TR EMERITUS

From our Correspondent In an article published on 29 September 2009 in the Straits Times with the misleading title - "GIC claws back loss", Alvin Foo claimed that the sale of some shares before market crash had mitigated the fall of GIC's portfolio. (read article here) It quoted GIC Deputy Chairman Tony Tan saying that GIC has "weathered the financial crisis well" because it "had anticipated the crisis and taken precautionary action which mitigated losses in the ensuing bear markets." According to GIC's latest annual report, its investments - valued at well over US$100 billion (S$141 billion) - slumped more than 20 per cent in Singapore dollar terms for the year ended March 31. The loss dragged down its 20-year nominal annual rate of return in Singdollar terms from 5.8 per cent to 4.4 per cent. Its real rate of return, after accounting for global inflation, tumbled from 4.5 per cent to just 2.6 per cent. The article also claimed that GIC had reaped a handsome profit of USD$1.6 billion dollars by selling half its stake in Citigroup lately to give readers the impression that it had recouped much of its losses. However, throughout the entire article, the most important figures are missing - the real loss suffered by GIC. Alvin Foo had deliberately chosen not to report the real figures and use vague indicators such as annual rate of return to mask the extent of GIC's loss. The entire article was slanted in such a way to GIC to exonerate its executives from any blame for the decrease in its portfolio by attributing it to the global financial crisis and instead praised them for having the "foresight" to limit the loss. The Wall Street Journal reported on the same day that GIC suffered a gigantic loss of USD$41.6 billion dollars or SGD$59 billion dollars in the fiscal year ended March! This was not reported in the Straits Times at all. (read article here) It quoted a person familiar with the situation as saying that 2009 was one of the worst years ever for GIC. Earlier in the year, people familiar with the situation told Dow Jones Newswires that in calendar year 2008, GIC had lost around S$50 billion. This means that GIC has lost an estimated total of SGD$109 billion dollars over the last two years! Naturally, such staggering loss must be kept from the public in case Singaporeans start asking serious questions about the management of the fund. A loss is a loss, period. It will take GIC a few years or even longer to recoup it. The state media has done Singaporeans a great disservice by hiding the truth from the public.  Read More →

By Abdul Gafoor, Social Correspondent Singapore is a strange country where everything suggested, which is contrary what the government, politicians and policy makers claim, has to be “substantiated with evidence” even though the same government, politicians and policy makers are not required to substantiate their claims with any evidence. No other country has such an idiosyncratic attitude which was introduced by Lee Kuan Yew given his background as a lawyer.  He tries to make the country a court room where the rules apply to everyone except government, politicians and policy makers. The claim that meritocracy exists is one of the various notions that PAP has successfully marketed to the people even without having gone the length to ever proving it actually exists. Other such successes include Singapore being a developed country, education system being one of the best in the world etc. However PAP has had its fair share of failures in some of its baseless claims such as in eugenics where in order to produce smart kids, graduate men should marry graduate women. The reason why many Singaporeans want to accept this baseless claim that meritocracy exists instead of rejecting is because they are afraid to deal with the factual situation where meritocracy does not exists. The majority Chinese are afraid that they will fall into the shallowness as the majority Malays of Malaysia. The minority Singaporean leaders are afraid that they have not responded to a situation for fifty years where their bright and smart have been sidelined. The minority Singaporean masses are afraid to even imagine they may have been systematically marginalized in last five decades because it shatters their crystal image of their state. Furthermore since they are clueless of how to respond they rather imagine it does not exist pretty much like how a person at health risk refuses to go for a screening test because they are not sure how to cope if they are diagnosed with a condition. I have talked to so many academics, writers and thinkers around the world and everyone tend to point out to two characteristic in Singapore which will never allow meritocracy to exist. Firstly income inequalities across the ethnic groups. Most Singaporeans even policy makers do not seem to understand what this means. Income inequalities across the ethnic groups does not mean a Chinese, a Malay, a Tamil and an Eurasian are earning not the same dollar as lame cynical Singaporean critics will foolishly claim. Income inequalities across ethnic groups mean, the difference in incomes across ethnic groups is too large and significant. This is too visible and obvious to deny.  