TR EMERITUS

I have never being concern about any matter turning 55 until now. Like to add to the attention of the government the following issues: 1. Why does the Minimum Sum continue to increase from 38,500 to 40,500 and next year would be 43,500 even after turning 55 before June 2014 ? When will this be stopped ? 2. I am one contributor who is very affected by crisis. I have been earning low income for many years already and will not have enough to meet the RA MINIMUM SUM. 3. Due to point 2, in my earlier years, basing on my income and with the encouragement from the government, I have bought a CPFIS Personal Insurance with maturity at age 59 with premiums (4k+) paid though using my CPF OA a/c. But I just came to know that I cannot continue to use my CPF to pay for the balance the next 4 years even though I have sufficient money in CPF for this scheme. Isn’t it very inconsistent and irrational to a contributor own money? We know that upon its maturity, the total sum will be remitted back into CPF. At that time, CPF can deduct whatever sum required to meet the set RA MINIMUM SUM. Why does CPF have to constraint the contributor’s fund in this matter ? I seriously hope CPF will tweet this premium payments available to us contributors before end of June 2014, so that I can continue to service my CPFIS Insurance policy. Very concerned !!! Dominic Yeo * Posted on TRE Facebook page.  Read More →

Singapore, the best cuckoo bird in the charade of self-glorification Singapore I refer to the 24 May 2014 Straits Times article “Singapore, a 'canary in the gold mine of globalisation' by Mr Andrez Martinez taken from www.zocalopublicsquare.org “Is Singapore the Perfect Country of Our Times?” (19 May 2014). Mr Martinez singles Singapore out as a place like no other on earth that is so engineered and successful at prospering from globalisation. He conveniently leaves out other places like Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea that have similarly prospered from globalization. Mr Martinez knows only that Singapore has the world’s 2nd busiest seaport. Does he not know that Singapore already had the world’s 5th busiest seaport two decades before World War II? Going from 5th to 2nd in 50 years isn’t so much of a quantum leap; credit must be given to our former British overlord for laying such a strong foundation underpinning Singapore’s success today. Mr Martinez points out Singapore’s far higher per capita income compared to our former British masters. Does he not know that Singapore keeps and maintains a separate set of indigenous per capita income which is far lower and more similar to British per capita income? Does he not know that when adjusted for hours worked, Singapore per capita income is much lower? Mr Martinez points to our many No. 1 rankings. Does Mr Martinez not know that many of those rankings have their roots in our excellence under the British? For example: • We already had the finest airport in the British Empire in the 1930s • We were already the focal point of airlines, telecommunications and mail distribution by the beginning of the 1950s • We already had more cars per capita than anywhere else in Asia in the mid 1950s • We were the largest rubber exporter in 1960 • We were already a metropolis by 1967 (as claimed by LKY, can’t build a metropolis in 2 years) Mr Martinez mentions Singapore celebrating 50 years of independence next year. Does he not know that Singapore would be 200 years old in 5 years time even though nobody will be celebrating? Mr Martinez parrots the false slogan “From Third World to First” as our defining achievement. Does he not know that our 1960 per capita GDP adjusted for purchasing power parity had already placed us in the Upper Middle Income category of World Bank’s classification of nations? Mr Martinez repeats the false public narrative about how our survival at independence was doubtful and how there was little going for us at independence. Does he not know that we have always been amongst the top economies in Asia soon after our founding in 1819? Mr Martinez marvels at the supposed success of PAP at establishing our container port, logistics, banking and oil refining businesses. Does he not know that Singapore has always been flourishing as an entrepot trade seaport since our founding in 1819? Does he not know that our first bank appeared in 1903 while household names like OCBC and UOB were set up in 1932 and 1935 respectively during colonial times? Does he not know that Shell’s oil business in Singapore is already 120 years old? Much of what Mr Martinez credits PAP for were already established during colonial times. Mr Martinez wrongly attributes our success to the brilliance of LKY. Does he not know that Singapore’s post-independence economy followed the blueprint “A Proposed Industrialization programme for Singapore” written by Dr Albert Winsemius? Mr Martinez credits LKY as our founding father. Does he not know that LKY never fought for our independence but fought instead to marry us into the Malaysian family thus exchanging one overlord for another? Mr Martinez finds it extraordinary that Singapore is ‘corruption free’ compared to Southeast Asia and other developing nations. Does Mr Martinez not find it similarly extraordinary that Hong Kong is also ‘corruption free’ compared to neighbouring China? Like Hong Kong, Singapore benefitted from the best of British administrative practices. Mr Martinez explains how his father who has never been to Singapore often tells him that Mexico needs an LKY. Has Mr Martinez read anything other than books written by LKY or his supporters? Does Mr Martinez not know that much that is credited to him is actually due to other people like Dr Albert Winsemius and Dr Goh Keng Swee? Does Mr Martinez even know who Dr Winsemius or Dr Goh is? Mr Martinez blames Mexico’s economic ills on its prevalent culture of bribery. Does he not know that China is even more corrupted but yet is growing by leaps and bounds? Does he not realize that bribery somehow isn’t the biggest impediment to rapid growth? Mr Martinez falsely credits the PAP as the all knowing party. Does Mr Martinez not know that what the PAP supposedly knows came from Dr Winsemius? Does Mr Martinez not know that LKY himself credits Dr Winsemius for teaching him Western businesses and their operations as well as how to take advantage of the global economic system of trade and investments? Mr Martinez attributes our civil service as having delivered the goods across two generations. Does Mr Martinez not know that our civil service was inherited from the British and carried with them the best of British practices? Does Mr Martinez not know that affordable high rise public housing was first built by our British colonial government and that the PAP merely continued with what the British started? Does Mr Martinez not know that our so-called envy of policy wonks private lifetime savings vehicles is turning out to be less than adequate for many retiring Singaporeans today? Mr Martinez claims that the government has taken care of our basic needs. Does Mr Martinez not know that basic public housing in Singapore can cost more than private housing in Mexico? Mr Martinez labels the recent surge in Singaporeans’ yearning for rooted authencity as ill defined nostalgia and irrational sentiment. What is so wrong with rooting for authencity, Mr Martinez? If the Mexican government decides to tear up Mayan ruins in the name of progress, would Mr Martinez support or oppose? Mr Martinez claims that high COE prices has forced the government to slow down immigration, thus demonstrating the government’s responsiveness to citizen’s needs and desires. Mr Martinez is mistaken, the government became more responsive only after the last election setback, it responds to the stick of the ballot box, not to citizen’s needs or desires. Mr Martinez characterizes Singapore as perfect. When the only books available to Mr Martinez and his father are fairy tales, is it any wonder that Singapore exists only as a mirage of perfection in their minds? Mr Martinez hails Singapore as the best canary in the gold mine of globalisation’s triumphs. No Mr Martinez. Singapore is the best cuckoo bird in the business of fooling other birds into believing its own charades. Thank you Ng Kok Lim Straits Times, Singapore a 'canary in the gold mine of globalisation' Republic testament to how countries can reap success from free trade, 24 May 2014, Andrez Martinez You land at Changi Airport after flying for what seems a lifetime, and you're naturally disoriented, even before you hit the customs booths that feature bowls of mints, dire warnings about the death penalty for those bringing in drugs, and digital comment cards asking if the service was to your liking. Duck into a public restroom and you'll be exhorted to aim carefully and to "flush with oomph" for the sake of cleanliness. Outside, it's tropical sticky but impeccably clean, in a city that is inhabited by Chinese, Malays, Indians and a multiplicity of guest workers from around the world - all speaking English. Singapore is an assault on one's preconceptions. Singapore calls itself the Lion City but it would be more accurate to call it the Canary City - the canary in globalisation's gold mine. Arguably no other place on earth has so engineered itself to prosper from globalisation - and succeeded at it. The small island nation of 5 million people (it's really just a city but that's part of what's disorienting) boasts the world's second-busiest seaport, a far higher per capita income than its former British overlord and a raft of No. 1 rankings on lists ranging from least-corrupt to most business-friendly countries. On the eve of celebrating its 50th anniversary next year as an independent nation, Singapore is proof that free trade can and does work for multinationals and ordinary citizens alike. So long as globalisation continues apace, the place thrives. Singapore's defining achievement is summed up in the title of its former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew's memoir, From Third World To First. When it split from Malaysia a half century ago to become a separate nation of dubious viability, Singapore had little going for it, other than a determination to become