TR EMERITUS

From our Correspondent Following a biased Sunday Times report which cast Mr Lim Beo Thiam who had written to the Straits Times Forum complaining about his plight of being hauled up to court by his Town Council for S&C arrears as a "serial defaulter", Jalan Besar Town Council had a letter published in the same forum today putting the blame on the poor resident again. (read letter here) In his original letter, Mr Lim Beo Thiam, a 52 year old who has been unemployed for 18 months and lost part of a leg through diabetes relates his unhappy experience with his Town Council. (read letter here) He claimed that this is the first time he did not pay the S&C charges due to financial difficulties and he was taken to court by Jalan Besar Town Council. His new debts now ballooned to more than $1,000 which included court penalties and late payment charges. “When I tried to settle subsequent S&C charges to avoid a fresh spiral of hefty penalties for non-payment, I was rejected. The town council ruled that I had to settle the old debt before I could pay the new charges. Naturally, this led to more penalties as my fresh S&C arrears spiked. So, I am now some $3,000 in debt to my town council,” he added. Mr Lim wrote that he has appealed to his Member of Parliament for help many times but the final. Refuting Mr Lim's claims the general manager of Jalan Besar Town Council Justin Lim wrote: "Contrary to what Mr Lim has stated, he defaulted on his S&C charge payments even when his earnings were ‘fitful’. He bought a resale flat in Jalan Besar town in March 1999. Since then, he started to default on his S&C charge payments. He has approached his MPs – who have represented him – and his family many times, including on other issues." It was indicated that Mr Lim was already seeking his MPs' assistance back then when he was still gainfully employed which means that he might not be earning enough money to cover his living expenses. Why didn't his MPs help him and allow the problem to fester for so long? Justin is also adamant that the town council will not set up a fund to help residents in financial difficulties: "We do not agree with Mr Lim’s suggestion that the town council should set up a fund to offer loans to residents to tide them over difficult times, or help with private tuition, home renovation or family holidays. We believe it is in the best interests of residents that the town council focuses on its primary duty of estate management and improvement." He claimed that the town council is serving the "best interests" of residents by managing and improving the estate. However, everything comes at a price and residents ask if it is reasonable for them to be charged exorbitant S&C charges just to "maintain" the estate. Furthermore, as S&C arrears is strangely listed as one of the key performance indicator (KPIs) of town councils, will needy and poor residents who are unable to afford the S&C charges be penalized unnecessarily by overzealous town council officials collecting the arrears? This is not the first time that a resident had complained about the poor services of Jalan Besar Town Council. Earlier this year, a garang-guni man Mr Ng Kim Ngweng was jailed for 6 months for threatening to beat his MP over a REACH hotline. In his mitigation, he claimed that he felt insulted by his MP Denise Phua who made him wait for a long time during a meet-the-people session. "I felt worse than a dog!", he exclaimed! It appears that there may be other residents who share the same sentiments as Mr Ng and Mr Lim.  Read More →

OPINION In the aftermath of the 2006 general elections, the Singapore opposition had come together in only three occasions at the same place - the Workers' Party 50th dinner anniversary in 2007, the celebration of the founding of Reform Party in 2008 and the first dinner anniversary of the Reform Party which were all held at Toa Payoh's Fortunate Restaurant. Located above Shop and Save in a relatively old building erected during the 1960s when much of Toa Payoh were still controlled by the triads, the Fortunate Restaurant is famous chiefly for its Tim Sum and Cantonese cuisine. One has to queue up for at least half an hour for a coveted seat during the weekend lunch hours. The inner furnishing bears uncanny similarities to the traditional tea-houses in Hong Kong and Guangzhou. Waitresses push the trolleys laden with Tim Sum to the guests while a stage allowed performances by Chinese troupes and orchestras. For some reasons, Fortunate Restaurant is the favorite dining cum gathering place for Singapore's opposition parties. While they are largely "invisible" to Singaporeans, they never fail to tuck in for a sumptuous dinner together every year there. A series of god-sent events over the last few years had offered the opposition opportunities to work together and increased their national prominence ranging from the minibond fiasco, the economic recession and the relentless influx of workers, but the opposition either chose to stay on the sidelines or work individually on their own with minimal impact. The two opposition MPs elected to have their views heard solely through the Parliament where they soon found themselves being drowned by a chorus of protests from the ruling party MPs. While their parties have established a grassroots base in their respective constituencies, they are largely isolated and cut off from civil society and the rumbustious online community. The Singapore Democratic Party is the only political party to make use of the new media fully to get its message across, but it lacks solid support from the masses living in the HDB heartlands. In Malaysia, members and MPs from the opposition parties meet all the time and organize joint events from forums, seminars, campaigning for by-elections and protests - take for example the recent anti-ISA protests at Kuala Lumpur which was participated by members