your help. 

And that ability was definitely something that I think allowed him to orchestrate the clean-up of the Singapore River. 

Jimmy
Okay. So, I have to say you know just, just like I said, I grew up passing the Singapore River quite often and, and it was never a pleasant experience. So the clean-up is a miracle. Another miracle to me is the fact that we now have toilets and we can flush and we don't have to think about where it goes, right, because it just magically disappears. 

But this wasn’t always the case. And, we used to have this lovely term called “night soil collectors”, who were collecting this mysterious night soil. And then now we don’t have them anymore. in your book, you mentioned it was only in the 80s or something, right? 

Samantha Boh
Yes. 

Jimmy
I mean, I’m sure the people who lost their job at night, talk like they found better jobs. 

Samantha Boh
Yeah. So I think they did, when they finally phased it out, they did find other jobs for them. Or I guess back then, I don't know when they [were] retrenched, but when I was doing research, I didn’t realise that, oh, 1990. This is not that long ago. I mean, okay, we are in 2025, but still. 

Jimmy
The hours are still very long. 

Samantha Boh
So when I realised that early in the 1980s, which was just a few years before I was born, that they still had this practice, it was very surprising to me. It was still working, right? Although it was a very messy process because along the way, when they removed a few buckets and replaced with a new one. At that point, when he was permanent secretary of the Ministry of Environment, when he had to deal with this issue, only about 57 percent of the Singapore population was connected to the main sanitation system. 

Jimmy
Okay. So there was something like almost 40 percent. Yeah, just over 40 percent who were not. 

Samantha Boh
Yeah. You did not have flushing toilets, So, what he had to do was come up with a network of underground sewers, and, you can link back to even before that, because, one of his earliest projects was in the construction of a sewerage treatment plant. That was when he was still, I think, in the Public Works Department, before he took on the leadership role. So, he was just an engineer at that point. And after he completed that project, he realised that you couldn’t do it on demand. So it's not as if, okay, this housing estate or this area needs [a] sewerage plan or any sewers, then you build it there, you need to have it in advance. 

You need to take a macro view and see. Okay, where should we be building the sewers, sewage treatment plants and all that. So, he was the one who actually approached his boss and told him, “I think we need a sewerage master plan”. That was in 1969. And before he took on the role of permanent secretary. 

Jimmy
So he actually mooted the idea of a sewerage master plan. 

Samantha Boh
Yes. So he approached his boss and said, “Okay, I think, we cannot build it anywhere whenever we want. Things will definitely come in by us, right?” So, they came up with a plan. I think when it was, sometime in 1970, when he was sort of also given the task to get everyone connected in, I think it was about two decades or so he could fall back on this plan. 

But the difficulty was, of course, figuring out you have this plan, but then you had to go to homes and see that, we have to survey your house, see whether the sewers should be there and people didn’t like it, right? Knocking on the door. Can I come in and look at your house? So, there was definitely some resistance. And there were stories of how his team, some of them were met with gangsters chasing them away, coming to stop them and then some. I think the key area was an area that he faced particular difficulty because they actually had to go, like, under the living room. Drawing room. I guess just because of your structure and the space constraints. So again, it was also a social issue that he had to deal with. And that was one of the difficulties. And of course, I think how he managed to overcome that was, again, I guess to build off people skills, understanding that it's a social issue that you had to talk to people, explain to them why this had to be done. 

And, at the same time, there was a lot of, like, forward planning. Okay, you have the master plan, but at the same time, you need to also keep your ears out there. Is there a new housing estate coming up? HDB would build flats really quickly at that point. So, he always listened – okay, there's the housing estate coming up. We have to be there first. So, they would go there, set the groundwork, make sure that the sewer system was ready before the housing estate came up. In a way, they were always one step ahead of each other. I think that’s how he managed to modernise our sanitation system, which, when I was doing my research, apparently he managed to do five years before the sort-of-deadline he was given by the environment minister, who was then Eddie Baker. 

Yeah. So, I mean, he shows it. And the funny thing is, he was always a very punctual man. I always heard how he would always reach meetings early. And that's why I guess he’s right on character. 

