TR EMERITUS

By Chua Mui Hoong from Straits Times MR THARMAN Shanmugaratnam is a gentleman. That was the recurring thought as I listened to his one-hour Budget round-up speech in Parliament yesterday. After three days of debate from 52 MPs, which included heated criticisms even from MPs from his own party, Mr Tharman proceeded to wrap up the debate in a calm, benign manner. His speech was not particularly ground-breaking in vision, but it scored high for repackaging old themes nicely, akin to old wine in new bottles. To recap: MPs had raised concerns on issues that have long persisted on the national agenda: the divide between the haves and have-nots; what being Singaporean means especially in the face of an influx of foreigners; and the need for training to help workers stay relevant in the workplace. All these issues were discussed within the context of the nationwide push to raise productivity. One line of criticism from some MPs was that Singapore's high growth in the last five years, and its attendant open-door policy for foreign workers, had depressed wages at the bottom, widened the wage gap and led to feelings of insecurity among citizens. Workers' Party's Mr Low Thia Khiang and Ms Sylvia Lim, and even NMPs and some People's Action Party (PAP) MPs mused aloud if there was an error of economic management that led to the quick influx of foreigners in the last five years. As the Finance Minister since December 2007 and a member of the Prime Minister's core team since 2004, Mr Tharman could have been expected to launch a typical PAP response to such heated charges, robustly and with no quarter given, reminiscent of the 2003 debate when the Manpower Minister rebutted two academics for saying job growth had gone to foreigners at the expense of locals. Read rest of article on Straits Times  Read More →

By Tan Keng Leng It was reported in the Friday, 19/02/2010 edition of The New Paper that serial sex offender Khairulhizam Din Ahmad had been convicted of robbing a 15-year old girl, hence called “Mariam”, after tricking her into having sex with him. Khairulhizam, who had a string of previous convictions before this, including molesting an 11-year old girl in 2007, stabbing his wife in 1997 and drugging, molesting and robbing an Indonesian maid in 1990, had approached “Mariam” and promised to pay her $400/- for sex. After having sex though, not only did he fail to pay the girl, who cannot be named because of her age, he proceeded to rob her of her schoolbag, which contained valuables worth about $220/-. So why did “Mariam” agree to have sex with him then? According to the report, it was because she was desperate to obtain money quickly so as to buy food for her siblings. Did this happen because her parents didn’t earn enough to support the family? Were either or possibly both of them dead or in prison? The report did not state the reasons for the family’s predicament, nor did it state if the family was on public assistance or had applied for it and were rejected. This was not the first instance where an underage child had sold him/herself for sex. There had been a previous instance where a teenage boy, hence called “Charles”, had prostituted himself on a gay website to earn money to buy designer goods. 5 gay men accepted his proposal; they have since all been convicted for it. Child prostitution and pedophilia will always be present in any society, even the most developed ones with the best social welfare programs. According to news reports, “Charles” did not come from a family in financial difficulties; he was simply materialistic. Khairulhizam’s victim on the other hand clearly came from a family in financial distress, otherwise she wouldn’t be desperate enough to sell herself to feed her family. What Khairulhizam and the 5 gay men did, preying on young children, was shocking and disgusting. Far more shocking and disgusting though is the fact that unlike “Charles”, “Mariam” was not selling herself to buy designer goods her family couldn’t afford; she did it out of love for her family and desperation to feed her siblings. This is something that shouldn’t happen in a First World nation like Singapore, but it did nonetheless. How many other families out there are in similar circumstances as “Mariam’s” family? Are such families on public assistance, or have they applied for it but were rejected? For that matter, are they even aware of the existence of such public assistance programs? When PM Lee announced that GST will be raised from 5% to 7%, he justified it by saying that the money raised will be used for such public assistance programs. However, when PAP backbencher Dr. Lily Neo called for public assistance to be raised by $100/- per month from $300/- to $400/-, MM Lee curtly told her off and said that welfare programs will create a crutch mentality among the needy. When Dr. Neo, one of the few PAP MPs who show genuine concern for the needy and less-fortunate appealed to MCYS Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan to “at least ensure that the poor can afford three meals a day”, he condescendingly asked her “and where do they expect to eat their meals, in a hawker center, foodcourt or restaurant?” The amount was eventually raised by a paltry $30/- per month including 20% CPF deduction. Or in other words, the actual amount of money that the low-income families received was only $324/- per month after CPF deduction. At $324/- per month, this will work out to $64/80 per person per month for a typical family of 5. Assuming that a typical month consists of 30 days, this works out to less than $2/20 per person per day. Given that nowadays, even the cheapest packet of fried noodles or vermicelli from an economic rice & noodle stall costs 80 cents, this means that a person will need a minimum of $2/40 per day to have three meals a day. This is assuming that the person eats nothing but fried noodles three meals a day everyday, something that scarcely constitutes a balanced diet. Exactly how Dr. Balakrishnan, a medical doctor by profession came to the conclusion that $324/- per month is sufficient to ensure three meals a day for truly needy people is a mystery. More unbelievably, while the government refuses to provide a comprehensive social security blanket for needy locals, Dr. Balakrishnan has a kitty worth $10,000,000/- dollars to help foreigners integrate themselves within Singapore. Why the government sees it fit to provide public assistance to foreigners to acclimatize themselves to the country when these people chose to come here of their own free will when it steadfastly refuses to provide anything more than the bare minimum to needy locals is