TR EMERITUS

By Hurr Riyahi In the recent fiasco of Paster Rony Tan, it is not unusual to see ISD intervening. It is always either ISD who intervene in cases of any breach or potential breach in race or inter-faith relations. However what is unusual is that if one looks at any developed or civilized countries, there is no other parallel of a security intelligence agency taking such a role. Instead without involving security or enforcement agencies, other countries try to seek resolution using much peaceful and amicable methods. Local governments elsewhere being able to resolve race and inter-faith issues I have seen in many instances in several countries where someone says something unpleasant like Rony Tan or whatsoever to breach the cordiality of race or inter-faith relations. Many a times, the local governments are able to intervene together with community agencies and seek a resolution. Local governments refer to municipalities and in Singapore the equivalent will be town councils. Unfortunately in Singapore, town councils seem to be more interested of garbage collection and investing in mini-bonds even though it is not capable of the latter. The reason why local governments intervene is because they are closest to the issue and often they are able to move in fast together with all the community organizations, community representatives and so on. Then again the other issue is that local governments in civilized and developed countries will not wait for instructions from higher authorities which will be the case if Singapore town councils played a greater role in race and inter-faith relations. Local governments typically also have better staff who are capable of managing issues beyond garbage collection. They also foster close partnerships with community individuals, organisations, places of worship etc. Communities being able to resolve race and inter-faith issues I have also seen communities themselves being able to resolve race ad inter-faith issues. For instance in a case like Rony Tan, if this was happening in a civilized or developed country, one can expect other churches to step in to diffuse the tension. Unfortunately in Singapore we have not seen this. Should instead of Rony Tan, some other priest of some other faith in Singapore had behaved in the same fashion, the respective communities will also not have stepped in immediately. Part of the reason is the fragmentation of the various communities. The reason why other churches didnt intervene is partly because they may have felt it is the problem of the church of Paster Rony Tan and not theirs. Part of the reason is also fear of intervening. Singaporeans are generally fearful of intervening in an issue where they are not the primary person involved. What Singapore needs is not the empowerment of politicians, ministries, statutory boards, government agencies etc but none of these can really solve a race or inter-faith issue. The police and ISD can at the most disrupt the issues but not resolve such issues. What instead is required is empowerment of the communities in Singapore. The next time an issue such as what we have seen repeats, the first person to intervene should be the various churches together with temples. If at this day and age if Singaporeans are not capable of such amicable resolution to such issues and instead are only capable of brawls, shouting matches and confrontations, then we as a society are only half human in nature. Politicians should play a more active role It was funny to see there has been only the MInister of Home Affairs speaking on the issue and that too because ISD intervened. Instead all the MPs have gone into hiding. They should be the ones stepping forward to diffuse the tension. They should not try to control how the issue should be resolved but instead act as mediators bringing the various community individuals, institutions etc together to the resolution table.  I used to live in one municipality where the MP will organize community parties at the house of my friend who is a respected member of community.  Whenever there is any issue involving the community, MP will contact and communicate majority of the key community members within an hour and resolve any issue fast within days or weeks. The fact that no MP in Singapore intervened shows they lack the confidence to manage race and inter-faith issues in Singapore. What they are capable of is only passing consitutency walkabout statements about need for harmony blah blah blah. They are absolutely useless in diffusion of tension and achieving amicable resolution of conflicts. ISD is a security agency, in essence Essentially ISD is a security agency. They should be intervening in issues where someone is planning to disrupt the security of the country. Pastor Rony Tan was not at all planning anything like that. He should not have received a call from ISD at all. Instead he should have received a call from his local MP who should have coordinated with his town council and other churches and temples. Many issues can hypothetically escalate to threaten public and national security and ISD shouldnt be a paranoid freakish organisation intervening in all such hypothetical cases. They should intervene in very clear categorical cases. Instead other necessary agents of society such as stated above should be the ones intervening.   