TR EMERITUS

Written by Our Correspondent For some strange reason, it was not the Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong, but Law Minister K Shanmugam who has been defending the ruling party's pro-foreigner policy lately, a testimony of Singapore's "multi-talented" ministers who command the highest salaries in the world. During a dialogue session with Yew Tee residents yesterday, Mr Shanmugam jumped to the defence of foreigners and blamed locals for being "choosy" about jobs instead. "Contrary to popular belief, foreigners who take up low-paying jobs here are not depriving Singaporeans of work. Rather, they are doing jobs Singaporeans shun," he said, echoing a view espoused previously by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong who claimed that foreigners are needed to "build HDB flats and MRT lines". A resident had complained that "foreigners were crowding Singaporeans out of jobs, depriving them from even becoming cleaners." Mr Shanmugam disputed the statement: "The 'actual practical reality' was that employers often turned to foreigners only as a last resort when they cannot find local staff. More often than not, employers were even willing to pay Singaporeans more.....If the foreign worker gets $800, we'll try to get the Singaporean $1,300. But you have to work on weekends. The Singaporean says 'no'." His stance was repeated by several PAP leaders in the past who refused to acknowledge the problem which is largely caused by their flawed immigration and labor policies. During a May Day Rally in 2009, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong claimed that foreign workers were of "value" to Singapore: 'They are not here to steal our jobs, but to help us enlarge the economic pie....Foreign workers were of value to Singapore. Because they are hard-working and willing to work long hours, coffeeshops can stay open late or even round the clock. The airport, seaport, factories, offices, hotels, restaurants and retail outlets here can offer better service and business hours. Even smaller businesses, such as neighbourhood shops, can reduce business costs and stay afloat if they hire some foreign workers on top of locals," he said. NTUC Secretary-General and Minister in Prime Minister's Office Lim Swee Say added: "'Let us be very clear. Foreign workers...are our partners because they are here working together with us...that makes us the number one workforce in the world.'" [Source: Straits Times, 2 May 2009] Mr Lim's shameless boast about Singapore being the "number one" workforce in the world is quite "divorced from reality" as a recent article by Wall Street Journal revealed that the relentless influx of foreigners into Singapore over the last few years has decreased the wages of Singaporeans, lowered labor productivity, increased the cost of living and led directly to a lower standard of living. While in the past, only very highly qualified foreigners or those doing menial jobs like construction were permitted to work in Singapore, there are increasingly number of semi-skilled foreigners who are competing directly with locals for jobs which can otherwise be taken up by them. Mr Shanmugam added that "foreigners were not to be blamed for retrenched workers being unable to get re-employed at their old pay." due to "companies still being uncertain about the economy and workers who may not have the right skills." 'So, our problem are people above 40. So NTUC sends them for job schemes where they get them trained, but individuals also have to reduce expectations,' he said. Ultimately, the problem still lies with Singaporeans - we are too choosy about jobs and we have too high expectations, and not the PAP which opens the floodgates to let in too many foreigners in too short a period of time. One thing Singaporeans can be very "clear" about judging from recent statements made by PAP leaders is that they and the foreigners are "partners" in Singapore and we are no more than "sheep" driven around by them, to borrow the words of the second most senior "lion" in the cabinet Goh Chok Tong.  Read More →

Written by Our Correspondent It was supposed to be a routine run of the mill article on Temasek Review on the issue of foreign workers, but it ended up being the most commented article in its history. (read article here) In the span of four days, the article about a young Myanmar lady working as an accounts executive in Singapore and taking English lessons at a Community Club at the same time had atracted more than 5,000 readers and 400 comments so far. Apparently, somebody had tipped off the Burmese community in Singapore who flooded our site posting comments berating us for "insulting" the Myanmar lady by posting her particulars online when we had obtained the information from Straits Times. Some posters accused us of poking fun at her language skills and demanded that we apologize and delete the article. Others slammed us for being "unprofessional" and threatened to sue us. Though we have explained repeatedly that the gist of the article is about the immigration policies of the ruling party and not on any particular persons or nationality, the flaming continue unabated till it becomes a mud-slinging session for both the foreign workers and locals to vent their frustrations, resentment and anger. Judging from the comments posted, it is quite obvious that the tension has been building up in both communities for quite some time already. Our article is merely a spark which triggered the storm. While the Burmese felt that they were being bullied by the locals, Singaporeans are of the view that they are here to snatch away jobs are otherwise taken up by them. This is probably the first time that an all-out "flame war" has broken out between foreigners and locals, a reflection of how serious the problem has become which continues to be ignored by the ruling party. In an ambitious plan to increase Singapore's population to 6.5 million people, the ruling party had allowed too many foreigners into Singapore in too short a period of time without taking into consideration the interests and feeling of Singaporeans. After realizing the extent of the problem, they decided to throw money at it in the form of a $10 million dollar Community Integration Fund which proved to be "too little, too late."  The root cause of the social tension lies in the fact that Singaporeans feel they are not getting a fair deal from the government as rightful citizens of the nation ranging from housing subsidies, places in primary schools to jobs which pay well. Singapore had accepted many immigrants from Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan in the 1980s and 1990s and Singaporeans never had any issues with them as they are similar to us in culture and had come in smaller numbers. The latest wave of immigration saw the ruling party opened the floodgates to the world, especially Chinese and Indians who flocked to Singapore in such large numbers that they do not see the need to integrate into Singapore society. Some questioned why we did not close the article for comments which appears to be inciting hatred between the Burmese and Singaporeans. We are leaving it open for the authorities to see for themselves the mess they have created for Singaporeans and if they do not revamp their policies radically and reverse the intake of foreigners, the flaming they see on TR now will spill over into real life one day.  Read More →

