TR EMERITUS

Government Gibberish 1:  Swee Say’s 3 Points About CPF I am taking up PM Lee’s suggestion that ‘someone... collects examples, and help us do better’. It will be by way of commentary rather than a dedicated website as I am no IT geek. By no means am I best qualified to do the task. Hence, I welcome anyone who will contribute to the observations and correct me where I may miss something or be wrong. Hopefully, our common interest in and concern for effective communication by our leaders will make up for when I should fall short. To minimize endless arguments over semantics, we shall apply Lee Kuan Yew’s standards in our evaluation, namely, ‘avoid confusion and give words their ordinary meanings.’ Lim Swee Say We shall try to measure ministers’ words in ‘their ordinary meanings’. As life would have it, Minister Lim Swee Say gets the honour to kick this off. Point #1 “the CPF is your money. Nobody can take away that money from you.” Swee Say reinforces Tan Chuan-Jin’s words by further elaborating. Here’s the gibberish. If something is ‘your(s)’ it means that it ‘belongs to you’, you ‘own’ it. Hence, in the ordinary meaning of ‘ownership’, the owner would have the undisputed right to do what she pleases with it. But this is not so with CPF. More and more CPFers are realizing that their ‘right’ to their own CPF money has been heavily curtailed, cut – how the money is invested, the rate of return for use of their money, how one chooses to use what has been agreed originally to be withdrawn at 55 etc. Therefore, Swee Say is clearly saying something that is truthy (seems to be, but not necessarily true) but not true in the ordinary meaning of the words used. Point #2 “your money with CPF is 100 percent safe and continues to earn risk-free interest, even during challenging times such as the global financial crisis in 2009.” It is correct that our CPF ‘continues to earn… interest’. However, we must take exception to the claim that it is “100% safe… and risk-free”. Nobody honest in the field of investments can, should or will claim any money placed with any entity, individual or group, is 100% safe and risk-free. But, we must be fair to Swee Say. His words can, in some context like the one he uttered, off-the-cuff and to ordinary citizens, be taken to ordinarily mean ‘very safe’ even if it is not true, legally-speaking. So, we can tolerate the lax. However, measuring that by his own PM’s standard that even in ‘an informal conversation… (to) not impress anyone. Use simple language which people can understand’, he falls short. Therefore, Swee Say should have uttered ‘your money with CPF is AAA-rated, that is very safe and earn 2.5% interest even during….’ The question then arises, “Why are we paying Swee Say more than S$1.1mil per month if he is ignorant or wilfully negligent to be specific where he surely can be on such an important issue for citizens?” Point #3 “the less you make use of your money when you are young, the more money you will have for retirement… It is clear in this context that ‘young’ refers to those who are aged 55 and ‘less use’ of the CPF money refers to the CPF cash withdrawal for purposes other than housing, healthcare and education for the children.” Someone else has already called out Swee Say’s disingenuous use of ‘young’ to refer to ‘those aged 55’. [Link] So, no need to belabour the point. We would just suggest that hearers would have been better off with, ‘the less you make use of your money for other purposes when you turn 55, the more you will have for retirement’. Conclusion So, what should we make of these 3 short falls? He reportedly also said, ”the labour movement has been watching the debate closely, and wants to ensure that what is discussed does not create confusion among workers and union leaders.” It would appear to the average hearer/reader that Swee Say has done exactly the opposite of what he claimed to want to ensure, i.e. create more confusion instead of less! Hence, the truth behind his words appears to be to ‘confuse’ or obfuscate in order to hide something about the CPF. What can that be, now he has left us wondering. That’s gibberish for you. 2cents * The author blogs at 2econdsight.  Read More →