Jimmy
Singapore is now quite wealthy. But it wasn’t always that wealthy. So especially in the early years, when you have limited resources, you had to be very careful about how you allocated those resources, right? Did he have a lot of trouble getting political backing? Because there’s always going to be competing interests on that, right? HDB always wants money to do this. Whatever other ministry wants to do something else. And it’s only a small part of the money. So how successful was he in getting the resources needed to do the things that he wanted to do? 

Samantha Boh
Yeah, you’re quite right. There’s just so much infrastructure that needs to be built, right? So definitely there were a lot of competing agencies, but I think for him, I felt when I was doing my interviews that he had a very strong backing from Lee Kuan Yew himself. 

Because I think Lee Kuan Yew knew that. I mean, he saw what was happening to the countries that developed before us. And, I guess in the pursuit of economic progress, the environment took a hit because I think you kind of push ahead with industrialisation. And so, he didn't want that to happen. And I think because he [had] that foresight to see that, okay, you need to kind of make sure that we [have] all these things in place or, have the proper laws and proper infrastructure in place. Mr Lee Ek Tieng being, sort of, I guess the hands and legs, ensuring that the environment gets transformed. He had the full backing of Lee Kuan Yew. 

Jimmy
Okay. 

Samantha Boh
So, I think that a lot of these proposals definitely had some kind of backing. 

Jimmy
Lee Kuan Yew was also backing competing interests and not just for resources, but for competing goals. [Lee Ek Tieng] had to be up against the EDB, right? He was trying to get companies to come in and tell us about that. 

Samantha Boh
Yeah. So I think one of the, I guess, most difficult episodes for him was involving Japanese firms. Sumitomo. It was a petrochemical firm, and they wanted to set up shop here. And the thing about the process, the conversion process, is that if there’s incomplete combustion, you have these huge orange, black clouds that would likely [form]. And you know what? What you need is you have, so you have hydrocarbons, all kinds of pollutants. So, before they even came here, that was when I was already the head of the anti-pollution unit. They know that you get to get them to adhere to certain regulations or put in place certain sort of anti-pollution, kind of like features within their plan to make sure that you didn’t even have this problem. 

And the solution to this was a ground layer but it would cost money. I think it was like $5 million to do it. And the Japanese said, “It’s expensive; I am actually meeting Japanese safety and pollution required standards”. I guess they did not outright refuse, but they said, “Can you perhaps reconsider”? 

I don't think it’s necessary. And they, like you said, had the backing of EDB. And, what we heard was that, they were like, complaints went straight to EDB and this issue landed on Goh Keng Swee, and I'll go. “Thank you”. Very clever. If he's sitting there, I just leave it to the PM. It was like I knew at the time. And then you can use it. No, you have to listen to APU [anti-pollution unit] and you have to put in the ground. It happened. But I think what this showed is that the anti-pollution unit had teeth, right? Because he had the backing of Lee Kuan Yew. But I think it's also a lot about how Lee [Ek Tieng] approaches issues that involve politics. So, later on and, in his oral history interview, he would say that whenever he faced these issues, he preferred to focus on the work, making sure that things were done. He didn’t want to get involved in these kinds of squabbles that were political. So, he always left it to the political and he felt that was the best way to do it, that, I’m like on the ground, I’m from the civil. So I should focus on that. And then he always let them do it. And in an interview that I had with one of his subordinates who worked under him, he said that [Lee Ek Tieng] would always tell them don’t try to second guess what your big bosses want, just do your work professionally, objectively, and everything else. 

You leave it to them, and then they, well, I mean, they had the last say. But I think at the same time, he also believed that they knew that the environment is important, and he knew that eventually the outcome would not be something that was unfavorable to Singapore’s environment. 

Jimmy
The other thing that you wanted to talk about and that I thought was interesting was, and he said, it was something about water you were saying. So that was one of his achievements that became like 75 percent self-sufficient in water. Did I get it right? 

Samantha Boh
I think about the number of shifts every year. 

Jimmy
But I mean, yeah, certainly at one point, we were importing most of our water and now we are not importing as much. 

Samantha Boh
Yeah. Even now, I guess quite a lion’s share of it comes from Malaysia. And I think, as we all know, water has always been Singapore’s Achilles heel. Because we just depended so much on external sources. So, back in the 1970s when he was at the helm; actually, the interesting thing is that water recycling was something that was considered by Singapore in the 1970s. 

