TR EMERITUS

We have inherited a political system from the British. Instead of British Masters we now have our own politicians  to govern the country under a so-called democratic system. The Prime Minister and his Cabinet set out the policies and the civil servants who are supposed to be politically neutral carry them out without question. In any case where there is a dispute the Prime Minister is the final arbiter which is his constitutional right. These are intricacies which may not be known by some members of the public, especially the so-called freedom fighters who blamed the civil servants for so-called undemocratic actions like what they described as unjust and prolonged detentions under the ISA. As Director of ISD I used to receive not so infrequent broadsides from so-called freedom fighters but I took them in my stride as this was part of the jeopardy of my occupation. The British Masters had similar arbitrary power under British rule but rarely if ever to my knowledge excercised. Singapore civil servants are not short of compassion and conscience. Communist countries like China are ruled by the Party Chairman who sets the policies never if ever disputed by other members of his cohort and carry out by party cadres. They have no civil servants in the democratic sense and political neutrality is never heard of.The late Chairman Mao ZeDong of China is a notable example. The status quo in Singapore is going to stay irrespective of whether Singaporeans believe that this is an egalitarian society. Sixty-one percent of the electorate are so paralysed in their mind  that not voting for the PAP in any general election would mean the disintegration of their livelihood is something of such a monumental nature that no credible or formidable opposition will be able to overcome. This is going to be the reality of the situation for a possibly long time and with the exception of the emergence of a super politician who could command the confidence and trust of the the majority of the electorate it will be a mammoth if not unattainable task to try to dislodge the PAP. The 4G sucessors of Lee Hsien Loong are a comical disparate group but then the Party had from time immemorial monopolised the field of so-called talented electorial candidates with their affluent enticements that leaves oppositon parties with almost nothing of a fighting chance to counter them. By now the 4G have shown that they are really the run-of- the-mill  quality but still formidable enough to mortify the oppostion. So what is the solution? It seems that there has to be some kind mysticism for divinity to bestow some savour of  the blessing of a Darling of Fate (天之骄子) on the opposition to be able to make a breakthrough the invincible barrier of the PAP. To make things worse the Workers' Party has found itself in a rut now over the Raeesah Khan scandle. The Progress Singapore Party is till nascent. So however you look at it, it's so daunting to the opposition. Therefore it needs divine intervention.     Yoong Siew Wah * The author was the Director of Singapore’s Internal Security Department (ISD) from 1971 to 1974. He was Director of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) in the 1960s, and had a distinguished career in the Singapore Special Branch in the 1950s.            Read More →

Since the class action (CA) suit was filed against the MTF on 28th December 2021, TR Emeritus (TRE) has received a number of email queries from concerned and affected readers asking why are the lawyers not asking for an emergency injunction to stop the MTF from dishing out the supposed discriminatory and ridiculous policies. On that, we consulted the lawyers and the reply was: We can’t get an injunction because Section 27 Of The Government Proceedings Act prevents an injunction from being taken out against the Government. What that basically means is that unlike in the USA, until the CA is heard by the judge, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that can be done to stop the MTF from dishing out ANY policies, even if hypothetically, the MTF wants to shoot all the un-vaccinated, in blatant violation of the constitution. ONLY when the CA is before the judge and should he (in the very unlikely event) decide to intervene, the judge can issue a quashing and prohibitory order against the MTF directions. The MTF then can/will appeal against the order and apply to stay them (and continue to treat those un-vaccinated like dirt), pending the outcome of their appeal. So it will be a long-drawn legal battle. Hearing Date Set On a related note, at the pre-Trial conference on 12th January 2022, the AGC asked for 6 weeks to file response affidavits as they may need to file several affidavits since a few ministries are involved. Their request has been granted. The Court has also fixed the matter for hearing before Justice Dedar Singh Gill on 18 April 2022, but the lawyers will be writing to the Court to ask for an earlier date as this is a matter of public interest. Since the filing on 28th December 2021, many other policies were dished out by the MTF which are supposedly discriminatory and ridiculous and may even be unconstitutional. The lawyers have advised that they may be able to address these policies as well, depending on the response affidavits filed by the AGC in reply to the original CA (i.e. waiting for AGC to open the doors). We will have an opportunity to ask for permission to reply to the affidavits filed by AGC if new issues or evidence arise in those affidavits. Your Support Needed In the meantime, we regret to inform that TRE has only managed to raise about $32,000 of the targeted $50,000 for the litigants to take this matter all the way to the Apex Court. Without achieving the target funding amount, the current CA will stop at the High Court regardless of the outcome. As this current CA is the only action that is proceeding in the High Court, we would like to appeal to those affected and soon-to-be-affected to please contribute generously to the legal fund so that the lawyers can do all they can to fight for the cause. There are currently only 2 modes for receiving contributions, via TR Emeritus' (TRE) official PayPal account and Ms Han Hui Hui's local POSB Bank account, the information of which is appended below.   