TR EMERITUS

I refer to the following article. 1) The POFMA issued specifically states that claims saying that Ho Ching earns around S$100 million annually are false, but refuses to give thecorrect figure. Essentially, the Pofma office is saying, "Your numbers are wrong. But we are not going to tell you what the numbers are." 2) The Singapore Government has specifically stated that it has no part regarding the remuneration of staff of Temasek Holdings. Well, if the government has nothing to do with the salary of staff Temasek Holdings, why is it obligated to issue statements regarding the staff of Temasek Holdings? You just said this is none of your business, yet you are officially making this your business? To quote Mr Lim, "So the government has the right to issue POFMAs over the business of a ‘private’ company?" 3) “Temasek has also publicly stated that Mdm Ho’s annual compensation is neither the highest within Temasek, nor is she amongst the top five highest paid executives in Temasek.” Translation: Temasek just confirmed that Singaporeans have 5 more problems to worry about. At least. 4) "Your numbers are wrong. But we are not going to tell you the correct numbers." There are appropriate responses to these kind of answers. But I'm not going to say what they are. Mostly because they are not polite. And also because I don't want to get POFMAed.   Angry Citizen        Read More →

The ministerial task force made a bad judgment. In early April, they panicked and decided to introduce the circuit breaker. They closed down most workplaces (except for the essential ones), food outlets and schools and ordered the people to stay at home for four weeks. Why was this a bad judgment? The ministers panicked when they saw the large increase in new cases. The did not realize that this increase was due to the increased testing of the workers living in the dormitories which occurred as part of the contact tracing protocol. As more people are tested, more cases would certainly be detected. There was no evidence of a large increase in the wider community. If there was an increase, it was small and manageable. In such a situation, the ministers should just ask for the foreign workers to stop work and stay in the dormitories until they are tested. There is no need to lockdown the entire country. They could have focused their attention on the real risk, rather than dissipate their resources over locking down the entire country. The lockdown (or "circuit breaker" that is officially termed) has cost the country over $40 billion in the relief packages. This does not include the real losses suffered by businesses and households. Many families saw their income wiped out by the lockdown measures, and do not receive adequate compensation. Several hundred thousand families and families were badly affected. The damage to their livelihood is horrendous. It will take several months for the damage to be repaired, even after the lockdown is lifted. The $40 billion spent on the relief packages could have been used to waive GST for four years. That would have reduce the cost of living for the people. That would have been a better use of the money. All of these economic harm could have been avoided, if the ministers had made the right judgement. They should have ordered the workers living in the dormitories to stop work and isolate them from the community until they are tested to be "suitable to work". They can monitor the actual spread in the wider community, excluding the cases from the dormitories, to see if a lockdown is necessary. They could have followed the approach that is successfully adopted in several countries, such as Taiwan, South Korea and Vietnam. These countries strengthen their social distancing measures. They asked their people to wear masks and to keep a safe distance from other people. Some closed schools but some did not. These countries did not implement a lockdown. They managed to contain the spread of the virus and keep a low death rate. We should have tried this approach first, before ordering a costly lockdown that had a bad impact on the economy and that may really be unnecessary. The statistics from the World Health Organization showed that the death rate from the covid-19 is 2 per million in Singapore. It is 128 per million in America and higher in several countries in Europe. The risk from the covid-19 is clearly much lower in Singapore than in other countries. If our death rate is 50 per million, it would be justified for the ministers to panic and lockdown the country. But it is poor judgement and and hasty for the ministers to introduce a lockdown when the death rate was only 2 per million. To prepare for the possibility that the situation could get worse and a possible increase in the death rate, the ministers could have taken the following contingency measures: a) Increase our capacity to treat more severely ill patients. This means more hospital beds, ventilators and hospital doctors and nurses. We can follow other countries in how they expand the capacity quickly. b) Increase the isolation facilities to quarantine people for 14 or 21 days. These facilities can be set up quickly and do not need a high standard of medical equipment. c) Arrange to take care of the elderly sick people who live alone and in nursing homes. We can get specially screened care givers to take care of their needs and severely reduce their exposure to the wider community d) Conduct the covid test on all healthcare workers. This is to protect the health of the hospital workers and the patients. The results of the test can be used to estimate the community spread of the virus, as these workers can be treated as a representative sample of the population. This information is critical for planning the containment measures to be used in the future. I believe that the first two measures have already been taken by the government. I suggest that they act on the third and fourth measures immediately. I now come to the next test. Will the ministers extend the circuit breaker for another few weeks, beyond May 4? It would be unwise and unnecessary to extend the circuit breaker. It would cause greater damage to the livelihoods of the hundreds of thousand of people that have been badly affected now. The damage will extend further and affect to the population at large. I hope that the ministerial task force will review the situation and take the right decision going forward.   Tan Kin Lian      Read More →