from DAP, PKR and PAS. The Singapore opposition appears to be seen together on stage with garlands around their necks only for anniversary dinners. You do not see WP hosting a forum together with SDA, NSP members joining in the rallies organized by SDP or opposition MPs turning up to lend support to civil activism such as the recent forum on "Operation Spectrum" organized by blogger Martyn See. How else is the opposition going to reach out to Singaporeans and make its leaders and manifesto known if it continues to be so publicity-shy? The opposition must learn to create news for themselves rather than wait for the mainstream media to come knocking on their doors which is of course not a good sign as the only time they bother to do so is to dig up scandals as the PKMS fiasco has shown. The key to attract the attention of the crowd is to focus on national issues affecting most Singaporeans such as the rising cost of HDB flats. The opposition could have easily organized a rally at Hong Lim Park and launched a petition drive to collect signatures to be presented to the government to request them to bringing down the astronomical prices of public housing. Even if the mainstream media refuses to cover their events, the new media can always be counted on to give them the publicity they so badly need now that they have a reasonably high readership. By keeping mum on such critical issues and by not doing anything, the opposition is crippling their own chances at the next general election. They cannot blame Singaporeans from not knowing them well when they are not even working hard to promote themselves in the first place. The most convenient excuse for inactivity is to lay the blame on the repressive laws set in place to curtail political and civil activism. Though the odds are stacked against them, the opposition can still capture the attention of Singaporeans by working within the boundaries set for them. At the present moment, much of the public discourse is dominated by the government which set its agenda clearly via the state-controlled media with dissenting views heard only in cyberspace, but depending on bloggers to bring about much needed change is hardly sufficient - the online community needs leadership and it is a great pity that the opposition is unable to provide it. With the elections around the corner, the opposition can ill afford to focus their attention narrowly on splitting the seats among themselves without cultivating the ground first. It will be political suicidal to march into the elections with so many Singaporeans, especially first-time voters still clueless about their existence. The opposition must remember that while they will always be guaranteed at least 20% of protest votes, they still need to win 30% of the fence-sitters over in order to stand a good chance of winning the seat and how can they ever achieve that if they only make a grand appearance every 5 years? The Reform Party dinner anniversary was attended by leaders from all opposition parties. Instead of exchanging pleasantries over dinner, why not discuss on what to do galvanize the electorate and start the preparations for the next election? For a beginning, the entire opposition can organize a joint indoor forum to discuss the sky-rocketing prices of HDB flats which will surely put the ruling party on a defensive. The government is now stuck in a quandrary. It cannot bring the prices down immediately and yet it cannot allow them to continue to balloon. Either way, there will be Singaporeans who are peeved with them which will form a ready source of supporters for the opposition if only they can get their act together collectively as a cohesive unit.  Read More →

By Raja Petra Kamarrudin from Malaysia Today Most Malaysians don’t think twice about the level of corruption in this country. Some even welcome it. How many times have you illegally parked your car or dashed through a red light and paid the policeman a bribe of RM50 or RM100 to save paying a RM300 fine if you are issued a summons? And that is cheap, mind you. In the police lockup, we have to pay the policemen RM100 for a three-minute local phone call and RM10 for a stick of cigarette. So that comes to RM200 per packet. I paid RM200 for one night’s ‘protection’. For RM200 I was placed in a ‘special’ lockup where a detainee awaiting trial for murder took me under his wing so that the others could not get at me. He even threw in a cigarette as part of the ‘package’. And it costs RM250,000 for a drug dealer to escape the gallows. My wife, who in 2001 was detained overnight in the women’s section of the police lockup, the same night I was arrested, spoke to one Indonesian woman who was on her second drug dealing arrest. The first time she and her husband were arrested they had to pay RM500,000 for both of them to get released. They were trying to arrange another RM500,000 to get out of this second arrest. So that came to RM1 million for two arrests. Imagine how much they must be making dealing in drugs. More importantly, imagine how much the police are making each time they get arrested. I spoke to many of my Chinese businessmen friends and they admitted that it is easier to do business when corruption is involved. This saves time since you can bypass the normal requirements and get your applications approved much faster by just bribing the government officers. Sometimes, when you are not ‘eligible’, you can become eligible by paying bribes. So bribes actually help when faced with certain obstacles -- and there are definitely many 'obstacles' when dealing with governments in third world countries like Malaysia. When corruption does not affect you directly you are not too concerned about it. It is like crime. As long as the robbers do not break into your home to rob you and rape your wife or daughter then who bothers too much about the high level of crime? It is when it is you