TR EMERITUS

Every candidate claims that they will do their best to serve Singapore and make life better for Singaporeans. But words are empty. It is the actions that matter most to Singaporeans. Below is the most critical problem facing Singapore today. Can the candidates please tell us what they are prepared to do to help Singapore over this crisis? The Root Cause of Many Problems What do the following problems have in common? 1. High cost of living 2. Failing economy 3. Insufficient Central Provident Funds (CPF) 4. High number of low-skills foreign workers 5. Inability to implement the minimum wages scheme 6. Low fertility rate All the above issues are problems caused by the Asset Enhancement Programme. Background In the early 1990s, PAP started the Asset Enhancement Programme. HDB flats were upgraded with promises of price appreciation on the upgraded flats under the Asset Enhancement Programme. The scheme was tied to the General Elections in that upgrading priorities were given to precincts with higher PAP vote-share. From 1990s, land costs are incrementally increased and factored into the sales of the new HDB flats. Since old HDB flats were transacted relative to new HDB flats, the prices of the HDB flats were given additional upwards momentum pushes. Housing prices appreciated tremendously during the few decades from early 1990s till recently. However, the wages of the Singaporeans did not increase at the same pace over the same period. To get some sense of situation, the prices of a 5-room HDB flat in Marine Parade cost less than 200 thousand back in the 1980s. The same flat costs close to 1 million today, that is, the prices have appreciated by about four or five times. In comparison, the wages of most Singaporeans hardly doubled over the same period. As of this moment, Singapore properties are now one of the most expensive in the world and beyond the reach of the average Singaporeans. 1. High cost of living The direct impact of high property prices is high rental costs and high business running costs. This directly impacts the cost of living. When we buy a plate of chicken rice from the food court, the stall holder has to pay for the stall rental before his business could even survive, let alone flourish. The stall rental for a food stall in the city area is easily above $6,000 per month. Even if the plate of chicken rice is sold for $5, the stallholder needs to sell 1,200 plates of chicken rice per month, or 40 plates of chicken rice every day, in order to cover the costs of stall rental without taking into consideration of the cost of cooking and the cost of ingredients. In simple terms, much of the $5 we pay for the plate of chicken rice goes into the stall rental as the running costs of the business, not for the actual plate of chicken and rice. After taking into consideration of all the overheads, only a small percentage of the $5 goes into the profit margins of the chicken rice stallholder. Repeating the same line of argument over all other business, the running costs of each and every business that need to operate on a physical premise increase exponentially since all business must first pay for their own rental and also pay for other business rental (whom they need their services or goods) before they can break even and start making profits. In particular, the construction businesses take a double whammy effects on property costs. Their need to increase the costs of their construction services (to run their own business) increase the building construction costs and hence the final property prices, which further push up the cost of living for everybody else. With every business jacking up the prices of their own goods and services to ensure survival, the final victims are the average Singaporean citizens, the end consumers of the goods and services. So not only we have to pay a lot more to stay in a HDB flat, we also need to pay a lot more for our daily goods and services. It is not surprising that Singapore is currently the most expensive country in the world for the last few years. To make matter worse, PAP further increases the cost of living by increasing GST, electricity prices, water prices, town council fees, transportation costs, ERPs, airport taxes, university fees, property taxes, parking charges, carbon taxes, sugar taxes, etc. 2. Failing economy Along with the huge costs of living, employees in Singapore demand higher pay to cope with the increased expenditure. This creates an oxymoronic situation within the Singapore society. Most Singaporeans will claim that their pay is not enough to handle the daily living expenses and can hardly make ends meet, which is quite true. Many newly married couples have to use double income to finance 30-year loans on medium-size HDB flats, with little spare monies to save for raining days. And these are the lucky ones! Non-graduate married couples usually slough and live from-hand-to-mouth every day. Some of these poor families ended up being homeless and resorted to pitching tents by the beaches or in public parks. The government has since forcibly evacuated these “illegal settlers”. The truth is that the cost of living is so punishing that the poor in Singapore can no longer afford homes. Nevertheless, the demand for higher wages takes a toll on the economy. Singapore is a small country and faces massive competitions from many neighbouring countries. In the past, many foreign investments came into Singapore because the standard of education was generally higher (which translate to more skilled workers) and the operating costs were reasonable. Over time, other countries have caught up on the level of education and have similar, if not better, skilled workforce than Singapore at much cheaper costs. So while Singaporeans are complaining that wages in Singapore are low and unable to sustain daily living, foreign companies feel that wages in Singapore are too high and that they can get better values with the same costs for their operations elsewhere. Over the last 10+ years, many foreign companies relocated their operations from Singapore to cheaper locations elsewhere. At the end of the day, companies seek to maximise their own profitability and are not charity organisations. This has resulted in unprecedented number of PMET retrenchments and many families falling into economic hardships. Many white-collar jobs have disappeared in Singapore and these jobs have relocated in cheaper locations elsewhere, never to be seen here again. This can be analysing the pre-Covid-19 GDP growth rates of the neighbouring countries in Asia as well as around the world. This issue has nothing to do with the need to upgrade skills for the new economy. No matter how one attempts to upgrade his skills, there will not be any jobs at the end of the tunnel. