Dear fellow citizens of Singapore
This general election will be a watershed for Singapore. More than in any previous election, the outcome of this general election will have a great impact on the future for us and our children. It is important that you think over the issues carefully, and cast your vote wisely on 7 May 2011.
Member of Parliament
In recent years, many citizens have to struggle with the rising cost of living, stagnant wages, long working hours, crowded public transport, competition with foreigners for job and a stressful life. They were disappointed that these problems were not adequately addressed by the Government, and that their elected MPs, which belonged to the ruling party, were not able to raise these issues effectively in Parliament.
This general election gives you the chance to change the situation and elect a MP that has the time to listen to you and understand the issues faced by you and your family in working and living in Singapore and be able to voice these issues for you in Parliament.
To do this job well, the elected MP should be prepared to spend sufficient time in your community. There are many capable people who are willing to work full time for the MP allowance of $15,000. You do not need a government scholar or a top corporate manager to be your MP. You only need an educated person who is honest, interested to serve the people, have a heart and ears and is able to think independently.
Examples of a good MP are Mr. Chiam See Tong and Mr. Low Thia Khiang. They spent time in interacting with their constituents and do what they can to assist them in solving their problems. The earned the respect and support of their constituents and were re-elected continuously on many elections. I know of other good MPs from the PAP – Dr. Tan Cheng Bok, Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon, Mdm Ho Geok Choo and Dr. Lily Neo. Only Dr Neo will be standing for reelection.
There are many candidates who are passionate, interested to serve you and are willing to take the job of being a MP as their primary or full time job. You can hear their speeches at the election rallies or on Youtube videos. Listen to them and make your judgement.
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May 3, 2011 at 9:52 pm
How true, Mr Tan. Our current MP are selected from an elite group and do not have a feel of the ground. They might be good administrator but never come near to being a good people MP. I think PAP need to realign their selection process. There must be a group of MPs who can serve the people daily needs and a group that can be good ministers who plan and run the future of Singapore. Hearing the ground I’d important ad it give u the mandate to run the country. I hope the damage is not so big this time round that it’s destroyed all the good work that had been done all this while.
May 3, 2011 at 10:37 pm
Singaporeans, those sitting on the fence especially, bring PAP ministers down from their thrones. They are our servants; we are not their servants! They are to serve us. And I don’t like their service over the last 5 years. Time to change the servant.
LHL apologized and admitted their mistakes at this noon’s rally. Well its too. Too little too late. The PAP will be getting a 1991 repeat of the political tsunami, may be worse this time round. Your tricks will not work anymore on us. Vote opp frens. That is voting wisely. Stop torturing yourself and your family for the next 5 years!
May 4, 2011 at 12:28 am
Dun vote Punish All People. You will get punish and regret for the next 5 years …
May 4, 2011 at 1:38 am
People is facing rising cost of living, stagnant wages, long working hours, crowded public transport, competition with foreigners for job and a stressful life. The statement is correct, but the solution is misleading. So far there is no opposition candidate that really make a valid suggestion to solve any of the above problems, and I even doubt that any people can come out with solutions for all the above problems.
Other than the crowded public transport, all others problems linked to the development of global economic, which are mostly out of the control of even the leader of big country like Obama or Ho Jintao. How your MP from the opposition help you to solve the about problem? Any one promised to solve them with simple solution must be cheating.
For example rising living cost, in Singapore more than 90% of food is imported. Just last 12 month, the price of suger had rised for 300% in global market, what can the opposition MP candidates do to control the rising prices of suger in the global market?
The reason of stagnant wages, long working hours, competition with foreigners for job and a stressful life is globalization. Company can any time shift to a lower cost country if your productivity is not comparable with your wage. It makes your work longer and earn less. For foreigner, the competition with foreigners is always there regardless of the policy of Singapore government. The guys in Shanghai or Mumbai can any time take away your job or opportunity without knowing by you.
I doubt that the opposition MP candidates can make any change to the globalization economic. If Singapore is bigger country then support the communist maybe a solution to make everyone equally poor with less stressful life. But for small economic like Singapore, we don’t even have this choice. The only way to go is to prepare yourself to be competitive, to find out clearly who are your competitors and who are your partners. Your competitors are the guys stay in Shanghai, New York, Landon or Mumbai, who work hard, and are attracting investment to setup office in their place. Your partners are people in Singapore, no matter he or she is a Singaporean, a PR or holding a work permit, all of us need to be competitive to develop the economic of SIngapore to make our live better.
