TR EMERITUS

I refer to the reply from the Minister for National Development’s Press Secretary on Tuesday entitled: “Ministry: MP Low wrong on lift upgrading”. I am responding to it as Mr Low Thia Khiang is currently out of town. MND states that HDB’s letter published last Friday “should be read in conjunction with” the Minister’s earlier explanations to the media. This impliedly acknowledges that the reason given by HDB to Mr Muhd Yusuf Osman, who had pointedly asked why protocol seemed to be ignored when HDB worked with the unelected candidates in opposition wards to announce LUP plans rather than with the elected MPs, does not stand up to scrutiny. It is not disputed that the LUP is a government programme. After all, it is to rectify a design flaw in public housing which does not cater for an ageing society. Given this imperative, the public interest should trump politics. Mr Low’s letter was not about wanting credit for the programme. He has stated that he is prepared to work with the government’s appointees for the benefit of his constituents, and indeed has met the grassroots advisor several times over many months to give input on the LUP plans for Hougang. It was HDB’s unjustifiable answer to Mr Yusuf - that the grassroots advisor was more appropriate than the MP to announce the LUP plans because he was able to gather residents’ input and marshal support for the plans - which compelled Mr Low’s response. HDB should have just given the real reason in its letter and not beat around the bush. MND’s letter goes further to state that the LUP is funded from budget surpluses which Opposition MPs are not responsible for generating. However, the budget surpluses are hardly the effort of the government alone, as they include significant contributions from the public through taxes, levies and stamp fees, which the government simply reaps. Finally, MND also appears to interpret the General Elections as an event where the only outcome which matters is who forms the government. This shows the respect the government has for the people’s choice of Member of Parliament, who is vested with the Constitutional mandate to represent the constituency. SYLVIA LIM (Ms) CHAIRMAN, WORKERS’ PARTY  Read More →

By Abdul Gafoor, Social Correspondent Whenever I have a tea or meal with a Singaporean politician or policy maker we will always end up talking about need for real change in the Singapore system. The conversation will start with denials and slowly and eventually he/she will admit there are flaws in the system though he/she will not admit to most of it or the most significant ones. But what will always revile me is when they will excusing themselves by saying Singapore is actually changing but slowly and that it requires time. This is something I can remember having heard for the last ten years. Ten years is a bloody slow time to do things slow. As a matter of fact they have been pursuing change for last twenty years. Let me ask every Singaporean politician and policy maker, how long more time do you need to fully effect change? It is very clear that they are not slowly and steadily pursuing it but instead are delaying and avoiding it. Every politician and policy maker pretty much works on a broader regimental template and territorial boundary drawn up for them by people who do not want real change. They proudly call it synchronisation and synergy and other cliché terms when it essentially is pseudo central planning. Among the taboo words, topics and concepts that politicians and policy makers in Singapore hate and detest for the last twenty years include “real change”.  But what is so ugly about the term. Had their pioneers not pursued “real change” in the 1960s and 1970s going beyond preserving their status quos, Singapore will have remained a developing country and never transformed into an industrialised country. The greatest irony is that politicians and policy makers' survival in power and office depends on the real change that they are avoiding and delaying. As much as they may think 50 years in power is a long time, it is actually a short period of time. The British alone ruled Singapore for about 150 years. The Sri Vijaya conquerors ruled Singapore for two or three centuries. However MM Lee himself has said the next 50 years is not certain. PAP likes to imagine that party renewal is the real change and is key to keeping them in office. In the elections from 2010 till say 2060, PAP can indeed continue like in earlier elections field scholars, former top officers in military, top civil servants etc. However their survival is not in that kind of party renewal but in how they can solve the problems of Singaporeans and make the dreams and aspirations of Singaporeans come true. For that they need real change within the system. It is the system that is causing Singaporeans the problems. It is the same system that is standing in the way of the dreams and aspirations of Singaporeans. Of course some politicians and policy makers are well aware of it and are deliberately avoiding it due to the exorbitant political cost of undertaking the real change. There are also some politicians and policy makers totally oblivious to this and prefer to imagine that all the discontent in the population is from troublemakers, psychopaths and anarchists, failing to realise there cant be smoke without any fire.  Real change will involve radically changing the status quo. Power structures will have to be reshaped which means power structures of some people or groups will have to be curtailed. Old ideas will have to be discarded not recycled and instead new ideas will have to be adopted. This will require huge courage to openly admit faults, flaws, imperfections and weaknesses in the system through an open and accountable system. People for whom ivory towers have been constructed will need to be brought down from there. They will need to rethink how to evaluate people, performance, organisations and outcomes and move away from elitist methods, eugneics, self-conceived fixations and stereotypes .  Rewards and remuneration will need to change to benefit real performers and real achievers.  What all this means is a systematic shift and radical restructuring of the current system. No politician nor policy maker has any courage to do that as that will involve clashing with their own breed and kind and swallowing their pride to admit what they worked on has become obsolete. Nobody wants to shatter their crystal image of the system nor rock the boat of their peer. Hence they naturally delay and avoid real change and pursue cosmetic ones and naively claim they are pursuing change slowly. Strange that this may sound but the best thing that could happen to PAP in 2010 election is the opposition winning at 30%-40% of the seats (about 25-40 seats). The incoming opposition MPs will serve as a good reason for PAP to effect the real change that it cannot do so with such large majority. There will be much less resistance within as then it will become pertinent for them to effect such real change or face eventual political extinction. PAP will not be able to achieve this either with its increased number of NMP /NCMP idea nor with the opposition winning less than 30%-40% of the seats. A friend was asking me what can happen if PAP does effect real change perhaps between 2015/6 election or 2020/2021 election and whether it can still survive and/or retain full control. The earlier situation will not change during 2015/6 and so it will not be able to effect any real change. By 2020/2021 Singaporeans will be tired enough that any real change by PAP will be too late. I personally do not wish to see PAP become extinct one day. No matter how right wing it maybe, it needs to stick around and add to the diversity which is critical for any political system to survive. If PAP should fall one day, we will need it then to be the opposition to check the then government. It is the balance of powers that we need in the country. We do not need another party to come into the parliament and take over the whole parliament and rule for another half a century.   The whole thing is like a smoker who exposes himself/herself to health risks through his/her smoking habit and when he/she reaches 50 and his/her risks are astronomical. He/she faces the option of either giving up smoking to live long much longer or continue smoking to die much earlier. PAP has reached 50 now. Lets see what it decides.   About the Author: Abdul Gafoor is a researcher based in the United Kingdom. He hopes to return to the Singapore he once knows as a child.  Read More →

