TR EMERITUS

Singapore has come in as the 9th best country in the United Nations' Human Development report, measuring improvements in health and longevity, income and education, and personal security. However, the report also noted that inequality is worsening in the world with 85 richest people have as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest people. According to a recent Forbes' report, there are some 33 people in Singapore in its billionaire list (in S$) [Link]. The latest United Nations' Human Development report was launched on Thursday (24 Jul). The report ranked Norway at the top of the Human Development Index, followed by Australia, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United States. Among Asian countries, Singapore leads at number 9, followed by Hong Kong and South Korea at 15. Despite its lead in longevity, Japan is ranked 17th due to its lower income and schooling measures. Japan’s ranking took a hit because of lower scores on the education index compared to other developed Asian countries. The expected years of schooling - the number of years of schooling that a child can expect to receive under prevailing enrollment rates - was 15.3 years for Japan, while the figures for Singapore and Hong Kong were slightly higher and South Koreans had 17 years of expected schooling. Hong Kong and Singapore also surpassed Japan in the income index. The gross national income per capita for Japan was US$36,747, while it was US$72,371 for Singapore and US$52,383 for Hong Kong. The report reflects the growing conviction among many working in global policy-making and poverty alleviation that the gains made in the late 20th century risk being eroded by climate change, a global "race to the bottom" by big corporations that is forcing more and more workers to live on less and government budgets "balanced on the backs of the poor", said Mr Khalid Malik, a lead author of the report and a director at the Human Development Report Office. However, he praised Singapore for its policies promoting social and racial harmony. He told ST that Singapore has done well to progress from a Third-World nation to a First-World one in a short span of time. "What I also see is very positive is (that) Singapore has managed to bring many groups and races together into a cohesive sense of being a Singaporean," he said. He added that cohesive societies tend to do better in developing their citizens. This, in turn, increases the country's ability to deal with crises. Singaporeans may be cohesive among themselves due to the common experiences they shared like living in HDB estates together, going to schools together and serving NS together but the same cannot be said with the large number of foreigners living in Singapore. Presently, this figure is close to 40% of the total population of Singapore. The large number of foreigners present in Singapore makes it harder for them to integrate into the Singapore society. They tend to hang out in their own enclaves and among their own kinds. Last year, large group of Indian nationals congregating in Little India rioted over an accident which killed one of their compatriots. Numerous emergency vehicles were burnt and a number of police and SCDF personnel were injured. It was the first in over 40 years since the 1969 race riots. The COI report released on 30 Jun last month had identified culture and psychology of the Indian national crowd as one of the contributing factors. Mr Khalid also said that Singapore "shines" in providing plenty of gainful employment. But he noted that the country has issues to address as well. "It has also some challenges... of a certain amount of inequality; the lower end of the scale of Singaporeans are not benefiting as much as possible," he said.    Read More →

No reason for MPs and GIC to be afraid of CPF transparency issue GIC has been losing citizens’ trust in its management of our CPF monies. Although there are valid speculations about GIC’s solvency and huge investment losses, the government could have easily addressed this with more transparency. Instead, ministers and MPs prefer to beat around the bush in Parliament. Keeping $252 billion of Singaporeans’ hard earned savings in total darkness might have gone unquestioned in the past. But not now. Just what is GIC trying to hide from CPF members when it could have revealed where our money is invested? The meaning of transparency could not be better illustrated with a comparison between the world’s largest pension fund, the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) of Norway, and GIC. 1  GPFG – Using state resources (oil) for investments to save for future generations of Norwegians in a totally transparent manner. . GIC – Using CPF members’ hard-earned savings for investments but says they cannot be revealed with crap reasons. 2  GPFG – Publishes the remuneration of its board of directors. GIC - Remunerations are in the millions but are kept secret. Do ministers receive remunerations? Sorry that also cannot tell. Norges Bank Annual Report 2013 (pg 50) Exchange rate $1 = 5 krone   3  GPFG – No politicians on its board. GIC – 5 ministers, including the PM and 2 DPM, on its board. 