May 4, 2011 at 1:23 pm
globalization may cause the higher cost of living, but if most of ppl are feeling the stress and affected, are those million$ paid got the feel, are they impacted too?
May 4, 2011 at 4:37 pm
actually i disagree.. can the rising cost be better managed. yes. it all starts with the land singapore owns.. the buyer of the land builds building who in turns sell to business owners or rent to business owners who provide product or services to the end consumer – your common people in the street..
If the price of lands starts high, the person at the end of the chain (the product or services consumer) will have to absorb the distributed final cost – cos the supply of land is limited.
Look at the big hoo hah created by KOPITIAM bidding if the land to build a hawker centre in Sengkang.
Whose idea was it to allow a scare commodity reserved for basic services for man in the street to be priced in a private sector mechanism ?
Don’t the govt planners (high paid) know that the demand is localised and fairly inelastic. ?
Are we going to repeat the same mistake as for transportation means ?
The allocation of scare resources should be carefully thought through and the common man in the street who pays taxes should not be paying artifically inflated market prices for basic essential commodities.
And the voice of the common man was never in the picture when PAP is in power !! With opposition, we can. If they don’t deliver we will vote them out 5 years time.
May 4, 2011 at 11:55 pm
Firstly, don’t always make complaint of high pay. There are many government officers in the world are “paid” much higher than SG government but without disclose. High pay is not the problem by itself. Always claiming it just shows your statement may come from emotional reason.
Secondly, what is the evidence that support you to think that the cost of living can be managed better? Or the PAP government is not doing their part for controling the living cost? Are you able to quote example from other country that control living cost much better than SIngapore? The example shall consider the limitation of Singapore as a very open and small economic without oil money to provide heavy subsidy. Also the higher income of Singaporean, and a city state environment shall be considered also. Things in Malaysia looks cheaper for Singaporeans, but if you bring in the factor of their income, the figure is totally different.
Most of Singaporeans have chance to travel around the world. Did you see any country with so many limitations like Singapore but achieve the result today? Hong Kong is the closest economic to be compare with Singapore, I am very firm to say that the living cost in Hong Kong is higher. Please remember the economic of Hong Kong is with the support of the entire China, and Singapore has nobody to take care of us.
It is easy to delight the voter by saying that all policy shall take care of the opinion of all. But don’t you think that a leader sometime needs to make un-welcome decision for the long term benefit of the country. The policy in managing inflow of foreigner is a very good example. It is obviously not welcomed by Singaporeans to increase the competition. But when we look closer, the inflow of professional improve our national competitiveness, and the inflow of foreign workers actually help to control of cost of living!!!!
May 4, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Hi Liphuang,
Actually some proposals were raised by WP’s Gerald Giam, SDP people (I believe this includes Tan Jee Say), NSP’s power couple, Tony Tan and Hazel Poa, SPP’s Benjamin Pwee.
If I’m not wrong these strategies include a nurturing environment for start-up companies by allowing for easier access to credit and a more supportive infrastructure (e.g lower and or subsidised rent for commercial spaces), reducing our reliance on big organisations like GLCs gradually so that more adaptive, nimble small companies can respond quickly to changing market conditions, gradually moving our focus from labour intensive industries to industries which may give us higher throughput value (e.g from manufacturing to services) etc In the long term, I believe there was also some discussion about the education sector moving to a broad-based, more critical thinking focused one which is a slight shift from the present exam-mugging general culture as a long term strategy to support more innovative thinking within our citizens.
Whether these strategies will work within the context of Singapore, I hope will be vigourously discussed, thought through and considered in the elected Parliament from 8th May irrespective of partisan politics but out of concern for the future of Singapore.
But to say that present candidates have no ideas for competition in current globalised economy may indicate a need to listen to all proposed strategies with an open yet critical mind.
May 4, 2011 at 4:55 pm
And I just like to add that I haven’t yet heard ideas from PAP yet. This is not an indication that there are a lack of capable people or good ideas within PAP, I believe there are also good leaders and good ideas within the incumbent, but somehow in my limited personal search, I have yet to come across them.