something known only to themselves. Nor is MCYS’ $10,000,000/- budget for integrating foreigners the only benefit they get at the expense of locals. For example, PRC scholars are provided with free English language lessons at taxpayers’ expense so as to bridge the gulf in standards between themselves and locals. Given that English is the fundamental building block of the local education system, this means that the PRC students must be struggling in school and are thus unworthy of their scholarships. Why the government is willing to provide free education to PRC students while doing just the bare minimum for needy locals is something only they can understand. This contradiction becomes even more pronounced when one considers that Dr. Balakrishnan actually told a university student at a forum that foreigners are absolutely necessary because otherwise in 20 years time, locals will need to pay significantly higher taxes to provide just such a social security blanket for the elderly. The question that the students should have asked him at the forum but failed to do so is this: why should locals pay significantly higher taxes for the government to provide a comprehensive social security blanket when they have steadfastly always refused to do so because “it would create a crutch mentality”? Actually, by increasing public assistance by $30/-, this works out to an expenditure of $900,000/- per month more, assuming that there are 30,000 families on public assistance. This will work out to a total of $10,800,000/- more per year, a sum the government can easily afford without having to raise taxes. At the very most, the Prime Minister can always abolish such redundant posts as Senior Minister, Minister Mentor and 1 Deputy Prime Minister. After all, these posts didn’t exist before, proving that they’re entirely unnecessary. This will save $9,000,000/- per year, meaning that the actual increase in expenditure for public assistance programs will be only $1,800,000/- per year. So what exactly was the money collected from the increase taxation used for? Probably to pay for cost overruns on the two integrated resorts; it was definitely used to fund massive pay increments that the government awarded itself. Adding insult to injury, in this year’s Budget, it was announced that GST may rise up to 10% and ministers given a pay increment of up to 8.8%. So what will the extra money be used for, besides increasing their own salaries? According to Finance Minister Tharman Shanmuguratnam, some of the money will be used to retrain locals “to improve their productivity”. Obviously nobody told him that all the retraining in the world is worthless when one cannot get a decent paying job because of low cost foreign workers. The obvious solutions to problems like “Mariam’s” lie in comprehensive social security blankets and poverty alleviation programs. Yet these are the very things that the government refuses to implement because “it would create a crutch mentality among the poor”. This is even more ludicrous when one considers the government openly encourages locals to donate to private charities when this will also create the same sort of “crutch mentality” among them. One cannot help but think that the real problem isn’t the government’s fear of creating a “crutch mentality” among needy locals, but rather their plain refusal to help them. P.M. Lee once said “no Singaporean will be left behind” as long as he is the Prime Minister. He also said “Singaporeans will always come first” for him. One cannot help but wonder if “Mariam’s” parents still believe him after what happened to their daughter.   Other articles by Tan Keng Leng: 1. 10 reasons why Singaporeans will never come first in PM Lee's administration 2. Open letter to PM Lee expressing unhappiness at his pro-foreigner policy  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent After opening the floodgates and allow Singapore to be swarmed by foreigners without any proper screening or planning, Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng is now urging "Singaporeans to be realistic and more tolerant of foreign workers." During his speech on the Budget, Mr Wong said: "Singaporeans need to be realistic and fair-minded. While we want foreign workers to do the less pleasant jobs and contribute to our economy, we cannot also expect them to stay away, during their off days, from public places and shopping malls where we frequent, or not to take public transport to work." The foreign talent and immigration issues have become hot topics of late with many Singaporeans voicing their unhappiness and anger against the ruling party for its misguided policies. Though Singapore needs foreign workers to take up jobs shunned by locals, the onus is on the government to beef up the infrastructure to ensure that it is adequate to accommodate the increase in population. Due to poor planning and lack of foresight, too many foreigners are allowed into Singapore within too short a period of time, leading to overcrowding at public spaces and transport. Mr Wong claimed that foreigners contribute to Singapore's economic growth "which have raised the quality of life for all Singaporeans." According to a UBS report released last year, Singapore has the lowest domestic purchasing power and wages among the Asian Tigers and have a standard of living comparable to Russia. (read article here) It is ranked by the Economist Unit as the 53th best place to live in the world below the likes of Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Australia and Canada. "Economic growth has also enabled us to accumulate reserves in good times, which we have been able to rely on to sustain and support Singaporeans during lean and tough times," he added. Singapore's two sovereign wealth funds Temasek Holdings and GIC was reported to have lost billions of dollars of reserves in failed overseas investments, the exact amount loss remains a mystery to this very day. Mr Wong ended his speech by reminding Singaporeans that "the integration of foreigners and new immigrants is an ongoing journey and takes a long time." "It cannot be rushed. It needs the directive and active involvement of both Singaporeans and new immigrants," he was quoted as saying in the Straits Times. Since this is so, why then did the PAP accept so many foreigners at the same time which makes it even more difficult to integrate them now as they tend to congregate within their own communities? Mr Wong should be more realistic and not expect Singaporeans who are one of the most tolerant people in the world to make unnecessary sacrifices anymore to pay for the juvenile mistakes made by the PAP.  Read More →