So before we even started developing NEWater. They actually had a demonstration plan, but they realised that it was too costly. So that sort of got shelved. But we don’t only have NEWater, we have for taps, there’s the water catchment, there’s desalination, and, of course, there’s imported water. And then the last one being NEWater. 

So, during his time as Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment. Yes. You had a hand in strengthening each of these taps. There was a point in time in Singapore [there was a] dry spell, Malaysia as well. And people kept talking about all the water levels in this reservoir being very low. So, it was actually built during [Lee Ek Tieng’s] time. And why it's so important is because we tap water from the Johor River. But when the salinity gets too high, we can't quite tap the amount that we want. 

So, the way the reservoir helps is that it regulates the salt levels, which allows us to tap the full amount every day. So, of course, the person who was doing the negotiation was then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. But you can imagine that there will be, of course, the whole civil service, the ministry would have to support him with whatever research or papers and all that. And Lee Ek Tieng. So I would say, he had a hand in that, although he might not have been front facing, people might not have seen his face in the negotiations. So, it was important. So, there was one term and the second one was the catchment. During his time, they expanded and they increased the number of reservoirs which allowed us to collect stormwater. So that’s also another important one, water. Yeah. So he did that and then desalination. Although the first desalination plant only opened, I think, after he stepped down. 

But what I heard from those who are interviewed is that he had a role to play because there were actually some conflicting camps within the ministry or PUB [Public Utilities Board] at that time where, some people felt that recycling water was the way to go, while others felt that desalination was the way to go. But I think he told them that he thought they could go hand-in-hand, that it didn’t have to be one or the other. 

And I mean, eventually, I mean, clearly, what he said stood, we have our taps. We have that. So, although he wasn’t directly involved in the launch of it, but I would say that, ensuring that it both remains an option. I think that’s very important. And of course, the last will be NEWater. 

So, in the late 90s, there have been quite a number of episodes of tension between Malaysia and Singapore about how much we are compensating Malaysia for water, based on the water agreement. I think that made the Singapore government realise that we do really need to think about how we can improve our water resilience, to be less reliant on imported water. 

So that’s when you thought about water recycling again. And so, when they did the demonstration plan, I think it was 1974. So, like 20 years had passed. And then they realised that the technology was way more advanced [now]. So, they sent two civil servants to the U.S. to look at the plans. And then, because they were clearly convinced that the technology had reached a point that it would be something that Singapore could adopt. And. Okay, if you all say it, I trust you. He was convinced and immediately he sent the paper up. He got the funding to build a demonstration plan. And, from records, they said that within two days it was approved, and actually started building something. And, one of them, I spoke to one of the civil servants who was involved, said that Lee Ek Tieng gave him a lot of cover in the sense that people would be poking holes, right? 

Like, okay, this is a new technology. Are you sure it’s going to work? But then, I think sometimes, depending on whether they are supportive of you or not, they might ask questions that might not be very relevant or just to make things difficult. But like he said, Lee Ek Tieng was always there to say, “Okay, let’s just focus on what’s important. Let’s not get emotional, let’s not get personal.” And that was really helpful in helping him to continue his work. And eventually, we had NEWater. 

So I think he put us – I wouldn’t say we are, we are always very careful about saying that we are totally self-sufficient – but it definitely put us on a path towards water self-sufficiency. And I always like to tell this interesting tidbit, about how the name NEWater came about, right? 

Jimmy
Yeah. Tell us. 

Samantha Boh
So, in Australia, they said that residents couldn’t quite get past the fact that although it’s so clean, it actually came from, like, waste water. So he spun off like a marketing, like, impression thing, to ensure that you that it’s successful. It’s not so much that technology itself. He believed that you must not let people remember the origin of where the water came from. There were some ideas. So, like distilled water, recycled water. Not great. 

Right. So then, at a meeting, he said [there] are two very important words in marketing that he learned. New and free. And you cannot say free, right? You cannot give water for free. So that’s why it’s like, okay, new that’s what [we] will use. So that’s why you got NEWater. Then he said, “Okay, now let’s just quickly put it down and then push it” because he didn’t want other people to come in and have another meeting – I think maybe this idea is better. And I think it stuck. Even today I feel that it is really a very catchy name. And it is really something that a lot of Singaporeans still remember? And I mean, now everyone, not everyone, okay, but many people around the world also know about NEWater. Yeah. So, he had a hand in each of the four taps, which I think is very amazing. And being such an important issue for Singapore. I really admire him for that. 