TR Emeritus' PayPal POSB Bank Support TR EmeritusSGD - $20SGD - $50SGD - $100SGD - $250SGD - $500SGD - $1000Or Other Amount: jQuery(document).ready(function($) { $('.wp_accept_pp_button_form_classic').submit(function(e){ var form_obj = $(this); var other_amt = form_obj.find('input[name=other_amount]').val(); if (!isNaN(other_amt) && other_amt.length > 0){ options_val = other_amt; //insert the amount field in the form with the custom amount $('').attr({ type: 'hidden', id: 'amount', name: 'amount', value: options_val }).appendTo(form_obj); } return; }); });   Han Hui Hui   279-12328-0   If the above PayPal link does not work for you, you may make a manual payment to [email protected] or use this alternative link with an accompanying note "CA" for ease of reference and proper crediting. For donations to Ms Han Hui Hui, clicking on the "POSB" logo above will direct you to the bank's official internet banking website.   Thank you for your continued support and do stay safe.        Read More →

Click to enlarge When Singapore started out as a developing self-ruled nation, our economic policies were largely focused on Wealth-Producing sectors that were producing high paying jobs, especially during the period from 1965 to 1985. Economic planning was always well communicated while our government adopted a very prudent approach in spending. By collectively creating wealth that grew our economy, our national savings in the form of the CPF grew, and with prudency, Singapore managed to build up a sizeable reserve by the time the First Generation of the PAP stepped down in 1985. This partly explained why a poor country like Singapore can become a financial hub for South East Asia region as without money, how could we have attracted more money? Our earlier economic trajectory was so strong that it continued to fuel our economic growth right up to mid-1990s and that is why many Singaporeans were not critically aware of the shift in our economic planning. Between 1995 to 2005 was when the unthinkable happened - we stopped being prudent and started to shift from a wealth producing nation to a wealth-consuming nation by attracting wealthy foreigners and entities, and where high-paying wealth producing sector jobs were traded for lower-paying wealth-consuming service sector jobs. Hence we started to hear politicians naively hankering about the need to be “cheaper, better & faster” but for what and for who exactly? To make the Singapore Workforce cheaper, our government started to aggressively import cheap foreign workforce to replace our local workforce, and by introducing tax levies, billions were collected and became the obsession of politically motivated parliamentarians. With massive increase in foreign workforce, more rents were collected, catering food for them were much more lucrative than opening more hawker centres to cater to locals, and when you start adding healthcare, insurance, telecommunications, remittance etc, those politicians naively believed that foreign workforce can be manipulated to grow the economy and population that also give them more votes. Yes, our economy grew superficially and the government started paying themselves lavishly as if they had done a great job, and that is why some Singaporeans refer to the GST as “Government Salary Tax”. To make matters worse, government started to outsource a large part of their services and many Singaporeans were replaced with “cheaper, better & faster” foreign workforce. To make sense of the drastic shift that has taken place, welders in our shipyards in the 70s and early 80s were earning several thousand dollars a month while their supervisors and managers were earning more than S$5,000, and general workers in the 1970s could easily earn a daily wage of S$40 at a time when our Civil Service were only paying several hundred dollars a month for clerks & office workers. When you start comparing these with the salary of skilled workers these days, or a cleaner, a security guard or a taxi-driver, our real wages had remain stagnant or gone down while our living costs have actually gone up very significantly. Go check and work out the difference in wages and the quality of our Singaporean Workforce during the period when Singapore was focused on wealth producing jobs and our economy today, where everyone and everything is premised on being “cheaper, better, faster” except for the privileged politicians, senior unionists and those in their services. Look at the new Equinor’s FPSO vessel for the Johan Castberg project that was being built at Sembawang Shipyard but due to serious weld-quality errors identified by the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) of Norway in 2020, who attributed these faults to Sembawang’s lack of welding expertise and poor quality control, and ordered for extensive repair work that resulted in excessive delay until the Norwegian owner has no choice but to send in a team from Norway last month just to prepare the “unfinished” hull to be towed back to Norway to be repaired for these welding defects. Isn’t this shameful and reflect poorly on our Singaporean Workforce & our GLCs? Rich-Poor Divide Can Only Get Worse: That