whatever it needed to be - assembly plant, container port, trustworthy banking and logistics centre, semiconductor hub, oil refinery, mall developer, you name it. But the brilliance of its founding fathers - OK, it was mostly one father, Mr Lee - was in realising that the precondition for any and all of this to happen was good governance. Over a recent week of meetings and briefings with Singaporean business and government leaders sponsored by the non-profit Singapore International Foundation, two offhand remarks bore this out. The first was a statement by one business leader that he has never had to pay a bribe in his lifetime. To an American audience, that may seem like a fairly modest boast but as this speaker noted, it'd be a difficult claim to make in neighbouring South-east Asian countries (or developing nations anywhere). Growing up in Mexico, my dad, a businessman who'd never set foot in Singapore, would often go on and on at dinner about how our country needed a Lee Kuan Yew. I had a vague sense of what dad meant but only now do I get the vehemence behind his sentiment. You couldn't get by in Mexico back then without paying bribes, constantly. Like Americans, Singaporeans worship the concept of meritocracy. Unlike Americans, Singaporeans entrusted their society to an all-knowing one-party technocracy, a civil service that has delivered the goods across two generations, including affordable, publicly built housing for a majority of the population, and a system of private lifetime savings vehicles that are the envy of policy wonks the world over. Society's cohesive glue, in addition to English, is a collective form of the "Singlish/Chinese" term kiasu, which roughly translates into a fear of losing or being left behind. Kiasu usually refers to the extraordinary lengths to which people - individually and collectively - have gone to ensure success. And the motivating anxieties are not hard to discern in a nation-state so small it must rely on other countries for the water it drinks and the space to train its armed forces. What if China and some other Asian state go to war over disputed islands? What if Shanghai or Hong Kong leverage their domestic markets to overshadow you as Asian financial hub? What if the Malaysians cut off your water? The brutal Japanese occupation during World War II and the recent heart-wrenching dip in trade during the financial crisis of the last decade are stark reminders of how quickly things can sour for a vulnerable canary in a gold mine. Even now, at the height of its success, Singapore doesn't get much love from the legions of foreigners who avail themselves of its First World amenities. It's almost obligatory for Westerners visiting or residing in Singapore to complain about the "sterility" of the place and joke about the carefully manicured boulevards and pristine shopping malls - contrasting Singapore unflatteringly to the grittier authenticity and "character" of nearby Cambodia and Vietnam. It's indeed easy to mock Singapore if you haven't lived in a poor country, and it's a form of colonial prejudice to begrudge Singaporeans their lack of Third World "charm". We prefer our tropics to be exotically chaotic, thank you - not tidier and more efficient than the Swiss. But the interesting wrinkle here is that Singaporeans themselves seem to be joining in the second-guessing about the price of development. Opposition parties are gaining some ground in parliamentary elections, capitalising on unhappiness with strained public services, soaring prices and an influx of super-wealthy foreign investors that resulted from the Government's openness to rapid growth. Having taken care of its population's basic needs and then some, it must be galling for Singapore's relentlessly pragmatic leadership to see a surge of yearning for rooted authenticity. The few older neighbourhoods that have not been demolished - including the first generation of public housing complexes - are now heralded as historic landmarks, and Singaporeans treat their old botanical gardens as sacred ground. At the Singapore Government's world-renowned scenario-planning futures think-tank, one analyst confided that she is looking into the uptick of nostalgia and what it might mean for policy. This ill-defined sense of nostalgia - presumably an irrational sentiment in a place that's gone from Third World to First in record time - reflects the tensions inherent in globalisation. You can leverage all of your comparative advantages to succeed in the global marketplace, and transform yourself accordingly, only to end up feeling some unease at having your distinctive sense of place eroded. Until recently, Singapore was among the most welcoming places to outsiders, with one out of every three residents born elsewhere. But with fertility rates dropping, the country opened the floodgates to immigrants to ensure continued growth and prosperity, turning immigration into a lightning rod. This being policy-wonk heaven, one of the triggering events to a national debate on the issue was a government White Paper discussing the target of reaching a population of 7 million. A more