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has worsened the situation in Singapore. When the pandemic is over, our neighbourhood countries are likely to recover fast but Singapore is likely to remain in the dunes because companies are likely to setup new operations in cheaper locations. 3. Insufficient Central Provident Funds (CPF) As the property prices rose over the years, they became more and more unaffordable to the general public. As of this moment, property prices in Singapore are currently one of the most expensive in the world. Over the past few decades, the Asset Enhancement Programme led Singaporeans into the delusion that the values of HDB flats will always appreciate. The delusion was fuelled by senior ministers making guarantees that the values of HDB flats would always increase and backed by massive payouts during en bloc acquisitions of old flats by the government. Over the years, some Singaporeans deliberately bought flats in matured estates with the hope that they could get a windfall when the government called for en block acquisitions. To allow Singaporeans to pay for the HDB flats, the government has allowed Singaporeans to use their Central Provident Funds to finance the mortgage payments. Unfortunately, this has the effect of letting the HDB prices spiralled even higher. And it also means that a lot of Singaporeans’ CPF were depleted by the time Singaporeans finished paying off their 30-year mortgage loans. To compound the problem, this usually occurs when they are already in their late 50s or early 60s when they were no longer in the prime of their working lives. Hence, most senior Singaporeans do not have enough CPFs for retirement because much of the CPF have been used up to pay for their housing. All these turned to nought when Lawrence Wong announced that 98% of all HDB flats will be returned to the government at zero costs upon expiration of the 99-year lease. Many middle-aged PMET Singaporeans were trapped because they could not even sell off their HDB flats, as there were basically no buyers of old HDB flats while they lost their jobs during the economic downturn, even before the start of the current Covid-19 pandemic. In the process, their CPF were depleted and they are likely to outlive their old HDB flats, putting them in a precarious position of not having jobs, not enough retirement money and no place to live in their old ages. And this is assuming that they are able to withdraw all their money from their CPF accounts in their old ages. 4. High number of low-skills foreign workers One of the consequences of the high cost of living is the need to import foreign workers into Singapore, particularly for low-skills workers. Over the years, the number of low-skills foreign workers has grown to more than 1 million, which is more than a third of the population of Singapore backed in early 1990s when the Asset Enhancement Programme was first conceived. One of the reasons is that Singaporeans are no longer able to support their families working as low-skills workers. The wages are too low to handle the cost of living. Paradoxically, some of the essential-services companies need to lower the wages of the low-skills workers, which they need to employ in large numbers. Thousands of low-skills workers are needed for the daily rubbish clearing operations or for the construction of buildings and facilities. Employing low-skills at low wages is not a choice, but a necessity for business survival. While the number of foreign workers is huge by any account, they are hidden from the general public through accommodations in cramped dormitories. The main difference between the foreign workers and the low-skills Singaporeans is that the former do not need to pay for rental or housing mortgage. Hence, foreign workers are able to get by with low wages (by Singapore standards), although their wages are comparatively high when compared to their country living standards. The difference is the resultant of the extreme high cost of living in Singapore. Nevertheless, foreign workers are not totally exempted from the effects of the high cost of living. Dormitory operators have to procure the land space to build the dormitories at very high costs, though the costs will be split over the number of foreign workers. To cover the overhead costs and to maximise their own profitability, dormitory operators squeeze in as many foreign workers as possible in the most cramped and unhygienic conditions, while Singaporeans are blissfully unaware of the pathetic living conditions of the foreign workers. Incidentally, the current Covid-19 outbreak is the resultant of the need to accommodate as many foreign workers as possible in the dormitories. Once any worker was infected with Covid-19, the cramped and unhygienic living conditions were just fertile fields to allow Covid-19 to spread like wildfires. 