From our Correspondent In a sign that the demand for HDB flats far outstripped existing replies, it was revealed that HDB has received 20,394 applications for the 2,132 flats offered under its Sale of Balance Flats (SBF) exercise, which just closed last last night. About seven in 10 applicants are first-time flat buyers, with the rest having bought at least one flat in the past. Despite the priority given to first-time flat buyers, the chances for them to be short-listed to select a flat in this exercise will not be high due to the overwhelming response. The flats were only released for sale two weeks ago after massive protests from disgruntled citizens at being priced out of the public housing market by sky-rocketing prices. HDB had earlier claimed that supplies of new flats are adequate to meet existing demand and that HDB flats remain "affordable" to ordinary Singaporeans. A check on HDB Infoweb shows that the number of new flats built by HDB had declined since the early 2000s. Less than 10,000 new flats were built in each of the last two years. The number of foreigners coming to Singapore has increased dramatically over the same period. There were over 20,000 new citizens and 90,000 PRs last year. As PRs and the new citizens are permitted to purchase resale HDB flats, the sudden spike in demand led to prices shooting up the roof with a record high in June this year. A recent report by ERA revealed that 40 per cent of the buyers of resale flats are PRs. It is strange that HDB did not foresee the increase in demand caused by the relentless influx of foreigners and build more BTO flats in the last few years which would have ameliorated the present housing crisis. Instead of addressing the real concerns of Singaporeans and owning up to their mistakes, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan blamed first-time home buyers for being "fussy" and urged them to buy a flat which is within their budget and not necessarily in a mature estate. As couples have to fork out a substantial percentage of their household income to finance the housing loan, it is only reasonable to expect them to be more selective when choosing a flat. HDB's contention that flats are still affordable is sounding increasingly hollow with prices of new and resale flats setting new highs. The international benchmark of 30 per cent of household income being set aside for housing, which is quoted frequently by HDB, is based only on the selling price of the flats. If interest rates from the banks are taken into consideration, buyers will end up paying for the mortage loans with more than 30 per cent of their monthly income. The government should do much more to help first-time buyers own a home besides building more BTO flats now to meet the demand which does not resolve the present housing shortage as they will only be available three years later. For a beginning, a salary cap should be imposed on the PRs beyond which they are barred from purchasing a resale flat. A capital tax should also be levied on PRs selling their flats to prevent them from exploiting the system for their own benefits. HDB flats are more than a mere commodity. They are a basic necessity in land-scare Singapore where more than 85 per cent of the housing is built by the government. Perhaps HDB should stop building flats and become strictly a regulatory authority with the task being passed on to a few boutique private developers to compete with one another under a free market setting.  Read More →