TR EMERITUS

It was reported that ComfortDelGro would temporary increase taxi fares as a result of increased petrol prices. Don’t you find this rather outrageous as they had posted a profit of $130 million in 2021? Why can’t they just temporarily lower their rental to help the cabbies instead of increasing taxi fares? Weren’t the fares just increased in March? Why is there the need for a second round of increase less than a month later? Nowadays, so many taxi drivers are already struggling as people are working from home more than ever. Will an increase in fares cause their number of passengers to drop even further, and cause these poor uncles to work even longer to pay for their rental? Leong Sze Hian has done research and found that the land that petrol stations sit on is tendered for an average of $4 million a year and petrol duties were increased in budget 2021! What is the PAP government doing about this? What else do they know other than to make life difficult for us?   Prabu Ramachandran      Read More →

I am writing to counter Mr Tan Kin Lian’s suggestion in his opinion piece - “Buy or rent a house?” on TR Emeritus. We have to tackle the root cause of the problem and not simply tell Singaporeans to bite the bullet and go for an alternative. So instead of suggesting that Singaporeans should rent a place to live in, Mr Tan should be telling our government to allow non-citizens in SG to only rent a place to live in if they cannot afford to buy private properties. Indeed, house prices have gone up so high like Mr Tan has said and it is especially so for our public housing which is CRAZILY sky high now! More and more HDB flats have fetched over a million in the resale market while new flats sold directly from HDB are nearing three-quarters of a million! The prices are absolutely ridiculous for public housing flats yet many young couples are continuing to queue for the new BTOs. Why so? What’s the reason? I asked my children, nieces and nephews why there are still people willing to wait for 3-4 yrs for a more than half million dollars HDB flat and most of them gave quite a similar answer. “What to do? Don’t buy now, the prices keep going up! Buy and live for 5 yrs first then sell lor. Many people did earn a profit from selling their flats anyway.” All the humongous surge in HDB prices is only giving our youngsters false hope. It’s obvious this present bunch of PAPidots is really not thinking for our future generations and our country. They are only concerned about themselves, their own pockets and their seats in the parliament when they allowed HDB flats to continue to rise and are still feeling proud of it. First and foremost our HDB flats should ONLY be meant for Singaporeans and strictly for Singaporeans only! PRs should never be allowed to buy HDB flats regardless of it being a resale or new flat. However, our money faced government has nonchalantly allowed PRs to own our HDB flats in order to drive up housing prices. The present HDB rule says If both the couple are PRs (for at least 3 yrs) then they are eligible to buy resale HDB flats in the open market. They are not allowed to buy a new flat unless they apply with a Singaporean spouse. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to exploit this silly rule, do you? Does the government not know how many PRs have taken advantage of this brainless rule and benefited a great deal? All that any PR couples needed to do is for one of them to convert to a SG citizen and BINGO, they are eligible to buy a new subsidised flat already while the other partner can still keep the original nationality so that when the time is right they’ll simply sell their flat for a profit and balik kampung. They know very well that SG is a place only good to make money but never a place where they will retire and die in. My daughter recently shared with me her PR colleagues’ perfect plan before their marriage. One is PRC while the other is a Malaysian. They decided that since China is economically stronger than Malaysia where they can retire in, the Malaysian guy would give up his citizenship for a SG pink IC just so they can purchase a new HDB BTO. How idiotic can HDB be, right? New HDB flats are subsidised so shouldn’t HDB impose stricter rules on the foreign-born? If a couple is both foreign-born then HDB should require both of them to be converted to new SG citizens for at least 5 years before they are allowed to buy a new BTO flat. This way only those who are genuinely wanting to become Singaporeans will become new citizens. Also, HDB should never have allowed PRs to buy resale flats. In HDB website, it says " HDB flats are meant primarily to serve as a home for Singaporeans and are not intended as speculative investments." So, why are PRs allowed to buy our HDB flats and drive up flats prices? What do we see in SG in the near future if the foreign-born kept exploiting the HDB rules? While the foreigners make tons of money from our public housing and leave SG to enjoy life back in their homeland, our future generation Singaporeans will have to bear with the high costs of housing for decades to come! So, please, Mr Tan. If miraculously you do become SG president, please stop non-Singaporean couples from buying our public housing. When HDB flats do not cost a bomb anymore, there is no longer a need for you to worry for them. Thank you.   Clowns Of Parleeament      Read More →

The Russian invasion of Ukraine no doubt has a resonance on the West but people of the East are largely unfazed by it. Not because we don't care but as Vivian Balakrishnan our Foreign Minister rightly puts it, it is not our war, period! It then behoves us the reason for Singapore's participation in Western sanctions that were neither passed nor adopted, owing to the votes of 2 permanent members of the security council. The PAP government should at the very least, put forth a referendum seeking citizens' inputs on implementing sanctions that are not adopted by the UN, regardless of the number of UN members wishing to adhere to it. Switzerland did just that and the Country will have to live with the consequences of its citizenry participation on sanctioning Russia. Akin to the vote put up by Turkey condemning the US for "recognising" the Israeli status of Jerusalem and moving its embassy there, the US remains unfazed by the episode as it is a "non-binding" one. President Trump had also indicated he'll take note of which Country had voted against his Nation. Nothing came out of that either. In our sphere, we are only concerned about China and its dominating activities as Malaysia bluntly puts it, China has taken aggresive measures to subjugate ASEAN members by attempting to divide us and deal with us as individual entities, to continue its intrusion and taking over of our marine space by coercion. Singapore and the West have absolutely no moral authority to sanction Russia when they themselves tolerate crony capitalist dictatorship that bends to the Will of the West. In Singapore, we have seen detention without trial of Opposition figures like Mr Chia Thye Poh and others, the exile of Mr Francis Seow, Tang Liang Hong etc., bankruptcy of Dr Chee, JBJ and last but not least, the recent arrests and charging of civil activists and forceful closure of independent media outlets. I understand the sentencing of the duo in the TOC criminal defamation case is due soon on April 8. Just like the dire war situation in Ukraine, the dictatorship in Singapore albeit under the false guise of a peaceful Nation is untenable as well. So before the West tells us what to do, it should first clean up its act and keep its own house in moral order!   Judy Tan      Read More →