TR EMERITUS

Written by Our Correspondent Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam ended the three day Budget "debate" with a key message to Singaporeans: Singapore cannot do away without foreign workers. He repeated the circular argument mentioned earlier by other PAP ministers like PM Lee Hsien Loong that foreign workers are needed in sectors shunned by Singaporeans: "If we had not brought them in, we would not have been able to ease the supply bottlenecks in the private property markets, build HDB flats, or expand our MRT network,"  he was quoted as saying in the Straits Times. While Singaporeans understand the need for foreign workers to take up manual jobs as such, they are adamantly against foreigners competing directly with them in PMET positios which can otherwise be filled by locals. Mr Tharman seemed to be ignorant of the fact that foreigners are increasingly employed in semi-skilled jobs such as technicians, assistant engineers, managers, administrators, clinic assistants, accountants and customer service executives. He also claimed that "the healthy growth of wages for low wage families from 2006 to 2008 corresponded with the period when the foreign workforce was growing most rapidly." "It was how we were able to offset the decline in wages for our lower-income group that had taken place in the first part of the decade," he added. However, Reform Party's Secretary-General Kenneth Jeyaretnam who graduated with a double first class honors in economics from Cambridge University had already pointed out the error in the statistics used by Mr Tharman in a comprehensive review of the Budget: "The majority of these new residents did not have dependents (hence the much faster rise in the resident labour force than the resident population) and all of them would have had jobs so the proportion of working adults in the average resident household would have risen. As a result we would have seen an increase in real median income per household member without any real increase in the median incomes of Singaporean citizens who were already here before this period began, i.e., the majority of us. Another reason why the Minister’s figure is misleading is that it excludes households consisting solely of non-working persons over 60." [Source: Reform Party: A complacent Budget]  A quick check on the website of the Singapore Department of Statistics reveals only a marginal increase in the incomes of low wage households between the years 2006 - 2008 which do not keep pace with the runaway inflation during the same period. In fact, the median wages of Singapore households decrease by 3 percent last year. According to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, the relentless influx of foreigners into Singapore over the last few years had depressed the wages of ordinary Singaporeans, increased the cost of living, especially that of public housing, decreased labor productivity and led to an overall decline in the standard of living. It is pretty obvious that Mr Tharman remains quite "dissociated from reality" and is unable to comprehend the hardships and sufferings faced by ordinary Singaporeans in their everyday lives. His latest speech is more than sufficient proof that there will not be any reversals in the PAP's liberal immigration and pro-foreigner policies and the latest policy changes are nothing more but a pre-election gimmick to placate angry Singaporeans and to secure their votes. Singaporeans should send a strong message out to Mr Tharman and his colleagues that they are no longer willing to put up with their chicanery and that it is time to put a stop to the continued influx of foreigners which is fast eroding the national identity of Singaporeans and relegating them to being second class citizens in their own country of birth.  Read More →

Malaysiakini, 4 March 2010 Dr Chua Soi Lek today announced his resignation as deputy president, along with seven other central committee members, in a bid to force fresh polls for the top leadership. The seven central committee members include Kong Cho Ha, Tan Chai Ho, Loh Seng Kok, Chong Itt Chew, Gan Tian Loo, Tee Siew Keong and Por Choo Chor. "I hope this will settle the year-long conflict once and for all. I hope everyone will respect the decision of the delegates," said Chua. Coupled with 13 central committee members from vice-president Liow Tiong Lai's faction who have pledged to resign three months ago, Chua's team will thus provide the exact number of resignations needed to fulfill the requirement for the central committee to dissolve itself.Based on the party constitution, the resignation of two-thirds of the CC will automatically trigger fresh polls within 30 days. Chua also urged the party to postpone the annual general meeting scheduled for this Sunday to a later date where elections would be incorporated. Read rest of article on Malaysiakini  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent Workers' Party MP Sylvia Lim became the latest MP to speak out against the PAP's liberal immigration and pro-foreigner policies yesterday after fellow colleague Low Thia Kiang and PAP MP Inderjit Singh. Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Ms Lim reminded the PAP that the ultimate aim of growth "is to improve the welfare of all citizens." Quoting from an article by economist Manu Bhaskaran, she drove home the point that Singaporeans did not benefit much from the rising GDP as "profits took an extraordinarily high 46 per cent of GDP, almost half of which went to foreign-owned companies." The quality of life for many had also fallen in the last five years due to escalating business costs, influx of foreigners and sky-rocketing prices of properties. "While I agree that we need foreigners to augment our population and talent pool, the pace and scale of the influx in the last few years was wrong," she added. When Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong assumed his position in 2003, he announced an ambitious plan to increase Singapore's population to 6.5 million people by 2030. All of sudden, the floodgates were flung open without warning and Singapore became swarmed by foreigners from all over the world, especially China and India. Foreigners now make up 36 per cent of Singapore's population, up from 14 per cent in 1990. Of the remaining 64 per cent who are citizens, an increasing number are born overseas. Because too many foreigners are let in within too short a period of time, we are now experiencing headache on how to integrate all of them. Ms Lim also warned that the rising income gap between the rich and the poor could reduce social mobility: "We should not dismiss increasing inequality as inevitable.....If inequalities in Singapore continue at such levels, we should seriously question whether our policies of promoting equality of opportunity are really working," she said. Her speech drew a sharp rebuttal from PAP MP Halimah Yacob who shot back: "The greatest dignity that we can give anyone is the dignity of having a job." Ms Yacob failed to realize the fact it is pretty pointless to have a job which does not ensure one a decent standard of living. The duty of a government is not simply to provide jobs but to improve the welfare and quality of life of its people. Her stance echoed that of PAP's octogenarian leader Lee Kuan Yew who said during a Kent Ridge Ministerial Forum last year that the widening income gap is of little significance so long the government continues to "create jobs for Singaporeans." In a later interview with the National Geographic magazine, he added that it is a "good idea" for Singapore to welcome many Chinese immigrants as they are more "hard-driving" and "hard-striving" than locals. Though PAP leaders have tried to sing a different tune lately to assure Singaporeans that the inflow of foreigners will slow down to placate them, it is highly unlikely that they will make wholesale changes to their policies so long they remain in power. New citizens are crucial to shore up their flagging support base in order for the PAP to retain its political hegemony. As Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong admitted, there will be no "U-turns" on the PAP's pro-foreigner policies and the number of foreigners may actually increase in the next few years. At the rate the PAP continues to mass import foreigners into Singapore, it is only a matter of time before native Singaporeans are relegated to being second class minorities in their own countries with the males having to serve two years of National Service to protect the new citizens, PRs and foreigners.  Read More →