Humbly, I would like to request for information links which point to good ideas to bring us forward. I’m asking this not with the intention to diss or to use it for fodder for attacks, but because I’m a first time voter and I would like the information to make an informed choice on the candidates I can vote for to bring Singapore forward.
May 5, 2011 at 12:31 am
The PAP’s ideas about SG economic had been communicated before the election. Some example like the development of biomedical sector, promote sg as private banking hub, and increase R&D expenses are in-progress. in fact, we already able to see some result if you are in those sectors.
Secondly, i read the report from Tan Jee Say about rebuilding of SG economic. My feeling is that it is an immuture concern. For example, he is quoting that focusing on the service sector will be more sustainable than with a portion of manuf in our economic, because manuf sector is too volatile. But we all know there was heavy layoff for financial service sector during global crisis, there was big impart on airport and hotel during SAIS crisis, and our seaport and logistic sector is facing increasing competition from surrounding countries. It shows that the service sector is equally if not more volatile than the manuf sectior. He has never proved his idea with example and data in his report. And he is asking for a re-engineering of the national economic structure. It is ver scary to ask the people of sg to try our luck for his immuture ideas, especially we have few hundreds thausand workers in the manuf sector.
May 4, 2011 at 6:05 pm
the opposition MP candidates are not MP yet, but what had the current MP done for us ?
May 4, 2011 at 6:28 pm
From what i read, Mr Tan is writing about choosing a MP wisely, one who can represent you and bring your problems to light, to the Parliament where all members ideally gather to discuss and formulate policies that best serve its people. Thinking that electing a party that can get rid all our problems is as good as dis-disillusioning ourselves. Rome is not built in one day…. Some work with the modus operandi that “if nothing is wrong, then dun fix it!”. If a MP does not even aknowledge the existence of the difficulties of its people is facing, how do we expect help? If one who is able but does not have the big heart to help others, and being coming from the more privileged cluster, could not empathize with the less privileged, how do we expect help? I have seen Dr Lily Neo in Parliament debating with Finance Minister on the budget and suggesting more help for the poor and needy. I have seen Mr. Low TK questioning about the ministerial pay, pAP policies … They are good MPs who dare to challenge because of beliefs in greater good for the rest of people and not go just go along with the flow… If we believe we have a choice, we do. If we believe we don’t, we don’t.
May 4, 2011 at 6:45 pm
It is politics 101 to promise the sky. It is true this global events of rising food cost has brought many govt. The local issue the opposition betray a tactical focus on local issue. None of the proposal rise to national level let alone international sphere.
For example, NTUC is used a tool for sake national food security issue. We were held ransom by the Malaysias, does NTUC make sure we are not threaten by food lomg ago. This examplifed how far certain policy thinking is done before they problem arise, (Egypt,tunisia, …..). I as a voter demand my oppostion party to be far-sighted as such.
Throwing manufacturing out; Thta a bear-bug
Japan- if not for their export of cars and others manufactered goods, they will be in diastrous position. Land in Japan is much more expensive than in Singapore
Europe- The most economically power EU nation in the region is manufacturing GERMANY, they are well known for their kick ass manufacturing power.
USA- They are slowly exporting out of their recession with manufactered goods. Many more example. I am so spoofed when polticians suddenly become economist.
May 5, 2011 at 12:37 am
my opinion, MP and ministers really does not have a good feel on the ground. Many suggestions or feedback are washing down the drain.