that is hit that you become outraged about the high crime rate and the low level of police enforcement and lack of effort to combat crime. Is it not those who suffer or suffered from cancer, or have lost a loved one to cancer, who gets involved in anti-cancer movements or associations? How many of us who never had to face cancer would want to donate generously to the anti-cancer effort? We never bother about something that does not affect us. And the same goes for other things as well, such as corruption and whatnot. But corruption does affect us, contrary to what many may be thinking. Sometimes it affects us directly. Most times, indirectly. An average of ten people die each day on Malaysian roads. Many more are seriously injured or maimed, sometimes resulting in them no longer being able to work and earn a living. The main reason for this is that Malaysians do not know how to drive. Now, let there not be any confusion over this statement. Malaysians may have a valid driving licence. But Malaysians do not know how to drive. Do you know that in some European countries you can exchange your Singapore driving licence for a driving licence of your host country? But they will not accept a Malaysian driving licence. Malaysian driving licences tak laku (have no value). I know someone, now deceased, who had a driving licence but could not even reverse her car out of the driveway. How in heaven’s name did she pass her driving test and get a licence if she can’t even reverse her car? And for sure she can’t drive. Well, she told me. The driving school has two schemes. One is the ‘guaranteed to pass your driving test’ scheme -- which means you will pass your driving test and get a driving licence even if you can’t drive. The other scheme involves you taking the driving test and passing it all on your own. The trouble with this legitimate scheme, though, is that even if you know how to drive they will still fail you as ‘punishment’ for refusing to participate in the ‘guaranteed to pass’ scheme. So it is better to pay, even if you can drive, and especially if you can’t, to be assured off a driving licence. So, about ten people a day die on Malaysian roads because most of them have a driving licence but do not know how to drive. And those who die could be you, a family member, an office colleague, or a close friend. In short, that person who died in the traffic accident could be someone you know or someone close to you. Therefore, corruption does affect you when you lose someone because of corruption -- or if it is you who dies. If this person were forced to learn how to drive properly before being given a licence then maybe he or she would still be alive today. I have personally lost scores of friends and relatives due to traffic accidents over the last 50 years or so. Sometimes it is their fault. The sad part is when the accident is someone else’s fault and you are a victim of reckless or inconsiderate drivers who have absolutely no road sense whatsoever. I have also lost people dear to me due to poor medical facilities. There are not enough hospital beds in the intensive care unit or not enough dialysis machines or whatever, which results in poor medical facilities. And these people had to die because of this. It is not that Malaysia does not have enough money to improve its medical facilities. It is that Malaysia spends the money for the wrong reasons -- and spends too much on top of that because there are kickbacks and commissions involved in every project and procurement. So medical facilities take a back seat and many of us have lost friends, colleagues and relatives because they were denied prompt or proper medical treatment. If the money had not been wasted and had instead been spent for the right purposes -- medical and education being the two most important -- then Malaysia would be a much better place. As it is, our medical and educational facilities are below the so-called first world infrastructure that we are so proud of. We have the best weapons. We have fantastic bridges, buildings and roads. Heck, we even have submarines now. But we are extremely lacking when it comes to medical and educational facilities. And health and education are far more important than all those white elephants and monuments that swallow billions but bring no income to the country, as would most white elephants and monuments. Cars cost a lot in Malaysia. That, again, is due to corruption. If the government allowed a free-for-all in the car industry then cars would cost much cheaper than they do now. But they can’t allow a free-for-all. They can’t because cronies of those who walk in the corridors of power are making a lot of money from the car import permits and whatnot. So Malaysians have to pay double what they should actually be paying for their cars. But their salaries are not double what they should be. So you end up a slave of your car instead of the car being your slave. You work for your car when your car should instead be working for you. And because of the sorry state of public transport you have no choice but to own a car. You just can’t get around without a car like you can in so many other countries. After paying for your car what do you have left at the end of the day? Most times, because of your car, you can’t afford a decent home. Malaysians are actually very poor. The cost of living is so high while the salaries are very low. And corruption keeps Malaysians poor. So perish the thought if you thought corruption does not affect you. It does, in more ways than you realise. And only naïve people would believe that corruption does not personally affect them or is actually beneficial to business. Malaysians are paying a heavy price for corruption. And the worse thing is we do not even realise we are paying. Read rest of article on Malaysia Today: http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/27328/84/  Read More →