Jimmy
Yeah, I think, water obviously is a very important issue for Singapore and so, I didn’t understand why he was called the Green General, but just talking to you now, it was very clear that he’s made a tremendous impact on Singapore’s environment. The water, the sewage, the Singapore River, which is actually in some ways also related to water.

Right? Because the Singapore River leads to the largest, the Marina catchment area. What’s that called? 

Samantha Boh
The Marina Barrage. 

Jimmy
I think that whole reservoir thing. During the whole research process you mentioned that you spoke to a lot of his colleagues. What did you learn about him from talking to them? 

Samantha Boh
Yeah, we spoke to over 40 people. Apart from his colleagues, including his family. So, his two sons, his grandchildren, as well as, his younger sister, and the reason why we had to focus so much on interviews is because there’s really nothing about him out there. Because he was really someone who shied away from the limelight. 

He preferred to focus on just working. So if you try to look for, like, a speech, or even like, quotes in a newspaper – I actually like newspapers – he had hardly any. I guess maybe it’s also more normal for the minister to usually be the one to front anything, There were probably two or three articles about him; it was when he got awarded with, maybe some medal. Something like that. 

Jimmy
The game piece, tribute. Yeah. 

Samantha Boh
They wrote a profile. So that was really the only time I could get any quotes from him apart from his oral history interview. So, we focused a lot on interviewing the people who worked with him. I guess like, you could quote eyewitness accounts, right? From the interviews you learn how amazing he was, he had his hands in so many of these major projects that transformed Singapore’s environment. 

What really stood out for me was what they said about him as a person. So, everyone would always say he was very down to earth. He was very humble, no airs about him. He might have been the boss, but he would go out for lunch with us. And he never took anything personally. So it’s like, okay, I might score you for the work, but after lunch. So, he could separate that. 

And, I think, another thing was that I could sense this level of, like, loyalty and allegiance towards him. They all said that because he was such a caring boss and a good boss, they wanted to work for him. They wanted to work hard for him. And I think how he also made it a good work environment for them is that he never micromanaged. So, he believed that if I have this person on my team, I trust him. I trust his abilities. I should give him autonomy to be able to carry out his work. So, he’s not going to be the boss that is, like, can you give me an update? Well, I mean, every day asking you for updates. 

There’s also a funny story about how, like I said earlier, he focused a lot on work. He didn’t take anything personally. Right. So, he had this man, Mr. Lee, who worked under him in the department, I think, later on in other departments as well. So, he would go off early, like 30 minutes early, every week on Tuesdays and Thursdays to play golf. And then he would just, like, secretly go on Sunday, [and he] realised that “okay, I’m going to get a shelling from my boss”. Then [Lee Ek Tieng] said it’s okay. See that? What I value is not how long he sits on his chair, but what, the output. So, if you do your work well, do it fast, you can leave 30 minutes earlier. So that was the kind of boss he was. 

And I’ve also heard many stories about how he took an interest in the families of his subordinates. Or if there was anyone who was unwell, he would try to find you, like, okay, maybe you can consider this specialist. An I interviewed his personal assistant, personal secretary, and then she told me that when one of his former colleagues passed away, he told her, “Okay, can you cancel all my appointments for the morning because I want to go to his funeral”. So that was the kind of boss he was. And then she also mentioned that when her mother was ill, he was also, always, like, checking up on her. He said that “if you need your mother to come into the office while you are doing all the work, that’s fine”. But I don’t think she took up the offer, but, so he wasn’t there. So that was the kind of boss he was. 

Jimmy
Okay, what surprised you the most when you were researching him? 

Samantha Boh
What surprised me most, I think, would be what he was like outside of work because there were a lot of funny stories about that. Yeah. So, what I found was that he was a real handyman, like, because he was an engineer. So he never got any help from – like he would not get like a plumber or, like an electrician. Okay, electrician maybe. There have been accounts of how he would be, like, spotted on the roof, fixing the roof. 

Jimmy
All right. 