our living cost, have in many part come from taxes. be in direct or indirect. ERP, high car parking charges, 100% increase in HDB’s night parking fees, high petrol prices, recently increase in school fee for poly and uni, out-sourced parking / traffic wardens are terrorising drivers. many others fees/levies and at the end cost the increase in living cost etc. [only a small part come from global effect]
some eg:
- car parks in town and tua/jurong indistrial area already need to pay til 10pm or 11pm [previously stop at 5pm]
- parking wardens come in schools to summon during lunch /dinner crowd where hawkers best time to cover the rental/material cost;
- rental cost for hawkers stalls are too high;
- public housing are still too expensive; we only lease from HDB. owners are not real owner. we cannot do what we want BUT listen to the landlord;
- the much income from casino did not help general public yet
- ministers and MPs have high salaries should volunteer to reduce or give away for some good cause;
-
May 4, 2011 at 10:31 am
Whenever I walk around these few days, especially near-by the banks like POSB, OCBC, UOB, I can see many Singaporean are queueing up to receive G&S package. From this incident, I ask myself why is that so ? Why are they so desperate to use the money ? I do a survey and realised that every bank that I went, at least got 20 people queueing. I also walked near to the crowd and heard an anuty talked to an uncle in hokkien yesterday, allow me to use singlish to translate hor. She said, “not bad hor, government give us money leh, so nice. The government knows we need the money so much!” Then the uncle replied, “Ya loh, money not enough mah, before every election always like that one, my son told me to vote for opposition, aiya, what is the point, they always win want nah! No use want, if we choose oppositions so what can they do, end of the day, back to normal. Don’t waste your time, no use want.” The aunty seemed agreed with him and continued said, “Ya loh, you got read the newspaper bo, our government felt sorry already mah, he has changed liao.” The uncle also told the aunty “xiang ho shi mai chak, mian chak, bo ai chak!” (can’t be bothered)
When I heard it, my heart sinks down. This is the attitude that most Singaporean have the mindset for politics awareness.
My dear fellow citizens,
Please focus and time is running short, if you have elderly to cast the vote, remind them to be fearless and every vote counts.
Tell your friends,colleagues, neighbours, relatives, aunties & uncles, nephews & nieces, all the love ones, we need the vote preciously. Vote for a change!!! P L E A S E !!!
May 4, 2011 at 12:49 pm
The problem with these aunties and uncles are that they don’t have access to online medias.Ive stopped reading newspapers and tv news a decade ago, if you analyse ,some of them doesn’t follow logic and tends to benefit some groups.
May 4, 2011 at 4:39 pm
This is the main reason I believe real change in Singapore will only happen 20 years later, after the older generation who automatically votes for PAP passes on.
May 4, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Are this auntis and uncle your tools of political change; or worse distraction from mundane and inertia. Given how self centred Singaporeans can be, if most us will not give up our MRT seats, what hope can they from singapore society at large in bigger issuse.
True love and care is not skin deep; the sick ,old and weak will be the real loser in this dramatic turn of generational event. They are so often championed by politicans but are only pawns, but ignored in reality. They will be felt high and dried when electorate and politicians get so lost in the entire fin and game call POLITICS
May 5, 2011 at 12:44 am
I am not the old people you are complaining. My access of internet is sufficient also. But I am interesting to know that what kind of change you want to vote for? You want to vote to change that Singaporeans don’t know who will be the PM after 7 May? You want to vote to have a government with tens of small parties without a leadership? You want to vote for a group of ministers who never know any thing about managing a country? You want to vote for a group of candidates who just think of spending our 40 yrs saving to fulfill their election promise? You want to loss 5 yrs and leave behind in the increasing competitive global economic? You want to vote to loss your job? What else you are voting for? let us know.
May 4, 2011 at 11:08 am
Liphuang above is just repeating the same PAP excuse, vote them for the past record, the opposition has no solution.
The fact is if one is living in Singapore in the last 10 years, one can see that the current PAP has made mistakes and yet when we people feedback to them our concerns and worries, their reply was always – they know best, voters gave them the power to decide, if we want to argue, join the opposition.
Well, people had enough and this time round we have many good people in the opposition, people with ideas and real proposals. But what does PAP do? They simply ignore the opposition proposals and suggestions, they have gone on further to twist the facts trying to scare people.
Thats why we need real alternative people in parliament, people who can truly represent the majority of Singaporean.
May 5, 2011 at 1:28 am
There is a improve of quality of candidates from opposition for sure. But they are a group of tens of different parties fighting with each others without a clear leaderhip is also true. I don’t say we shall only vote for pass records. I said we shall vote for party that really provide a national direction of development and have the ability to make it happen. The pass record just shows that they are more likely to make things happen.
There are some suggestions raised by oppositions but there are mainly slogan without in-depth analysis. I saw the most compehesive one is a report from Tan Jee Say at the beginning of this year. But it shows an immuture concern than a real national development direction. For me it will a disaster if someone really make it happen.