single policy shift, or the failure of our government to plan strategically to sustain new wealth producing jobs, is the single most important factor that has exacerbated the income disparity that is plaguing our “rich & poor” divide, and is also responsible for the demise of the original Singaporean Workforce, one that was once dynamic and highly admired by MNCs and foreign investors. In the process of outsourcing these services, the responsibility and accountability are now pushed to contractors and contracted service providers. Such regressive practices unfortunately resulted in more jobs being outsourced because the Hard Truth or harsh reality is this - whenever something goes wrong at a ministry or government agency, we can see how quick they were to blame their contractors and promised to inflict punitive punishment on them but without a single iota of responsibility or accountability on their part. In short, such regressive practices were favoured by the government simply because it allows them to get away scoot-free but at what expense? Let’s Talk About Prudency: Consider the massive investment cost for more iconic developments like The Jewel, massive investment in SIA to cater to the growth in tourism, more investment in Seletar Aerospace Park to promote ownership of private jets to cater to the “whims & fancies” of new rich citizens, like in the movie “Crazy Rich Asians”, are these investments strategic for a country like Singapore? Point is, who traded away our competency and earlier success in economic planning that were driving our wealth-producing sectors responsible for producing high paying jobs for these sleazy and low paying jobs, and why? Can anyone in Singapore truly believe that we can compete with Bangkok on unrestraint entertainment or Dubai in accommodating the “rich & famous”, or Macau or Las Vega when it comes to gambling? Even those in the financial sector jokes about the stupidity of our policy-makers, who on one hand, wanted to promote Singapore as a financial centre while on the other hand, had premium cigars in exotic boxes repacked into plastic zipper-bags. Pandemic-Driven Reality-Check: The pandemic actually gave Singaporeans a jolt of reality - a rich & developed economy like Singapore cannot compete on cheap foreign labour and critically needed more sophisticated socio-economic strategies to stay ahead as regional economies like Indonesia, Vietnam and India start waking up from their slumbers after watching the spectacular rise of China. How can we ever be "cheaper, better, faster" than these developing countries when our rental, home prices and costs of living are so high? Can Singapore afford more economic planning missteps or believe that we can still be relevant in 2030 or beyond with all these realities exposed by the pandemic, and when our neighbouring economies start attracting FDIs and talents away from us since they can all easily outmaneuver us in being much more cheaper, better and faster? With severe hardship, massive loss of “quality” employments, large segment of Singaporeans being under-employed while entrepreneurs, enterprise-owners, freelancers, taxi-drivers, gig-workers and small business owners are still struggling to cope with the hardships caused by the pandemic, with many of them in serious debts, it is unthinkable for the government to be talking about increasing the GST from 7% to 9%. With ultra low interest rate for bank deposit and the impact of global stagflation starting to bite into our economic growth, our costs of living have been going up excessively and this include the recent increase in utility bills, fuel prices, COE, school fees, property tax for public housing and cost of fresh imports, and the proposed increase in GST may just break the backs of many Singaporeans and families. Singapore already has taxes for everything, except for any wealth tax or inheritance tax, and the total collection for last financial year already amount to S$49.6-billion, accounting for a massive 73.6% of our operating revenue or 10.6% of our GDP. GST at 7% already amount to some S$10.3-billion so when increased to 9%, coupled with the multiplier effect, the increase can easily translate to some S$3-billions in additional revenue inflating our GDP growth with its compounding effects, and hurt our enterprises & Singaporeans. But why is the government pushing ahead for the GST increase just for a mere S$3-billion? It could be just another of the “increase the tax to justify growth” mindset of a government that is intoxicated with “taxing-the masses” to inflate and grow the economy, or a politically driven plot - announce a GST increase, then get the preferred candidate for the next prime minister to step into reverse or delay it in parliament to win some political votes. With the 4G PAP, l am no longer sure if this even remotely plausible. Whatever the government has in mind, our present economic planning, or the lack of a more strategic one, is clearly destroying the livelihoods and future of many Singaporeans and can only get worse. Are we going to wait until Singapore becomes notoriously famous for exporting graduates as domestic workers or be the world-first in having graduates working as cleaners, taxi-drivers, hawkers etc? Is this what we have been voting for at every past General Elections? As parliamentarians start to prepare for the upcoming Budget, many hard questions have to be asked of our economic planning, and what is the government doing to restore wealth-producing sectors that can produce high paying jobs, one that is befitting of a First World Country like Singapore. So wake up and wise up if we still believe that Singaporeans still deserve better.   Joseph Nathan      Read More →