Given this reality, meritocracy cannot exist  even if you say the highest marks get the scholarship blah blah. You will have to level the playing field before you let them compete. With the perverse income inequalities, the minorities will not be able to achieve equivalent or better successes than Chinese masses in examinations and job interviews even though they may have the capacity and potential. What many Singaporeans tend to naively say is that because the minorities do not achieve as much, that is why their representations in ministries, scholarships etc etc are lower than their population proportions and they claim therefore their “meritocratic” system based on “scores and results” qualify as meritocracy. This then brings to the second reason why meritocracy cannot be existing in Singapore. The way Singapore implements meritocracy is invalid. You cannot use past “scores and results” which is the main method in Singapore used to award scholarships, jobs etc. What you instead require is past, present and future performance because meritocracy is supposed to be based on potential not past achievements. What someone achieves in the past indeed shows his potential but what someone does not achieve in the past does not show his potential.  Therefore assessments have to be based on potential and for that past performance alone cannot be used. Secondly the proper assessments must be used for to evaluate a person for the job or scholarship. In Singapore a government scholar typically gets to become a senior military officer or police officer not because he is brilliant in military work or police work but because he scored high marks in GCE O and A level examinations and managed to complete his degree on scholarship and survived through the fast tracked career. That is not meritocracy. Singapore employers are also extremely subjective when assessing employees. I have seen far too many non-Chinese friends applying to banks only to be rejected. The reasons the employers give are that these friends do not have relevant experience if they are crossing over from say engineering industry. However many (a large number) of Chinese friends who were formerly working as engineers have crossed over into banking industry within the same banks and same departments which rejected those non-Chinese friends. I also have seen non-Chinese friends with business and finance degrees not even getting interviews whereas their Chinese classmates do. Almost all my non-Chinese friends from JC who got straight As in GCE A Levels are now working as teachers as they could not find employment in the industry for which they were trained for. Likewise I have seen so many non-Chinese friends who have migrated being able to secure jobs in banks which in Singapore rejected them, in industries which in Singapore also rejected them. What is clear is employers are not giving fair and equal opportunities to minorities in Singapore. What is also clear is that assessment and evaluation of candidates for scholarship and jobs in Singapore is not consistent. Race is a factor. For many years, there have been calls to set up a labour laws and labour courts to address this just like in any developed and civilized country. Every PAP labour minister over last 50 years have refused. The fact they refused only shows they know the above problems exists and that they are not confident in tackling them. Singaporean politicians, policy makers and ordinary people refuse to acknowledge these realities and instead insist on imagining Singapore offers a level playing field for all races. The problem is they fail to realize they are unnecessarily creating instabilities into the country with this. A small country like Singapore despite its size does have the capacity to offer sufficient opportunities to everyone in education and jobs. Having a kiasu attitude and creating unleveled playing fields and believing the whole system functions as a meritocracy only makes Singapore an unsafe place because social unrest will eventually be the natural outcome as proven in so many cases around the world in just the history of the last 100 years. Part of the problem is fueled by Malaysian Chinese who want to create an impression that what exists in Malaysia does not exist in Singapore. The forms of the problems that exist in the two strange twin countries maybe different but essentially they are the same. They are two sides of the same coin. What change is required basically in Singapore or even in Malaysia is a leveled playing field for everyone. The governments will have to work towards eliminating income inequalities across the ethnic groups. Opportunities for education need to be created such that dreams and potential be the criteria for selection. Opportunities also need to be created for promising students who are caught in the storms and shortcomings of their family backgrounds. These opportunities should be available, accessible, universal and abundant such that should any student with potential can reach and attain them easily. Sometimes opportunities should be extended to test to even identify where the brightest and smartest are. In terms of employment same criteria for evaluations need to be put in place. The culture of rewarding and measuring a person through relationships should be stopped. Instead workplace should be about performance and potential. Legal safeguards must be put in place to make every employer a fair and equal opportunity employer. Courts must be there to strike fear in those employers who want to select one over the other based on instincts, relationships and subjective evaluations. None of solutions I have said is utopian. They basically are the realities that exist in the developed and civilized world.   About the Author: Abdul Gafoor is a researcher based in the United Kingdom  Read More →