Samantha Boh
And he had this workbench at home, that is much like the science lab bench that you find in school. And you will have all his tools there. He’ll always be fixing things. And, I think, one of the projects that he did was for his son. His eldest son was young and going to a costume party. So he created a Zorro outfit for him. 

And he was a golfing fanatic. Yeah. I wouldn’t even say just an avid golfer. I think it’s like being a golf fanatic. And then he would be, like, practicing hitting the over the car, like you want that thing. And, at some point, he finally got, like, sand into the house to create, like, I’m not a sand trap. So that he could practice. That’s why there’s just, like, it’s quite interesting to see that. This person who was so successful at work, systematic, meticulous problem solver, then, I was like, oh, well, he’s just like this guy. Interesting guy. Yeah. 

Jimmy
Very well balanced. 

Samantha Boh
Yeah. And, he was a real foodie as well. Lunch time. Okay. Let’s go there and eat. And then of course, the sports part, I think apart from golf, actually, in his early days, he did, like, table tennis, ping pong, and, he would get his children involved, and then they [would] go and, so later when the children were in their teens, they would watch, like the Malaysian Cup. 

And his wife was also very involved. Apparently, the wife was even more enthusiastic about it. Yeah. I think that surprised me. Well, because, sometimes you think like, okay, this person is very successful, probably at home, not much of a life, right? Workaholic. But no, like you said, very balanced. 

Jimmy
Yeah. Very inspiring. I hope to be like that someday when I grow up. You work at Nutgraf and you’ve actually worked on other books, right? 

Samantha Boh
So that was The Last Fools: The Eight Immortals of Lee Kuan Yew. 

Jimmy
What else did you work on? 

Samantha Boh
We just launched just about two or three weeks ago. Okay. And I guess in part to commemorate SG60. Okay. Ten men who signed the Declaration of Singapore. So those are the more known men, right? Rajaratnam. Goh Keng Swee. But of course, we tried to have a little bit of a twist The First Fools [: B-sides of Lee Kuan Yew's A-team]. So the book actually focuses on not their political careers, but something that is less known. So, for Lee Kuan Yew, his stories are about him, like Kuan Yew, the lover. 

Jimmy
I wanted to hear those words together in one sentence. 

Samantha Boh
Yeah, but, you just chose a different side to him, right? Even for him as being this, like, very commanding figure. 

Jimmy
Yes, yes. 

Samantha Boh
But I mean, we always knew that he had, like, a very loving relationship. Yes he did. I think it’s nice to be able to kind of meet the focus. And then, of course, Goh Keng Swee was the economic architect of Singapore, but he was also like a businessman. So, so many of the Singapore business as well, he had a hand in that. So, yeah. So, that’s one of the more recent books. And another book that I did that was also a best-seller was the [The Price of Being Fair:] FairPrice Group Story. So that was really how, I guess there’s a lot about that, how they kind of overcame competition from bigger chains and how they continue with their mission. So, these were some of the books that I worked on. 

Jimmy
I want to thank you for coming on the BiblioAsia+ podcast. To learn more about Lee Ek Tieng please check out Lee Ek Tieng: The Green General of Lee Kuan Yew. It’s a book that was published in 2025. It’s available in the bookstores because we obviously want people to buy books. We want to support the book publishing industry in Singapore, but it’s also available in the library if you want to borrow it. Samantha, thank you for coming on the show once again. And good luck on your next book. 

Samantha Boh
Thank you so much. 

[Music playing] 

Jimmy
If you’ve enjoyed this episode, subscribe to this podcast and the BiblioAsia newsletter. Thanks for joining us on BiblioAsia+.

Samantha Boh, Pearl Lee and Matthew Gan, Lee Ek Tieng: The Green General of Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore: The Nutgraf Books, 2025).

Chia Sue-Ann and Peh Shing Huei, eds., The Price of Being Fair: The FairPrice Group Story (Singapore: The Nutgraf Books, 2023).

Peh Shing Huei, ed., The Last Fools: The Eight Immortals of Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore: The Nutgraf Books, 2022).

Jan Beránek, “In Search of Silvestr,” BiblioAsia (April 2025).

This episode of BiblioAsia Podcast was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Nookcha Films. The background music "Di Tanjong Katong" was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Samantha for coming on the show.

The BiblioAsia Podcast by the National Library Singapore tells stories about Singapore history.