TR EMERITUS

In the Sunday Times report of 27 June 2010 "SMRT: Tighter security will not mean higher fare", SMRT CEO Saw Phaik Hwa was reported to have said: “People can board the trains – it is whether they choose to.” She also claimed that even at its most crowded, a SMRT train carries 1,400 passengers, which is lower than its crush load of 2,000 passengers. A dismayed Singaporean Chia Ser Huei wrote in to the Straits Times Forum to question Ms Saw's unhelpful response to the question of overcrowding. While the fact is that there are many stations where passengers are unable to board the trains at all during peak hours, Ms Saw is sticking to SMRT's oft-stated view that passenger numbers are acceptable. It is not a matter of choice, but whether commuters can get in without the train doors closing on them. As it is, passengers have to frequently skip an overcrowded train several times before finding one with standing space. Tempers flares are not uncommon among commuters at these times. In addition, it is misleading to cite passenger load figures in other cities to justify SMRT's train load figures and attempt to close the matter. For instance, trains in Hong Kong are more spacious and have more carriages than SMRT trains. Ms Saw's comments seem to show her disinterest in transit operations or she thinks that Singaporeans can easily be fooled. Many Singaporeans have complained that the frequency of MRT trains has dropped after the CEO joined SMRT in 2003. In the past, passengers never had to wait more than 3-4 mins for a train. The train frequency for off-peak hours is now 7-8 mins, and this is even so in the weekday evenings and weekends whereby the trains are packed. Ms Saw has been credited with the rental of MRT station space to retailers to boost the SMRT's non-transit income. Under her, SMRT reconfigured MRT station space to be rented to retailers. The Malaysia-born Singapore Permanent Resident was previously with retail chain DFS until she was retrenched by the company in 2002. Ms Saw was paid $1.67 million in 2009, making her the highest-paid CEO that SMRT Corp has ever employed. Excluding share options, Ms Saw's package last year came up to $1.43 million. Her deputy, Mr Yeo Meng Hin, who worked under Ms Saw at DFS and joined the company together with her in 2003, took home $970 thousand. Compared to the year before, Ms Saw's package was 7.1 per cent higher while Mr Yeo's grew by 13.3 per cent. This outstripped the 6.3 per cent growth in SMRT's total wage bill over the same period. It would appear that with its monopolistic power arising from the lack of direct competition from other transport operators, SMRT does not need to worry about the welfare of its transit customers, and just focus on cutting cost on its transit operations.   Edmund Khor  Read More →

Relief cabby Mr Teo Kian Seng was let off with only a $2,000 fine on Monday for "threatening" his PAP MP Lee Yi-Shyan. The perpetrators of such offences are usually punished with a jail term in the past. Mr Teo had gone to see Lee in March about a $100 fine slapped on his mother who is working as a rag-and-bone woman for the clutter left outside the flat. He was unhappy that the officers from East Coast Town Council have been rude to his mother. Instead of providing a listening ear, Lee appeared to be unempathetic to Mr Teo's grievances and asked him how "he could expect others to be polite to him when he was rude to them." Stung by Lee's callousness, Mr Teo then reminded Lee in Mandarin nonchalantly about the Seng Han Thong incident last year and said he hoped "history will not repeat itself again." According to Mr Teo, he was not rude to Lee and neither did he raise his voice at him. Obviously traumatized by Mr Teo's remarks, Lee made a police report immediately and Mr Teo was arrested by the unusually efficient Singapore police on 3 March. The police will most likely ignore such trivial reports had the complainant been a "lesser mortal." The case sparked a massive furore in cyberspace with many netizens lampooning Lee for being "unreasonable", "petty" and "paranoid". It is a common complaint among Singaporeans that PAP MPs are getting more and more aloof, callous and out of touch with the people in the street. They behave like "little emperors" lording over the people they are supposed to "serve" as mere subjects with scant regards to their predicaments and feelings. Lee is paid $14,000 monthly by Singapore taxpayers for his part-time job as a MP. In contrast, Mr Teo and his aged mother may have to starve because of the $2,000 fine imposed on him for a rather innocuous off-the-cuff comment which hurt the ego of the "holier than thou", "whiter than white" higher mortal first-term PAP MP.   Editor's Note: According to our informant, Mr Teo has already paid the $2,000 fine on Monday. We thank you for your concern.   Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us  Read More →

Barely a week after making his latest "forecast" about the future of Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort, PAP strongman and Singapore's foremost "forecaster extraordinarie" Lee Kuan Yew has dispensed his usual "pearls of wisdoms" to his subjects again. Speaking at a dialogue hosted by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy yesterday, the octagenarian leader gave a lecture to his audience on how he transformed Singapore from "third to first world." "The problem is to get your people to support the policies which you have implemented. The technology is there, you can buy it, you can do it yourself, but if your people do not cooperate and fit into the First World structure, it will not succeed. It depends on the amount of discipline they are prepared to observe," he was quoted as saying in the Straits Times. Lee also touched a raw nerve when he hit out at Malaysia for "squeezing" Singapore when the two countries became separated in 1965 due to political differences: "The day we became separate from Malaysia, we knew one day they would squeeze us. We set out systematically to exploit every drop of water from the sky. So today, three quarters of the island is a catchment. By the next decade, the whole island will be a catchment," he exclaimed. It is not known if Lee's choice of words will strain bilateral ties with Malaysia again. He ended his speech by admitting (rarely) that he is unable to predict what will happen in 10 years' time. "How would I see this place 10 years from now - you got to ask the present generation. They know better. I'm in my 80s and not very good at high tech, and that is what is going to change the world." At 86 years of age, Lee is probably the oldest living MP and minister in the world. Though by his own admission, he is not doing much work lately except "forecasting", Lee continues to be in the public spotlight - he appears in the mainstream papers once every few days, more than any minister. Lee's "forecasting skills" do not come cheap to Singaporeans though they are almost always wrong. He is paid more than $3 million dollars a year, more than 5 times the annual salary of U.S. President Barack Obama. Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us  Read More →