From our Correspondent A posting on the CNA forum by a forumer lamenting about his children considering migrating has attracted over 2,000 views and 100 replies in less than a day! The forumer which uses the moniker of "Iwin" wrote that his children are thinking of leaving Singapore permanently to settle down in another country because of a multitude of push factors such as sky-rocketing public housing prices, competition with foreigners, lack of job security, low wages, expensive healthcare, stressful work place and the CPF scheme. He added that he feel very sad that after serving national service and contributing to the nation, his children are now leaving him to migrate elsewhere. TehOkosong felt that foreigners are the root cause of Singapore's problems: "The present problem we face is singaporeans are 2nd class, and FT's first class. Singaporeans have to do NS to defend the FT's, give them jobs, have to embrace them and let them call us stupid." Cow suggested sarcastically that he may consider migrating and returning to Singapore as a "foreign talent" or FT in short: "How about giving up your singapore citizenship, and coming back to Singapore as an FT?  Since so many people think govt take so good care of FT. You can come back and take our jobs away and our property too... and it'll be easy too, since you are already familiar with Singapore." Kamono doubts if migration is a wise choice: "I believe your children is the infamous Gen Y who wants instant gratification without any hard work. I guess you have given them everything and spoilt them since young. If they think migration is the solution, then, u should encourage them to give it a shot but it doesn't guarantee them better quality of life. Racism is rampant in many countries, and cost of living in European countries are extremely high as well. Can be worse than SG. If they cannot cope in SG because they were spoon fed and treated like prince/princesses since young, chances are they might even have a worse time if they migrate without daddy and mummy to finance them." Seehum urged fellow Singaporeans to "fight" against the government's pro-foreigner policy: "I think Singaporeans should stay united to fight off this threat from the foreigners to steal our jobs and over crowd Singapore. Many people have already voice their resentment towards these foreign rejects in public forum and newspaper. More and more people are coiming out to question this ridiculous policy, why must we embrace someone who is from foreign land with totally different culture from us and equip them with the means to fight with our ricebowl. By the way, Singapore is the only country in the world now with a pro foreigner policy." triage supported the children's desire to leave Singapore for greener pastures: Actually, it's good that children consider migrating overseas. If they think overseas is good let them go.  The reasons for migrating are good. of course overseas will have problems but as long as they are happier, i say, let them go. As parents I think we should consider this point. Will they be happier staying in Singapore? If life overseas is good, go! I have relatives who migrate to perth Australia and they have a very good life there. They have a house overlooking the Swan River and on a given Sunday, we can see 50 yachts sailing by. They have cars with no COE. Their children speak with an Aussie accent and have pink cheeks. The family has time for other considerations other than just money. There's quality time. When they feel like they want to visit Singapore, they just fly down and take the local food. Every year, about 1,000 Singaporeans give up their citizenship and migrate to other countries for good. Another 150,000 Singaporeans are working or living overseas. The country's low birth rate has prompted the government to open the floodgates to allow more foreigners to take up PRs and citizenships. More than 79,000 foreigners become PRs last year. The number of PRs becoming citizens is not known. (Source: nps.sg) The relentless influx of foreigners have prompted calls from Singaporeans to limit the inflow. The government has set up a National Integration Council to promote integration between foreigners and locals, including a $10 million "integration fund". While other countries require foreigners to pass a compulsory English proficiency test before they are allowed to work there, the Singapore government is sponsoring foreigners who can't speak English for language courses. Source: CNA Forum  Read More →