5. Inability to implement the minimum wages scheme Paradoxically, the high cost of living prevents Singapore from implementing a minimum wages scheme to protect the lower income Singaporeans. In fact, implementing a minimum wage scheme in Singapore will further collapse the economy and hasten Singapore into depression. As discussed earlier, even as of today, the cost of living in Singapore has led to the need for high wages. The entire Singapore economy is dying with many companies relocating to cheaper locations, resulting in more and more people losing their jobs. If one thinks about the issue of minimum wages scheme, there should not be any wage differential between local workers and foreign workers for the same amount of work done. This means that implementing a minimum wage will necessarily lead to wage increase of more than 1 million low-skills foreign workers. The cost of all the current low-skills work that depend on cheap labour will escalate upwards and will push the cost of living in Singapore to way beyond the current level (which is already the highest in the world). The entire economy will collapse into a great depression. 6. Low fertility rate The ever rising cost of HDB flats from the Asset Enhancement Programme has led to flats being built smaller and smaller over time, with less privacy and personal space for each family member. The physical living condition is not conducive for large family living since every additional family member will further cramp the limited family living space. At the same time, the high costs of living also discourage family from wanting to start having children. One can of milk powder easily over $50, which is a huge burden on poor families who may be struggling with their daily living expenses. Even without the burden of having children, both members of the married couples often need to work to get double income in order to sustain the daily living expenses of the household. When babies are born, the married couple does not get to enjoy the bliss of having children in the family. On the contrary, they need to work even harder to provide more income to offset against the higher living expenses. The baby bonus did not help since the parents have to add money into the baby account, and the money are locked away into the child’s account and will eventually be transferred to the CPF account. The children are usually looked after by the maids or by the grandparents while the parents are busy working to earn a living. The companions to the children are usually mobile phones or computer tablets during their growing years. This issue was further compounded by the Singapore elitist education system, whereby the academically strong students were given privileges and opportunities whereas academically weak students were simply left behind. This breeds an unhealthy culture whereby a high proportion of children attended tuitions in order not to lose out in the ever suffocating rat race. Some families spend close to a thousand dollars on tuitions per child. Over time, families simply choose not to have children so as not to be stressed out by the high costs of living or choose to have only one child so as to focus the effectiveness of their financial resources. Final Note Despite these teething problems of the Asset Enhancement Programme, one cannot simply lower the costs of HDB flats immediately. Doing so will collapse the entire property market immediately and many banks will serve notifications to mortgagees to top up the shortfalls of their bank loans. If anything, many people have lost their jobs in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and it is likely that a significant number of families will not be able to continue their mortgage instalments. It is likely that many families will need to downgrade their houses and this may cause property prices to collapse. Compounded by the need to pay interests for any CPF usage for funding the mortgage instalments, the sale of some properties may incur negative cash flows. This is a very serious issue facing Singapore. If the candidates are sincere to serve Singapore and make life better for Singaporeans, can they please tell us what they are prepared to do to help Singapore over this crisis? If the candidates are not aware of the above issue or have not thought out how the issue should be addressed, then there is really no need to tell Singaporeans how sincere they are sincere to serve Singapore and make life better for Singaporeans. How is it possible for any candidate to serve Singapore if they do not even know what is one of the most pressing issue that Singaporeans are facing? It is merely empty talks. Let Singaporeans will know who they can and should cast their votes for.   Celest Lee      Read More →

When I talk to people in Taiwan or overseas about Singapore's election and the GRC system, the response I get is always - this is weird. How can you vote for people in a group. Simply, the GRC is not normal. It is not democratic. The GRC system is a tool to cripple democratic institutions. In Taiwan, and other true democracies, when people vote, they expect to know what the individual candidate that will work for them stands for. They want to know his or her policies. You simply cannot do that to a candidate who is parked under a group. When you are forced to vote for a group, then you are not voting in a democracy. Voting for a group in a GRC is like a company telling you, if you want to buy product A, then you have to buy product B, C, D, and E. You might not know if these products are useful or if they can even do their jobs, but you are forced to buy them. You might even throw all these extra things away later, but you still have to waste money to buy them. But is voting in an election like buying things in a supermarket? Is voting in an election a gamble at a casino? Voting in an election is a serious issue because you are selecting one individual who will represent you, and one individual who will bring your concerns into parliament and fight for you. But when people you are forced to vote for are then given a free pass into parliament, there is little reason why they need to speak up on you. If they are riding on the coattails