spontaneous event was a modest riot late last year in the city's Little India quarter. This was the subject of the second offhanded remark that struck me most during my recent week in Singapore, when a government official, off-script, said with some relish: "Imagine that, we had a riot: We must be a real place." A general unease about Singapore's identity and concerns about overcrowding (the price of a Honda Accord is set at more than US$100,000 or S$125,000, in what has to be the bluntest form of congestion pricing anywhere) have forced the Government to slow down its intake of immigrants and taper its growth projections. The move was a testament to how responsive Singapore's system can be to its citizenry's needs and desires, without being terribly democratic. It was a testament, too, to how perfect Singapore and its paternalistic, technocratic cosmopolitanism is for an age of interdependence that prizes connectivity over a sense of place. There are many cautionary tales to globalisation's downside but no better canary in the gold mine of globalisation's tenuous triumphs than Singapore. The writer is the Washington editor of Zocalo Public Square and vice-president of the New America Foundation. This article is taken from www.zocalopublicsquare.org Zocalco Public Square, a project of the Centre for Social Cohesion at Arizona State University, is a not-for-profit "ideas exchange" that blends live events and humanities journalism.  Read More →

[This is a series of correspondence between TRE reader Jasmine Tan and Tan Tock Seng Hospital. Ms Tan first emailed a letter of feedback to REACH on 28 May 2014 which she copied to TRE. See 'Feedback on bad service at TTSH'.] On 2 Jun 2014, email reply received from TTSH Quality Service Manager: Dear Ms Tan, I refer to your feedback to REACH on 28 May 2014, which has been referred to TTSH for follow up. I am sorry for the unpleasant experience you had to go through. I share your frustration with the long waiting time and poor engagement from our staff. I wish to share that the Head of Emergency Department has noted your feedback and is aware of the issues that you have surfaced. Please be assured that they are reviewing and working to close such gaps. I regret that the service levels rendered by the Hospital have fallen below expectation. I recognize that there is indeed room for improvement, and we are committed to do so to better deliver care to our patients. Thank you for your valuable feedback and kind understanding Ms Tan. Wishing Mdm Tan a speedy recovery, and I take this opportunity to wish your family and you the best of health always. Yours sincerely Gwendolyn ONG (Ms.) For Quality Service Manager On 3 Jun 2014, Ms Tan sent email to TTSH Quality Service Manager: Dear Ms Ong, Thank you for your template reply. I hope you are aware that these issues did not surface overnight but were in actual fact, due to years of neglect. Honourable Mr Low Thia Khiang has been raising this problem from a few years already since he was there for dengue but alas to no improvement. He was instead 'isolated' and prevented from communicating with other patients in your A&E. By the way,  my mother was transferred to Alexandra Hospital all without our knowledge and we still have to foot both sides charges and we are financially strapped. In view of what has been raised, I hope you can look at helping my mum manage the medical costs. Yours faithfully, Ms Jasmine Tan Reply on 3 Jun 2014 from TTSH Quality Service Manager: Dear Ms Tan, I understand where you are coming from. Please allow me to explain that TTSH will admit patients to Alexandra Hospital if there are no available beds in TTSH. This is critical for expediting patient care. While ED takes all measures to try to contact patient's next-of-kin to inform them, I regret that sometimes this is not possible. I also wish to clarify that there is no double-charging between TTSH and AH bills. As the necessary services were rendered to Mdm Tan at TTSH ED, the TTSH ED bill will need to be paid whether or not patient is admitted to TTSH or AH ward. If you would like to apply for financial assistance, may I suggest for you to contact our Medical Social Workers at 63578222 for an appointment. They will be the best person to help you and offer advice. Kindly note that family will also have to undergo financial assessment. Please let me know if I can provide you with further clarification, and I hope I have addressed your concerns. Thank you Ms Tan, and have a good week ahead. Yours sincerely Gwendolyn ONG (Ms.) For Quality Service Manager Followed by Ms Tan's reply on 4 Jun 2014 to TTSH Quality Service Manager: Dear Ms Ong, For your info, my family is the recipient of assistance by SECDC, hence I would appreciate it if your hospital or SGH for that matter can extract the necessary details from the CDC as it is burdensome & exasperating to be repeating the same story umpteen times just to receive a mere 200 to 300 in assistance. My mother is also unable to travel far without experiencing fainting spells and I hope to receive your understanding on this. Yours faithfully, Ms Jasmine Tan  Read More →