I don’t agree that PAP did all wrong things for the pass 10 yrs. If you look at the world, there were so many happenings in the pass 10 yrs, and with the PAP leadership, Singapore as a whole is performing well. We are still attracting significant foreign investments even with the competition from big guys like China and India. With the development of the globalization, there are more challenges ahead. Our life will be more stressful regardless of who are the government. But at least the PAP government able to ensure that the majority of Singaporean’s efforts are putting at the right direction and paid off with improve living standard.
With the increasing competitive globalized economic, your life will be more and more stressful. If you believe the promise of oppostions to make your life less stressful by kicking out the foreigners. They will still be your competitor from their home in Shanghai or Mumbai. At the time, Singapore as a whole will loss in the global competition because Singaporean removes the openness of the country, which is the conerstore of the Singapore’s success.
May 4, 2011 at 11:41 am
Now we are nearing election day. It is very essential now than ever that we need an opposition party in Parliament to voice our grievances. The PAP policies have been hurtful all these years and do we want them to continue for another 5 years? Every general election, they said with humility, that they will correct certain policies that are unpopular. Are we hearing this again now? Yes. At the start of the rally, housing prices were brought up. Young couples could not afford to buy houses. So what did our PAP minister say? He set up figures and stated clearly that many young couples can afford to buy the houses. But what did our PM said yesterday regarding this. He said ” SORRY, SORRY “. Sorry for all their mistakes and he will correct those mistakes and will make affordable housing. Sorry for all their policies and to give the PAP another 5 years!!! Do we need to hear this again and again at every general elections! My dear Singaporeans, this is now the time and the moment to vote some opposition into parliament. Then only do we have first world governance and your lives will prosper. There are so many including university degree holders who are above 45 years old still do not have jobs and are struggling for their survival. Let us give our thanks to PAP rule for all these years and made singapore a prosperous nation. Now we want a government with a heart. VOTE FOR SOME OPPOSITIONS INTO PARLIAMENT AND LET THEM ASK THE RULERS WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR THE COUNTRY SO THAT NO ONE ARE LEFT BEHIND.
May 4, 2011 at 11:59 am
@ Liphuang
I am very sure you didn’t attend the opposition rallies!
You should go and listen and do not brainwash by the MIWs, my dear young friend! Anyway, you are really IMM, “I-Me_Myself”
May 5, 2011 at 12:55 am
You are right i never be there but I watch it on youtube. i read the report from Tan Jee Say. How many of you read it? In fact I feel that you are not yourself because you let the feeling created by the oppositions affects your decision. It sounds very cool to be in a rally, and punishing the government make people feel happy. But after all we have to face the reality. The reality is the oppositions not able to form a government. There are tens of different parties fighting with each others. If after 7 May, PAP loss the controling status. Who will be the PM of SG. You don’t know. I don’t know. The investors don’t know. At the time i strongly believe that price of HDB will drop, but it is still not affortable by you.
May 4, 2011 at 1:36 pm
I agree with Sanjeeth Singh.. Leaders of the ruling party are cold n to an extend not humane anymore… Just to refresh our memo, remember Dr VB made an insensitive remark when Dr Lily Neo raised the issue for the lower income and he said “how much do you(refering to the poor) want? Do you want three meals in a hawker centre, foodcourt or restaurant?” yet YOG can over run 3 times its budget??
Another example if this has been forgotten, when de govrnm despite strong objection n 1600 signed petition went on to build a FW hostel in Sergoon Gardens n bec of this had to specially spend what $2m? to construct a road leading out to AMK ave 1? Did they really consider the feelings of the people??
May 4, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Great to hear from someone like Tan Kin Lian. Mr Tan, Please run for the presidential election, let the PAP’s candidate run for their money.
I read with amazement the news item on PM’s apology.
It is quite clear that PAP is trying to scare and fool the people again. Before the election, it is claiming that it is a first world government doing all the right things. It is getting the media to keep drumming the same good messages, trying to fool and ly to the people.