of others to get into parliament, they were not tested, nor do they have a responsibility to bring your views into parliament. The stories by the new PAP candidates about how they have gone through a long journey to become who they are and how they can empathize with us, the stories about how they say they will speak up for us, these stories are not new. These stories help them win elections, but we have already seen PAP candidates in 2011, 2015, and even further back who have used these stories. But have things changed in Singapore? Elderly Singaporeans still cannot retire. And in fact, Singaporeans continue to pay for one of the most expensive out-of-pocket healthcare and universities in the world. Even fees Singaporeans pay for polytechnics are as expensive as universities in some other advanced countries. We are giving free passes to people who say they will speak up for us, but in the end, the policies have remained largely the same under the PAP. So, why are we giving them free passes? On the other hand, there are some very good candidates from the opposition. Now, they too have stories of the hard work they have put in, and of the work they have done for others to help and support others, they too say they will speak up for Singaporeans. In the past, we dared not vote for them in the last few elections. But have things become better because we feared? Are we ready to vote for parties and candidates that not only say they want to help, but have actual ideas and solutions to do so? I urge Singaporeans to take a look at the manifestos and policy proposals of the other major parties, like The Workers' Party, Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) and the Progress Singapore Party. Take a look at their proposals to improve the livelihoods of Singaporeans, and take a look at how they plan to get there. While PAP's manifesto rehashes policies already in existence, these parties have proposed how to improve on and expand on current policies in Singapore. Stop giving free passes to people who ride on the coattails of others to get into parliament. Stop voting for people who think they have trapped you with the GRC system, and make you think you have no choice but to vote for them. The system is devised in such a way to manipulate our fears, to make us think that we do not have a choice. But you do have a choice. The major parties have assembled their best candidates into the GRCs, the GRC system is stacked against them, and it is unfair. And to fight the system, the major parties have put in their best candidates. While it might look like the candidates in the opposition are new, do you know that 33.3% of the PAP's candidates are new too? Do you also know that about 40% of the candidates only entered politics in 2011 and 2015, many of whom have not spoken up much for Singaporeans? In total, do you know that the PAP is fielding more than 70% of candidates who are either new or only entered politics recently. You are therefore faced with a PAP today with very little track record. In the past, we were told to vote for PAP because they have a "track record". But this election, a majority of them have retired and what is left is a new PAP which has not proven itself. Given that, this doesn't make them any different from the opposition. In fact, candidates from the other major parties hail from international MNCs, have proven themselves doing social sector work and were/are also civil servants and academics. So, you do have a choice. You do have a choice to vote for people who say they will speak up for you, and who will mean it - people who have done the work. As The Workers' Party slogan says, make your vote count this election. Make this election one that will work for you - one where you can hold the candidates you vote for accountable. Make it one where you will not be threatened, but where you will have the power to hold those you elect into government listen to you.   Roy Ngerng      Read More →

The Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (Pofma) Office has issued a correction direction to the Facebook page of the Peoples Voice (PV) party over a video containing a false statement about government spending on foreign students. The Pofma Office also issued another correction direction to the YouTube channel of PV's Secretary-General, Mr Lim Tean, where the video was also posted. In the video in question, Mr Lim had said: We spend a quarter of a billion dollars providing free education for foreigners every year. However, the alternate authority for the Minister for Education (MOE) said that Mr Lim's statement is "false and misleading". According to Factually: This is false and misleading. The Ministry of Education (MOE) does not spend a quarter of a billion dollars to provide free education for foreigners every year. While MOE (Education Ministry) spends about $238 million on foreign students a year as stated in a parliamentary reply on 5 August 2019, the significant majority of these students are still required to pay fees higher than those of local students and/or fulfil a bond obligation after graduation. The latest correction directions issued on Thursday (2nd Jun) is the first of its kind to be issued to a political party and candidate contesting in a General Elections, although it is Mr Lim's second correction direction from the Pofma office to date. The first correction direction was over a post on Ms Ho Ching's yearly remuneration as CEO of Temasek Holdings, which was rumored to be about $100 million. Mr Lim has indicated that he intends to fight the initial correction direction in court. . Please join our official Facebook page here and Twitter here. Do also invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Kindly note that both our Facebook and Twitter pages are updated in real-time via APIs, synced to our main website. No living human beings are manning the pages and they are still undergoing feasibility testing.      Read More →