Ex-Secretary General of NSP, Goh Meng Seng Before I start, I must state that it is really regrettable that I have to criticize Mr. Low Thia Khiang in this post. I always have high regards of him and even regarded him as my First Teacher for my initiation into Singapore Opposition Politics. Even though we may have differences in opinions but I have always given him the respect of a teacher or "shifu" to me. However, this NMP issue is just blatantly against the very fundamental principles of Democracy and Democratic Electoral Process. It is just too important to me as a matter of principles, to state categorically that even my "shifu" is just obviously wrong to be involved in this undemocratic process of selecting NMP. When I read the news on Asia One with regards to the Select Committee of Nominated MP (NMP), I was quite puzzled with the composition of the Select Committee. It was reported that Mr. Low Thia Khiang, Secretary General and Party Whip of Workers Party, was included as a member of this Select Committee. Members of the Special Select Committee are: Speaker Halimah Yacob (Chairman) Dr Ng Eng Hen, Minister of Defence and Leader of the House Ms Grace Fu Hai Yien, Minister, Prime Minister's Office, Second Minister for the Environment and Water Resources and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs Dr Janil Puthucheary Ms Ellen Lee Low Thia Khiang Masagos Zulkifli BMM, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ms Sim Ann, Minister of State, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Communications and Information I am puzzled because as far as I can remember, when I was still a CEC member of WP, WP's position was that NMP should be abolished. This was written in GE 2006 WP Election Manifesto. I double check on WP website for its GE 2011 Manifesto, this position has not changed. It is clearly stated in Chapter 1, Section B, Para 5 that "The Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP) scheme should be abolished." Thus, I am really puzzled why Mr. Low Thia Khiang accepted the appointment of member of the Select Committee of NMP! Mr. Low in particular, was strongly against the NMP scheme. When the parliament was debating about Constitutional Change to include the NMP scheme, he was seen clapping his hands [Link] after Dr. Tan Cheng Bock has categorically stated his stance of opposing the NMP scheme. The first doubt surfaces in my mind is, has Mr. Low or WP change their stance with regards to NMP scheme? If not, why is Mr. Low in the Selection Committee of NMP? Before any WP apologists would jump in and use GRC as a justification for Mr. Low's involvement in this NMP Selection Committee, I will make distinctions between the two different issues. First of all, even if WP or any other opposition opposition parties are against the GRC system and call for its abolishment, but do they have any CHOICE of not contesting in GRC? If they are not going to contest in GRCs, then they will make PAP very happy as that is exactly what PAP wants: to monopolize power without the need to fight for seats! And the ONLY way of changing the GRC system is to beat PAP in its own game and rules until it loses power. This could only be done by contesting in GRCs and win the seats there! Thus for the issue of GRC system, it is a matter of the lack of alternative ways to effect a change if we do not contest in GRCs. i.e. the ONLY way to change the GRC system is to contest the GRCs even though we are against it. But for this NMP scheme, you do not need to participate in the whole selection process which inevitably give legitimacy to the whole scheme, in order to get rid of the scheme. Thus there is absolutely no legitimate reason, in my opinion, for anyone who oppose this NMP scheme to get himself involved in the Selection Committee at all. He is practically giving support and legitimacy to the NMP scheme which is totally undemocratic by being part of the Selection Committee. Such contradiction is just too glaring to ignore. It is a matter of big principle here; Democracy is definitely not through appointment politics. Anyone who wants to sit and speak in parliament, must go through the democratic electoral process to earn his right of representation of his constituents. The votes he gets from his constituents are the basis of his right to be part of the parliament. This is why anybody who really believe in Democracy, any self respecting Democratic fighters would go against NMP scheme as it is allowing people to walk into parliament via the backdoor. It is just blatantly wrong for Mr. Low to be involved in the Selection Committee of NMP and yet declaring his objection to this NMP scheme. He has the right and choice to decline the appointment to the Selection Committee but he chose to be involved instead. I raise this issue here because this is of public interests and not some private matters which should be taken lightly. I believe many WP supporters, like me, would like to know why this is so. Why Mr. Low has done something which seemingly contradicted WP's as well as his own stance against NMP. Has WP and Mr Low changed their stance with regards to NMP? Have they lost their Democratic Principles? Are they just paying lip service to their belief in Democracy? Do they believe in Democracy at all? Well, only Mr. Low Thia Khiang can explain these questions and the contradiction of his action and the words embedded in WP Manifesto. After Note: Some people have suggested it may be good for Mr. Low Thia Khiang to be in the Selection Committee so that he can ensure good people and not just Pro-PAP people are nominated as NMP. They are afraid that PAP anyhow choose people to be NMPs. I would say first of all, he is just one person against several other PAP MPs in the committee and I doubt he can prevent any "Pro-PAP" or mediocre people to be nominated as NMPs. Furthermore, if he is NOT in the Selection Committee, these "bad choices" would be seen directly as the choices of PAP alone and Singaporeans can blame PAP for that. However, now that Mr. Low is in the committee, things will not be that straight forward at all. These bad choices (if any) will be seen as the COLLECTIVE CHOICE of both PAP and WP. This is where the legitimacy that LTK has given PAP on this NMP scheme!   Goh Meng Seng * The writer contested in the 2006 GE with WP in Aljunied GRC as one of 5 team members. He then left WP in 2006 after the election due to "some Internet postings which had tarnished the WP's reputation" despite being a CEC member and a member of WP's "A team" at the time. He later joined NSP and eventually became its Secretary-General. He contested in the 2011 GE in the five-man Tampines GRC as team leader against the incumbent Mah Bow Tan (then, Minister for National Development). His team lost to Mah's team. Mr Goh stepped down from his post as Secretary-General of NSP after the 2011 election in June 2011 "for a breather and to take stock of his future". He eventually left NSP. He now blogs at http://singaporealternatives.blogspot.com.    Read More →

[Letter sent to Janadas Devan, Ministry of Communication & Information, Gerald Giam, WP, and copied to TRE] 8 Jun 2014 Dear Mr Devan, Please refer to my unresponded email to your organisation below. I am disappointed that to date, the government has chosen to ignore citizens' genuine concerns of bread & butter coupled with pressing issues of ever rising medical costs instead of addressing them or coming out with policy alternatives (without fine prints) to assist. I seldom deal or liaise with governmental departments and this experience will no doubt leave me with not only a bad impression but also thoughts of changes, as I have not received, in good faith, any assurances that my future and that of my children can be secure or protected. Yours faithfully, Adam Lim --- First email to REACH --- From:  Adam Lim Date:  20 May 2014 Subject:  Tax Invoice To:  REACH Dear Panel, Pls refer to the billing by KKH dated 15.5.14, Case number xxxxxxx500E. I am much appalled that the outstanding amount after deduction of government grant, was directly taken out of my scarce CPF when both my wife and I are in possession of a valid NTUC Incomeshield plan. I am unable to comprehend the rationale for double deductions to our CPF, once for paying the Incomeshield and the other for the actual full amount as charged by KKH. My family have also been trying unsuccessfully to apply for the CHAS card after it was granted only once in 2005-07 despite our heavy financial burdens. The government simply brushes off our plea by stating categorically that it is a policy matter which is unbending. Now that my wife is expecting our second child, I am still unsure as a Singaporean, whether this is a cause for joy with not much subsidies to expect coupled with a 80 year old ailing mother and primary school going kid to care for, bearing in mind the mortgages. Hence I hope that as a forum genuinely interested in the vested well being and welfare of citizens, you will do the right thing by levelling up the imbalances of our soon to be torn apart society. *  Submitted by TRE reader.  Read More →