As the election goes on, as opposition and people/netizens voice out the unhappiness and bring the issues out to the table, PAP sense that this is a different election, and there is strong movement that can cause big damage and significant losses to PAP. The other thing is that the opposition has presented very credible candidates that attract and change the mind of voters that have not made up their mind. Then PAP then begins its usual tricks, trying to scare the people that if voters vote the opposition, the future of Singapore may be endangered. A bunch of lies by PM, MM, SM and other incumbents like George came in full force, and drummed up and repeated time and again by the news media.
They thought this might work. Their poll shows otherwise. Hence comes the emotion card by PM—claimimg that PAP has done wrong things and asked for people’s understanding( short of asking for forgiveness). In the meantime, George continued to raised the pressure and stake, charging WP is using the voters as chips, after the initial claim that Aljunied GRC voters are caught in between emotionally between PAP and WP. And Tan Hwee Hwa has also come charging out saying that the finances of Hougang town Council are not clear. The purpose is to smear the WP and create fear/doubts in the voters who might be leaning towards the opposition. If PAP has any concrete evidence of wrong doing, they would have come charging out already given their past behavior. The way Madame Tan puts it, it is quite iffy and wishy/washy, trying to catch wind and shadow(using a Chinese proverb) and hope to milk something out of nothing.
PM said that MM is just MM. The problem is we all know who is behind the scene, running the show– none other than MM. PM cant walk away from MM. SM is another part of PM’s problem.
So, in short, the PM is not sincere at all in his apologies. He is using this to fool the people—first the lies, then the threats, finally the emotion card, coupled with insinuations by George and Tan.
I just read that Khaw Boon Wan cried in the rally—another show.We have enough of these.
We need more opposition voices in the parliament. The sky will not fall, and the world would not crash onto Singapore. We will do better.
May 4, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Fully agreed. Mr Tan, run for the Presidential election, everyone in our family will vote for you, I am sure all SIngaporean (except die-hard fans of MIW) will want to support you also.
May 4, 2011 at 3:30 pm
There were pre-election expectation that Mr Tan Kim Lian was coming forward to contest. in the general election. Well we have to respect Mr Tan’s decision and bear with our disappointment.
Let us keep our fingers crosed that the outcone of this election will give us more opposition members. Laying one brick at a time, a sturdy strong build will be built in no time. Singapore can do it. Maybe the next election Mr Tan Kim will lend us his hands.
May 4, 2011 at 7:13 pm
Strongly agreed. Suggest you give a serious thought to come out to serve. You are many time better than those Govt appointed MP.
I always believe if one is passionate and capable and confident to get thing right., one should step forward to volunteer. The supreme had blessed u with this power, don’t waste you put to good use and live a
meaningful life this life.
May 4, 2011 at 8:32 pm
Well said Mr. Tan,
To me, it is timely to vote in constructive opposition members for the future of us and our children. But, I wish that this can be gradual. I understand ur GOOD EXAMPLE of MP and wish every one else share the same understanding. Otherwise like mutucurry’s point out lets keep our fingers crossed and praaay….. which is VERY DANGEROUS!!!
May 4, 2011 at 9:13 pm
I will vote for WP this time as I am feeling like a second class citizen in my own country.
The PM realizes the mistakes too late!
May 4, 2011 at 11:59 pm
I hope Mr Tan can come out to contest for the presidential election. Based on his qualifications as the ex CEO of NTUC Income, he can meet the presidential elections criteria. We need a credible president to serve as a useful check on the PAP government. After all, this is what the role of the elected president is for. It simply makes no sense to have a PAP man as the president. Please run for the president, and I am sure many will support you. Mr Tan is a respectable man. I remember how he had helped the investors of the doomed Minibond way back in the financial crisis on his own personal accord. This passion to serve and help fellow Singaporeans will endear Mr Tan to the hearts of many.
May 5, 2011 at 12:43 am
That much I can agree about Mr Tan Kin Lian NOW. But when he was the head honcho of NTUC I think he did not care very much about the common man and his insurance needs, only thinking of the cooperative. Too much actuarial mindset. That is my humble feelings.
May 5, 2011 at 1:53 am
I strongly agreed more opposition voices in the Parliament to question the PAP government on the policies that they have passed. Out of 84 seats only 2 are opposition. Too few already. Vote for more oppositions into the Parliament for the benefits of our fellow Singaporean.