4  GPFG – Directors serve a maximum of 2 terms/12 years. GIC – Lee Kuan Yew was Chairman for 30 years from 1981 to 2011. PM Lee is the present Chairman. 5  GPFG - Discloses its total holdings. GIC – Make up stories of likely attack by currency speculators during a crisis but discloses this to foreign publications such as SWF. GIC – Discloses total assets as US$320 billion to SWF but continues to state “it manages well over US$100 billion” for over a decade. The government channeled more than S$86m CPF funds into GIC during the last 5 years. What is more interesting: 6  GPFG – Published a list of ALL (more than 30) its real estate holdings. GIC – ZERO 7  GPFG – Published 6 pages of more than 1000 bonds in its portfolio. GIC – ZERO   8  GPFG – Published 45 pages of its holding of more than 8000 equities. GIC – ZERO Conclusion GIC is about 3 times smaller than the largest pension fund GPFG. The value of its individual investments are higher and that means there are less number of investments in its portfolio. If Norway’s pension fund can be totally transparent, why are CPF investments shrouded in secrecy? The logical conclusion for maintaining opacity is there are huge issues in GIC. Does the PAP government want to regain the trust of citizens? Or does it want to continue treating citizens as fools? The ball is in the PAP’s court. If there is nothing to hide, providing transparency should not be an issue. p.s. The Norway government is managing state resources and yet it is transparent. The GIC is managing public’s money, treats OUR money like state resources but remains opaque. Maybe we are expected to believe it may take 56 man years? Phillip Ang *  The author blogs at likedatosocanmeh.  Read More →

[Devadas Krishnadas wrote for ST on 25 Jul, 'Count on me, Singapore ... in a national crisis too?'. See also: Can SGs pull together & rally behind Govt in crisis?] 104 Seconds From National Disaster! Straits Times published another article on MH17 by another 'aviation expert'. He raised two questions: How would our Government have responded? How would our people have reacted? Unfortunately, he discussed one and half only. Instead of focusing on how our government would typically respond, he focused on how they should respond. He is wasting his time. Our government doesn't bother with any external suggestions that don't come with the PAP DNA imprint. And they are deaf to all criticisms. I stand corrected. The writer has PAP DNA written all over: if not over him, over the written article. The incumbent simply can't resist any opportunity to bring the people on their side as every vote is going to count in the next election. "The Malaysian people have been supportive of their government's actions and, broadly speaking, have been understanding of the difficulties and challenges it is facing in responding to the event." The incumbent is looking for solid backing no matter how the national tragedy came about: be it an act of God or an act of our obscenely paid Minister/s. As an aside I can't tell the difference being the two Gods: I doubt if anyone living in Singapore can. "With the solid backing of the people, the government can be emboldened to act decisively and with resolution and focus on the task at hand. Without it, the government would be fighting a war on two fronts: the crisis itself, and domestic criticism and harping from an impatient and insistent people. In such a scenario, no government can bring full focus to bear or have complete self-confidence in its handling of the crisis." Instead on focusing how we can avoid a national tragedy like MH17 the writer assumed there will be one because it is inevitable in the game of life. In business school this is called expectation management. "How would we have responded as a people? Many Singaporeans these days appear to hold unrealistically high expectations of their political leaders and the public bureaucracy, and are prone to criticising and perpetuating criticism of the government." "Whatever the divides or disappointments during normal times, it would not do well for us to continue in the same vein when the country faces a tragedy or confronts an existential shock." In essence the writer is suggesting we shouldn't equate high price with high quality. As an expert in strategic risk management he should know that by throwing away 'price' as an input in risk analysis he is breaking a cardinal rule in risk management: high risk correlates with high return. The converse is also true: high return comes with high risk. Either he is not aware our Ministers earn more than ten times the income of their counterparts in USA - with a population that is 100 times higher - or, he has deliberately omitted this fact in his analysis. If it is the former he is not much of a risk analyst to begin with. If it is the latter, it is unprofessional and unworthy of of him in his profession. To