Other articles by Hurr Riyahi: >> Security threat posed by foreigners versus Muslims >> How often is there tolerance in Singapore or Malaysia   Related articles: 1. What LKY said to Archbishop Gregory Yong in 1987 2. Is it really necessary for the ISD to deal with Pastor Rony Tan? 3. Public anger against Rony Tan fast turning to PAP 4. Rony Tan’s Facebook closed after being flooded with comments from netizens 5. Rony Tan’s views on homosexuality 6. Perceived double standards in the application of Sedition Act 7. Facebook group set up to demand punishment for Rony Tan 8. VIDEO: Pastor Rony Tan’s comments on Buddhism 9. Hardwarezone forumers up in arms over Pastor Rony Tan’s remarks 10. Pastor Rony Tan issues public apology on his remarks about Buddhism  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent In a letter to the Straits Times Forum yesterday, Myrna Thomas, the Managing Director (Corporate Affairs) of Temasek Holdings reiterates that it is a commercial entity which is wholly owned by the Ministry of Finance (incorporated) in response to an earlier speech by U.S. political economist Prof Huang Yasheng who criticized the Singapore's government involvement in the private sector. Speaking at the Civil Service College, Prof Huang urged Singapore to “rethink” the “Temasek model” and warns that Singapore’s state management model has “milked this system for all it is worth.” “The private sector is the best way to grow the economy. It has the most productive, most innovative and entrepreneurial culture. The state-owned enterprise system doesn’t give you that….You are already hitting the wall. Retaining this strategy could mean sacrificing future growth that is possible only through a bigger, more dynamic private sector,” he said. Ms Myrna replied that Temasek operates on a "commercial" basis and that the employees of Temasek or its subsidiary companies are not civil servants but run by reputable and experienced business leaders from Singapore and abroad who "constantly innovate and evolve." Prof Huang also opined that governments should not get involved in venture financing as they are using taxpayers’ monies and questions how the government can defend its decisions to invest in “failing individuals and projects”: “Nine out of 10 investment projects fail. Does the government have such a high tolerance for risk? It’s taxpayers’ money, right? I don’t think, politically, it’s legitimate for the government to keep investing in failing individuals and failing projects. How do you defend these decisions?,” he asked. Ms Myrna did not answer Prof Huang's question directly which would have embarassed her boss Ho Ching based on its recent "track record" except the usual standard answer that Temasek invests for "sustainable, long-term returns" never mind the fact that a few of its investments such as Shin Corp and ABC Learning already has no returns to speak of. She defended Temasek for helping many local companies to grow: "It is this Temasek model that enabled many companies in our stable to grow from humble beginnings to become acknowledged leading players in their respective sectors, able to compete with the best in class globally. They include Singapore Airlines, DBS, CapitaLand, Keppel, SembMarine, PSA, SingTel and ST Engineering." What she failed to comprehend is that the very presence of these behemoths with state funding and support is choking the private sector of Singapore and that's why Singapore can never produce world class companies like Sony, Samsung and Acer.  Read More →

I appreciate Mr. Kunju’s reasoned response to my article, one of the few that I have seen on TR. After all the abuse and the vitriol that came earlier, this is a refreshing change. However, I don’t think my position has been accurately portrayed. Mr. Kunju’s own arguments themselves are also not very clear. (read Bhasakaran Kunju's article here) I do not have any issue with the fundamental point on foreign workers in the ESC’s report: The ESC said, as quoted by Mr. Kunju: “We recommend a progressive increase in worker levies to incentivise companies to improve productivity”(It also added “…giving companies time to adjust). What I said in my article was: “What this suggests is that (a) the goal is to avoid increasing the proportion of foreign workers in the workforce (b) this is a secular goal; and (c) companies will be given time to adjust. The intent was to clarify that the policy goal is not cutting back the number of foreign workers per se, but reducing the dependence on them over time. There is a difference. With regard to the point on incentives to retain foreign workers, let me explain: ESC indicated that companies need to improve skills of ALL their workers. On page 9, para 27, the report says. “Companies…have to rely more on technology and innovtion and improve skills among both their local and foreign employees as a basis for competitiveness and growth.” This is only common sense. If you run a company containing both local and foreign workers, you would want to send them all for training to improve their skills, not just some of them. However, in some industries, foreign workers are transient. In the construction and marine sectors for example, many of they stay on short term contracts. Then they go home sometimes only after a few months and are replaced by another cohort of foreign workers. In such industries, it makes no sense for employers to do much training or automation, which contributes to their low productivity. So it’s only logical to incentivise these companies to reduce the turnover of foreign workers (that is, retain those that they need for longer) while at the same time reducing their dependence on foreign workers over time. That way, these companies will have more incentives to provide more training to the workers they have, and do more automation. Eventually, Singapore’s construction industry will be more like say, Australia’s – higher productivity and a lower proportion of foreign workers, but both the local and foreign workers that it has will be more productive. That is the way to go. On the ERC of 2003: It is true that the Economic Review Committee was seven years ago, but contrary to what Mr. Kunju suggests, that doesn’t make everything it said obsolete. The logic is still valid in the 2003 statement: “‘Without foreign workers manning the night-shifts, there would be no day-shift jobs for Singaporeans. Production costs would go up and companies would be forced to move elsewhere, where workers are cheaper and more readily available.’ Even seven years later, there are industries where getting rid of foreign workers would lead to LESS jobs for Singaporeans, not more jobs. It’s important to grasp this point. Many people have the idea that the labour market is zero-sum game – that any job done by a foreign worker is a job taken away from a local worker. This is not correct. Remember, a lot of industries face fierce global competition. Supposing (to put it in stark terms) they were severely restricted from hiring foreign workers, what would happen? The labour market for those industries would tighten and wages would rise. And while local workers would get nearly all the jobs that on, the companies would soon find themselves at a severe competitive disadvantage because of their higher wage bills: they would either have to close down or move to places like malaysia and China. And they would end up laying off their local staff. For a lot of companies therefore, the choice is not between hiring local workers and hiring foreign workers, it is between hiring SOME foreign workers and being forced out of Singapore, or closing down. Fortunately, severe restrictions on foreign workers are not being contemplated; rather the aim is to reduce dependence on them gradually. That’s a sound policy. I am glad Mr. Kunju also agrees that mass culling of foreign workers will amount to economic suicide. On Japan: Mr. Kunju says: My example of Japan “is severely generalized and dangerously irresponsible in its own right. This is a puzzling comment. Of course he is right to say that “Japan’s economical problems run deeper than that of a lack of foreign workers” – I hardly suggested otherwise. The high yen, industrial hollowing out, the unwillingness of consumers to spend, the high fiscal deficit and government debt and frequent changes in leadership- all of these have been among Japan’s problems. But I am not aware of any economist who says that Japan has been wise to keep foreign workers largely out of its workforce. Japan’s net immigration has been almost zero, despite falling birth rates a shrinking of the population and rising longevity. The result has been rapidly ageing workforce. 22 percent of Japan’s population is now over 65 years old. By 2055, the proportion is projected to increase to 40 percent. The high ratio of older workers (which more immigration could have corrected) has severely hurt Japan’s economic growth. Paul Hewitt in the journal International Politics and Society estimates that Japan will lose 0.7 percentage points of growth every year till 2025.(http://www.globalaging.org/health/world/depopulationeuropejapan.htm) So the issue here is more about producTION than productivity. My point is that while Japan’s productivity may be high, it has a serious problem with production – namely economic growth. And if economic growth does not grow, incomes cannot grow. And there is a direct link between Japan’s lack of immigration and its low economic growth. Mr. Kunju’s statement that in Japan,:”the addition of foreign workers will only further lower wage rate and hence reduce consumption as well as incapacitate a work force that is already lacking in efficiency,” ignores the impact of foreign workers on production and economic growth. Nor is Japan’s workforce “lacking in efficiency” as Kunju suggests. As the productivity numbers show, it IS efficient. There are just not enough productive workers. Singapore is also ageing although it is not in Japan’s league in terms of age profile. But Singapore’s relatively liberal immigration policy has helped boost its growth. And this has helped increase incomes and is also positive for productivity. I cannot see anything “dangerously irresponsible” in what I said. What IS dangerously irresponsible: it is the call by the editors of TR for a mass consumer boycott of “companies/shops/stalls whose staff are mainly foreigners” (see their post “Temasek Review Helps Singaporean find a job at local IT startup” on Feb 4) As “Sanevoice” noted in the comments to that post, this is is a mad idea. Sanevoice’s quote is worth repeating: “Suppose people support your harebrained proposal and boycott companies/shops/stalls “whose staff are mainly foreigners”. What would happen to the Singaporean staff of those companies/shops/stalls? What would happen to the Singaporean staff of companies that supply these companies, or who need to buy components or inputs from them? A modern economy like Singapore’s is interrelated. It works like the engine of a car. Do you think if you remove some components of a car engine, the rest of the engine will work fine? Do you not realise that by calling for a boycott in your xenophobic zeal, YOU WILL BE CREATING JOB LOSSES FOR SINGAPOREANS??” (emphasis as in original).” If Mr. Kunju thinks my comments on Japan were “dangerously irresponsible,” I wonder what he makes of this boycott call by TR’s editors. Finally, I am glad Mr. Kunju addressed the issue of ettiquette. I agree that comments posted by readers – even personal attacks – “shouldn’t be taken personally.” – that’s how it is on the net. However, when most comments take the form of personal abuse rather than arguments, when even racist insults appear to be allowed, you begin to wonder what kind of site this is. I also wish TR would stop its ad-hominem attacks – the idea that an argument is wrong not because of what it says, but because of who says it. I’d therefore like to reiterate that I respect the spirit and tone of Mr. Kunju’s comment. He did not indulge in personal attacks like so many others, but addressed the issues. We do not have to agree, but at least we can disagree in a way that enables people to learn something from the discussion, no matter what view they may lean towards. EDITORS' NOTE: The above was initially posted as a comment on TR and reposted as an article.  Read More →