OPINION In a recent speech to youth leaders from a leadership programme in his Marine Parade GRC, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said there is a relationship between a country's leadership and how its economy performs. "If you track the performance of a country in the last 30 years, you will come to the conclusion that there is a co-relationship between the leadership of a country and economic performance of the country.....The better the leadership, the better the government, more enlightened, more visionary. The more honest the government, the better the economic performance." he added. Perhaps SM Goh is referring to the performance of his political party - the PAP which has governed Singapore uninterrupted for the past fifty years since 1959. Inherent in his arguments are three fallacies: 1. Economic performance is dependent solely on the quality of a country's leadership. 2. The ultimate aim of a nation is to perform well economically. 3. The more honest the government, the better the economic performance. While there is a co-relation between the quality of a country's leadership and economic performance, it is more important to have a political system which not only sustain the economy over time, but distribute the fruits of the nation's growth equally and fairly to all its people to enjoy. Good leaders are found in all forms of political systems ranging from democracies, totalitarian states, dictatorships and feudal dynasties, but only good systems will be able to nurture good leaders and toss out bad ones from time to time. The Nazi regime which ruled Germany during the Third Reich can be considered an excellent leadership by SM Goh's definition for Germany's economy grew the fastest between the years 1933 - 1938, propelling it to become an economic powerhouse from the ruins of World War I in less than a decade, but it was a fascist totalitarian state which brooked no dissent and did not have any mechanism in place to remove megalomaniac leaders like Hitler who soon led Germany into disaster. Similarly, there were plenty of good leaders during 5000 years of China's history. Emperors Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong were widely considered as the most capable emperors of the Qing dynasty and indeed, China's economy grew by leaps and bound during their combined 120-year reign. However, the feudal system of the Qing government placed too much power and responsibility in the hands of a few and the empire soon went into decline when a series of weak emperors assumed the throne after Qianlong. Like many other PAP leaders, SM Goh's continued emphasis on economic performance as measured by GDP growth figures is both inappropriate and inaccurate. Singapore's ministers are so obsessed with GDP growth that a significant proportion of their multi-million annual wages are pegged to it which is hardly heard of in the developed world. In Singapore's National Pledge which is recited by every Singapore student since 7 years of age, we pledge "to build a democratic society based on justice and equality so as to achieve happiness, prosperity and progress for our people." Nowhere was economic performance or GDP growth mentioned. GDP is a simply a measurement of the total market value of all final goods and services produced within a country’s economic borders during a period of time. It can be artificially increased like what the PAP is doing now, by mass importing cheap foreign labor from other countries to keep business costs down and to increase demand for goods and services, but for long can this sustain us? Furthermore, the influx of foreign workers have depressed the wages of ordinary Singaporeans and only the employers benefit in the end, but not the common man in the streets. The gains made by the nation's stellar economic performance over the past decade are not distributed equally to all citizens as demonstrated by our widening income-gap between the rich and the poor, measured by the Gini coefficient, the highest among the thirty most developed countries in the world and ranked alongside that of third world countries like Kenya, Russia and Burundi. The  interpretation and use of GDP as a proxy of social welfare has received much criticism, which has come from some of the most well-known economists, including Nobel laureates (e.g. Simon Kuznets, Daniel Kahneman, Robert Solow, Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Muhammad Yunus). It is severely limited as an indicator for the social welfare of a nation's people as it does not include a number of factors that determine the well-being of people, such as the value of non-market goods and services (e.g. natural resources), informal and unpaid activities and leisure. Besides, GDP emphasises average income and in fact puts unequal emphasis on the expenditures of the wealthy rather than on similar income development of the poor. Though Singapore has a developed economy as defined by GDP per capita, Singaporeans are not living a life befitting of their status as citizens of a first world nation. The worldwide study conducted and released by UBS last year, titled “Price and Earnings 2009″ has some unflattering results for Singapore. (read report here) Singapore has a GDP (PPP) per capita higher than Switzerland, but our wages are way below the Swiss. Zurich and Geneva have wage indices (gross) of 119.8 and 107.5 respectively. In contrast, Singapore has a wage index of only 31.3, comparable with Moscow (30.9), Tallinn (28.7) and Johannesburg (26.7). Singaporeans also have low domestic purchasing power compared to other developed countries with a purchasing power of only 39.9, comparable to Kuala Lumpur (39.5), Warsaw (34.0) and Bogota (33.7). The latest release by Ireland-based magazine "International Living" ranked Singapore as the 70th most liveable place in the world below the likes of Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia. Though Singapore scores highly in areas of healthcare, infrastructure and safety, it performs miserably in non-economic indicators like environment and freedom. (read report here) Lastly, a honest government will not necessarily lead directly to better economic performance if its leaders lack ability, foresight and vision. At the end of the day, it is the people who determine the overall economic performance of the nation and not the government which only plays a supervisory role to facilitate economic development and progress. Though it is critical to have a honest government in place to lead the nation, it is  more important to have a nation of "lions" and not "sheeps" to take charge of its collective destiny. Take for example the United States which has seen a fair share of dishonest, incompetent and corrupted Presidents and lawmakers, but the nation is able to survive and prosper despite frequent changes of government because the Americans are a nation of "lions" and they can always find willing, capable and honest people to lead them. Unfortunately, Singapore has turned into a nation of "sheeps" under fifty years of uninterrupted PAP rule which has seen its "lions" being incarcerated for long periods of time, exiled to other countries and bankrupted to live a life of poverty. SM Goh must understand that Singapore is larger than the PAP which is merely a political party elected by the people to lead the nation. In order for Singapore to continue growing and developing, we need to have a nation of "lions" led by themselves instead of a flock of hapless sheep following a frail, aging and blind lion which may drop dead anytime.  Read More →