There is a rich history of achievements by Chartered Surveyors in Singapore going back as far as the 1880s. Their stories have largely gone untold. This book tells the stories of individual Chartered Surveyors in Singapore over the first hundred years since the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors was founded (1868 to 1968) and explains the role they played in the development of Singapore. The book also includes the stories of the pioneer Singaporean Chartered Surveyors from the 1940s onwards, many of whom studied overseas but returned to Singapore where they would play important roles in the real estate industry over future decades.Related Link(s)

There is a rich history of achievements by Chartered Surveyors in Singapore going back as far as the 1880s. Their stories have largely gone untold. This book tells the stories of individual Chartered Surveyors in Singapore over the first hundred years since the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors was founded (1868 to 1968) and explains the role they played in the development of Singapore. The book also includes the stories of the pioneer Singaporean Chartered Surveyors from the 1940s onwards, many of whom studied overseas but returned to Singapore where they would play important roles in the real estate industry over future decades.

This book discusses the relationship between construction quality and the state of the Singapore national economy, and describes how construction quality is affected as contracting firms strategically manage issues relating to profitability and survivability during economic boom and bust cycles. Adopting a three-pronged approach to explain the key issues, the book first explains the effect of the state of the Singapore national economy (boom or bust) on the construction quality delivered by contracting firms. Secondly, it explains how contracting firms respond to the performance of the national economy through their dynamic bidding strategies, leading to significant quality trade-offs in some instances, especially when there is imprecise market information. Thirdly, it recommends various strategic measures that key stakeholders and government policy-makers can take to circumvent the quality trade-off in the construction industry when faced with dynamic fluctuations in the performance of the national economy. Although the book focuses on Singapore, it appeals to a global audience since countries worldwide (and their respective building-related stakeholders) face the same issues in terms of the time–cost–quality trade-off decision-making process involving the entire supply chain.

In this voluminous Book in a series by the Author on corruption, fraud and economic crime, with indepth analysis, transcending forensic accounting, he brilliantly reveals, with incisive diametrics, irrefutable evidence of criminality, in the construction of Colombo Hilton Hotel by Mitsui & Taisei, Japan, with Architects, Kanko Kikaku Sekkeisha Yozo Shibata & Associates successful civil prosecution by Author led to Japanese writing-off US $ 207 Mn. He establishes beyond reasonable doubt, that original Architectural Plans had been suppressed / destroyed by a staged fire, with amended Architectural Plans surreptitiously substituted being cannibalized Sheets, with incongruous elevations, whereby such Plans could not be approved. Meticulously probing into elevations on Floor Sheets and Cross-Sectional Sheets, which crucial aspect had been overlooked by professional architectural investigations, he proves the shortfall of floors, with the elevations on tampered Sheets bearing tell tale evidence of being identical, with elevations in the cross-sections of the Project Plan, upon which Hilton International formulated Profitability Forecasts, to obtain State Guarantees from Sri Lanka Government, to finance this construction, which was a major fraud perpetrated on the people, rendering such guarantees null and void. Shockingly revealed are perverse endeavours, including by Auditors, KPMG Ford, Rhodes, Thornton & Co., to cover-up this massive fraud, involving upper echelons, with socio-political / international ramifications. Appallingly, criminal investigations were significantly abandoned, on advice of Attorney General. Securities Exchange Commission colluded to cover-up, whilst Chartered Accountants Institute endeavoured to whitewash miscreants. This is a revealingly absorbing Book of real experiences of the Author, in exposing and combating, a despicable fraud on the people, which to him was a crime against humanity, and would be invaluable to investigators and prosecutors of commercial frauds and crimes, and civil society urging equal enforcement of the rule of law.

During this period the industry evolved from an amateurish affair, centred on the cultivation, mainly in Chinese hands, of spices and pepper, sugar and tapioca, into a highly sophisticated and professional one, the mainstays of which were the rubber tree and the oil palm. The period also saw plantation agriculture evolve from an industry whose contribution to the Peninsula's economy was peripheral into one which, for the greater part of the twentieth century, formed its mainstay.