May 5, 2011 at 2:08 am
Yes Mr Tan is logical and willingly to help. When the Minibond crisis surfaced back in 2008′, MAS washed its hands clean when they are supposed to be the watchdog, citing Caveat Emptor (let the buyer beware). Amidst all the tears and confusion, its was Mr Tan who provided an anchor and helped to steer affected investors to what they could do. Remember the sorry sight of hugh no. of retirees and illeterate investors. FINE the financial institutions, BUT REALLY, how does it help the affected people? Do you collect the FINE and distribute to the victims? NO, NO, NO. It goes to the government coffers. Compare the residue we in Singapore get as opposed to what people in HongKong will get. Its over now, but I want to highlight the desire to help in people like Mr Tan. There is no money in it for him. These are the type of people we need in our society. With a heart!
May 5, 2011 at 2:54 am
Once a Minister takes a salary that is so large that it boggles the mind in comparison with similar jobs across the Globe, he breaks the compact with the citizenry. His job becomes a commercial contract and should be gauged in a strictly commercial manner. There are standard methodologies for valuing jobs and the job of being Ministers is no exception. I suggest that if a substantial opposition gets elected in Parliament, it moves the motion to revalue the jobs done by the various Ministers. The parameters involved in such a valuation exercise includes estimating that portion of the GNP attributable to the Minister whose job is under appraisal. It also includes estimating a discount rate which consists of a risk free rate and a risk premium. Intuitively without doing the calculations now, you can see that the portion of attributable GNP is very different from the GNP itself. The risk premium would be entirely absent in Ministerial jobs so that what remains is the risk free rate which name itself reveals the nature of Ministerial jobs. You will find that the resulting figure would be similar to figures of actual remunerations of the Parliamentarians in the first world countries. You will then see the utter absurdity of claiming that a Ministerial salary in Singapore is to be 6 to 10 times more than its comparable in first world.Governments. Thus the present salaries of our Ministers would be found to be wrong in fact. Whether they are also wrong in Law has to be worked out given the fact that these Ministers in the one party Government of Singapore in effect drew up their own salaries scales. The next question is whether they should be asked to return the excess payment to them, as many bankers and CEOs were asked to do when it was found that they did not deserve such remunerations or such remunerations were illegal for them.
May 5, 2011 at 3:32 am
Food for thought:
Should the opposition one day sit in the same position as one of those said PAP ministers, will they be given the same pay for doing the same job then?
May 5, 2011 at 12:57 pm
My dear fellow citizens,
If you want to cast a vote for President, then you have to vote opposition on Sat, May07.
If not, the coming election for President will be walk over again or assigned by the OMO. (one man operation)
So tell me do you or I got a say then. Just think for the last president election, what had happened ? Can you recall ?
May 5, 2011 at 3:55 pm
It is true that PAP cannot control the price of commodities. But they can definitely control the influx of foreign workers and the housing speculation. Their method of scamming the poor with all the GST and high housing (which drives prices of commodities higher with rents) and all makes one believe that we are all undeserving of a ‘swiss’ standard of living.
How can a common man enjoy retirement when all this shows we have to work forever for the government? they do not want to dip into reserves to better our lives, but want us to contribute to CPF so that we can have Temasek lose all our hard-earned money.
May 5, 2011 at 6:01 pm
Liphuang, thanks for sharing those PAP ideas. Just some humble suggestions to think about while implementing them for economic growth:
For the banking sector, while inviting them to come, for MAS to also tighten up in terms of care of locals’ interests who buy these instruments with less knowledge of these instruments as compared to the bankers who had packaged these products. In this case, we can avoid the situation where investors in HK were generally compensated after the Lehman situation whereas only a selected few SG investors were compensated.
In terms of focus on R&D, as opposed to only increasing finance (which is important too), the culture of innovation has to be nurtured too. Dan Pink’s “Drive” is a very good book that illustrate some of these principles and it complements beautifully with some of the alternative thoughts of increasing our efforts to develop smaller enterprises as opposed to simply depending on GLCs.
So it looks like the picture of PAP being in power with increase in number of alternative voices (Mr Tan’s scenarios 2 & 3) may be the most beautiful one for the next 5 years?