We are already seeing some positive results but we cannot be complacent, and this is the time now to continue to hunker down and give this a further push. First, we call on everyone to do their part to minimise movement. Remember, the virus spreads through people – through our contact with others, and when we go out and touch surfaces, and then our hands touch our faces. We can take precautions like safe distancing and wearing of masks. But the best way to beat the virus is to stay home. So if you need to go out – buy food, buy groceries – go out alone. Do not turn this into an occasion for a family outing. And, if you need to go out and exercise, exercise alone and in your own neighbourhood. Do not travel out to exercise. We call on everyone to do this because it is the best way to protect yourselves and your family members. Second, we will continue with our efforts to control people movement in popular areas like wet markets and supermarkets. In these areas, we will impose entry restrictions. For example, in certain wet markets, we will only permit entry on alternate days, and we will do this with a system based on your NRIC or your FIN number. Depending on the last digit of your NRIC or FIN number, you will only be permitted entry on odd or even days. That is one example of a localised entry restriction that we will start with wet markets, and we will do this also in other popular areas like supermarkets in order to thin out the crowds and reduce transmission risks in these areas. [Afternote: The entry restrictions currently apply to 4 wet markets as announced in the press releases by MOH and NEA. Other wet markets, as well as supermarkets, which experience crowding, may also introduce similar access restrictions. The entry restrictions are also based on even and odd dates of the month, as announced in NEA’s press release.] Third, we will close more workplaces and also tighten the list of essential services that are permitted. I mentioned this last week, and we are now ready to make this move. This is important because when we analysed the local infected cases that occurred after the circuit breaker, many of them have been working as part of essential services or have family members who are working; because, these are the people who are still out and about. We do need our essential workers. We appreciate their contributions, but we have to reduce the numbers who are working. That’s why we will make a move to cut back the workforce who still have to commute daily, from the current 20% to 15%. We will do this by making cuts across all sectors of the economy, but also in businesses that are consumer-facing including in F&B and other services. This will mean that all of us may face some degradation of services or we may not be able to access F&B or certain services that we have become accustomed to. I hope everyone understands why we need to make this important move. Overall, we are seeing results from the circuit breaker, but we cannot let up now. We have to make this strong push to decisively break the transmission chain. The measures that we’ve just announced will be in place till 4 May. Beyond that, we will continue with the circuit breaker for another four weeks to 1 June. Depending on how the situation evolves, we will adjust the measures. If there are clear improvements in our community transmission numbers - for example, if we see community numbers coming down to single digits - then we can consider gradually easing some of these measures. We’ve said from the outset that this is a prolonged fight. We thank all Singaporeans and all residents of Singapore who have risen to the occasion and done their part through this circuit breaker period. Let us all continue to go all out to stamp out the virus and overcome this together. Let me just say a few words in Mandarin. 病毒阻断措施实行至今已经两个星期，我们已经开始看到一些成效。我们 须要继续努力，再加一把劲。首先，大家必须再减少活动，留再家里，因 为这是阻断病毒传播的最佳办法。如果你需要购买食物或日常用品，自己 一个人出门就好，不需要全家一起出门。如果你需要运动，也自己一个人 就好，而且应该在自己居住的邻里范围内运动。 我们将会继续针对多人聚集的地方进行管制，像是湿巴刹和超级市场。这 些地方将会有人流管制。如果你需要上巴刹和超级市场，最好是选择星期 一到星期五，人比较少的时候。 另外，我们也进一步减少必要服务的种类，继续减少出门工作的人数。我 们非常感谢必要服务领域员工在这段期间的贡献。我们将确保继续开工的 员工保持安全距离，以及采取必要的防范措施。 我们虽然开始看到成效，但绝对不能松懈下来，所以我们决定延长病毒阻断措施，直到 6 月 1 日。我们将会持续观察情况，按照事态的发展调整措施。如果病毒传播的情况有明显的好转，我们会考虑放宽某些措施。 要成功对抗病毒，除了站在前线的医护人员，也需要你我的努力。我们希 望大家都能遵守阻断措施，让我们早日打赢这场仗。   Remarks by Minister Lawrence Wong, Co-chair of the Multi-Ministry Taskforce on COVID-19, at Press Conference on COVID-19 at National Press Centre on 21 April 2020.      Read More →