his credit he gave a reasonably good account of the SIA saga in the MH17 tragedy. "It has been reported that there were many more flights by Singapore Airlines (SIA) traversing the route flown by MH17 than most other airlines - including MAS. Given that the attackers seemingly did not specifically target the aircraft because it was MAS, the statistical probability was greater that an SIA aircraft would have been struck - simply because it flew more flights over the area. We lucked out, MAS did not." It was a reasonably good but incomplete picture of the sorry mess SIA gotten itself into. He failed to highlight SIA was only less than 2 minutes away from a national tragedy of epic proportion. I called it epic because in that eventuality every single CPF members in Singapore would be affected. If SIA sinks then Temasek Holdings (Pte) Ltd would be affected and this would ultimately impact everyone in Singapore. The only people not affected would be our Ministers who will continue to earn the same obscene amount of salary monthly and the top senior management people in SIA who will transfer to another lucrative position in some government linked companies or government beholden companies if the accompanying noises got loud enough. SIA was 104 seconds away from disaster because SQ351 was trailing 25km behind MH17 in the same direction and flight path. SQ351, a twin-jet Boeing 777-200 was doing 466 knots or 863 kph, making it 104 seconds from being lucked out. The writer claimed SIA lucked out. It is incorrect. This is true only if you are in USA: lucked out there means having good luck. In Singapore we are still following the British English standard. As mentioned above the writer discussed only one and half question of the two he raised. He failed to discuss what would our government do if SIA were to lucked out and our plane got shot down instead of MH17. He wrote a little about what the government should do and a lot about what the people of Singapore should do. "I can't help but wonder whether Singaporeans would pull together and rally behind their leadership. Would we be able to constrain our high expectations and face realistically the challenges inherent in dealing with a tragedy so far away and in such a conflicted space? Or would there be brickbats aplenty?" "In short he is proposing we should support our government in any national tragedy, no matter it was our government that caused it in the first place." In short he is proposing we should support our government in any national tragedy, no matter it was our government that caused it in the first place. He would like us mere mortals, with an intelligent quotient that is but a tiny fraction of demigods - with world record salaries - to forgive and forget no matter how many times our government screw up and how big the screw-ups. Importantly, he doesn't distinguish avoidable screw-ups from black swans. He thinks any screw-up is random in nature and the best course of action is to be supportive of our government and move on. "The tragedy of MH17 is a powerful reminder of how unexpected life can be and a sobering illustration of how societies and governments can be sorely tested with alarming abruptness." From this perspective I pity his clients taking advice from him. He doesn't have a learning model in the strategic theories he is advancing. The 'let us move on' psychic is pure PAP DNA that is completely useless in the real world. Flying in a war-zone repeatedly has consequences that are predictable. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand this. SIA lucked out because it chose to gloat and laugh at other people's misfortune as is in the typical PAP culture of hubris. He wrote: "Our feelings are with the Malaysians and all those affected by the tragedy." Apparently, the 'Our' here doesn't include members of PAP and its stakeholders in SIA senior management. My question here is this: are we to support our government blindly in such a tragedy where they behaved immorally and callously? Should the people of Singapore also sink to the same level of depravity as PAP and its stakeholders? Like all PAP stakeholders who are capable of the right sound bites and politically correct statements the writer advised "It would be a greater tragedy still if countries did not learn from the experience to improve their capabilities and to reflect on the quality of their social culture." I couldn't agree more.   Apolitical * Submitted by TRE reader   Editor's note: http://future-moves.com/about-us/devadas-krishnadas-founder/ Devadas Krishnadas is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Future-Move Group. Devadas has wide and deep experience in both public and private sectors. He served in the infantry during his National Service followed by 10 years as a senior officer in the Singapore Police Force (SPF). During his time in the SPF, he served as an Acting Chief Investigation Officer, National Operations Management Officer, Commanding Officer of a precinct and Head of Operations for a Land Division. He also served special duties as Officer Commanding, Light Strike Force and Ground Commander of Public Order Task Groups. He was also seconded to the Ministry of Home Affairs Joint Operations Directorate to head penal and counter-narcotics policy. He also held contingency appointments in support of high level crisis management bodies. He was awarded multiple commendations for his contributions to national security. From 2001-2003 he was also honoured to serve as Honourary Aide-de-Camp to the President of Singapore. Following his time with the SPF, Devadas served for 5 years in strategy and policy appointments in Singapore Civil Service. He established the strategy group at the then Ministry of Community development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) to form and coordinate social policy. He also served as its first Lead Social Strategist. He received commendations for his service as a policy officer and for his contributions to contingency planning for the Ministry. He also coordinated the Ministry’s performance during its annual Committee of Supply (COS) debate. He also conceptualised and led the first Social Scenarios project in the civil service. Devadas then went on to form the first Whole-of-Government (WoG) Strategic Planning unit at the Ministry of Finance where he was also concurrently the Deputy Director of Fiscal Policy and the first Lead Foresight Strategist. In these capacities he put in place the mechanism for long term integrated planning of national objectives. He was also the lead policy officer for Budget 2011 and supervised the fiscal planning for Budget 2012. He also supervised the intra-government budget negotiation process across the public service. He introduced several innovations to make the process more efficient and effective. He has in-depth experience and knowledge of the policy process from initial staffing through to cabinet decisions. He was also one of the team members which worked on Singapore’s successful bid to become the first Asian chair of the International Monetary and Finance Committee (IMFC) at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He was also appointed Associate of the Centre for Strategic Futures (CSF) at the Prime Minister’s office in 2010 and served as an adjunct lecturer on fiscal policy and futures thinking at the Civil Service College from 2010-212. He was also a member of the National Scenarios project coordinated by the Strategic Policy Office of the Prime Minister’s Office. Since leaving public service, Devadas has established an international reputation for thought leadership. He has been widely published or quoted in a range of mainstream and online news media including the Asian Wall Street Journal, China News Daily, South China Morning Post, Shanghai Daily,  the Straits Times, TODAY, MyPaper,  Lianhe Zaobao, Malaysian Insider and Yahoo News. He has also been covered in reporting by the Intelligent Insurer in London, as well as COVER, Dinheiro Vivo, and Executive Digest magazines in Portugal. Devadas has also been published or cited as an authority on strategic thinking in monographs and journals by the Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) (Monograph) at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) (POINTER journal), the United States Naval War College (Case Study), the Singapore Public Service (ETHOS journal) and the Singapore Ministry of Trade and Industry (Futuretense journal). In 2014 Devadas published his first book, Sensing Singapore. The foreword for which was written by Singapore’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Law who described Devadas as “one of the rare few who tell it like it is…a prime example of a thinker who is able to grasp the importance of a balanced critique…He is not held hostage by political or economic ideologies. He is not swayed by populist sentiment. And he is intellectually honest.” Devadas is a graduate of the Oxford University Scenario Programme (OSP) conducted by the Said Business School, University of Oxford. He has also completed the General Management Programme (GMP) conducted by the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge. He holds a Masters of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) from the Fletcher School, Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts USA and Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Sydney, Australia. As an undergraduate Devadas held the International Merit Scholarship awarded by his University and was the winner of the Aisling Society and G.A. Wood Prizes. In 2002 he was jointly selected by the governments of Singapore and the United States to participate in the International Visitor Programme (IVP). In 2003 he was awarded the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship. He served as Secretary of the Fulbright Association of Singapore from 2005-2010. He founded Future-Moves in 2012 and served as its Managing Director. In 2014 he restructured the firm into Future-Moves Group and is now its Chief Executive Officer.  Read More →