May 5, 2011 at 6:08 pm
To 6929:
Just want to debunk the idea that Mr Tan did not care for the interests of investors, in fact he very much cared about the costs to consumers even during his heading of NTUC Income. My mom bought 2 educational policies for my siblings, 1 from NTUC, 1 from an international insurance company. When it was time to redeem the policies, though the costs of the policy is nearly the same and so is the time period, the returns of the NTUC policy was slightly less than doubled the returns of the other policy.
I cannot comment on the degree Mr Tan cares for the co-operative as compared to the needs of consumers, but I can vouch that under his headship, my parents had benefited from Mr Tan’s leadership as consumers then of NTUC policies.
May 5, 2011 at 6:39 pm
Daphne:
Voters will decide every 5 years. Right now, alternatives seem to be for the idea of having objective 3rd parties regulate ministers’ salary.
May 5, 2011 at 9:08 pm
Once a Minister takes a salary that is so large that it looks like a heist in comparison with similar jobs in government across the Globe, he breaks the compact with the citizenry. His job becomes a commercial contract and should be gauged in a strictly commercial manner. There are standard methodologies for valuing jobs and the job of being Ministers is no exception. I suggest that if a substantial opposition gets elected in Parliament, it moves the motion to revalue the jobs done by the various Ministers. The parameters involved in such a valuation exercise includes estimating that portion of the GNP attributable to the Minister whose job is under appraisal. It also includes estimating a discount rate which consists of a risk free rate and a risk premium. Intuitively without doing the calculations now, you can see that the portion of attributable GNP is very different from the GNP itself. It has been touted by the PAP that they created the whole GNP, which is not correct because patently commercial, industrial and financial enterprises are the engines which brought the process of creating the GNP to completion. For instance the ministers do not operate, the finance houses, factories and every enterprise in the country. The share of the GNP created by each Minister is a sliver of the country’s GNP.
This sliver of GNP is then operated on by the discount rate to arrive at a figure of value of the job of each Minister..The risk premium ( which as mentioned above is a component of the discount rate) would be entirely absent in Ministerial jobs so that what remains is the risk free rate which name itself reveals the nature of Ministerial jobs- essentially risk free! You should find that the resulting figure of value of the job should bear comparison with figures of actual remunerations of the Parliamentarians in the first world countries, as Singapore prides itself to be first world. You will then see the utter absurdity of claiming that a Ministerial salary in Singapore is to be 6 to 10 times more than its comparable in the first world governments. Thus the present salaries of our Ministers would be found to be grossly wrong in fact. Whether they are also wrong in Law has to be investigated, given the fact that these Ministers in this one party Government of Singapore in effect drew up their own salaries scales and paid themselves from that self- serving blueprint..They are judges in their own cause. Moreover they went to war with the oppositions for 50 years using the legal apparatus of the State, destroying them and in the process remain the Ruling Party for all of 50 years and eradicating the concepts of Human Rights by unprincipled use of defamation Laws, ISD arrests etc.The next question is whether they should be asked to return the excess payment to the State, as many bankers and CEOs were asked to do so when it was found that they did not deserve such remunerations or such remunerations were extracted by false representations..
As citizens we should break up the nonsense of Million dollar salaries to Ministers on spurious claims of uniqueness.Singapore is on the same planet as New York, London, Beijing, Tokyo, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Amman. None of the office holders in these countries demand such grotesque salaries. Not only do we support a big heist but we also engender a colossal greed in these supposedly exceptionally noble people. One of the most ludicrous deeds instigated by such salaries is the pump priming of the economy by overwhelming the country with foreign labour. We will be sitting ducks for the next get rich quick scheme for the benefit of the PAP.
May 6, 2011 at 1:17 am
Dopplerganger:
I understand where you are coming from in terms of availability of objective evaluation of their salaries given their current criteria of measurement.
Getting to the basis of it though, the question is if GDP/GNP should be the focus of the KPI? How about median salaries of citizens forming part of their criteria? Or even real median incomes of citizens every year?
May 6, 2011 at 11:22 am
I view the slew of PAP newbies as rather disappointing because I cannot see any real quality of leadership or passion or even some other attractive traits! Yes, they may be good academically (scholarship holders), civil servants, soldiers or corporate executives. But they are not self-made people who have roughed out and are street-wise or trail-blazers. Their individual success is due to being good at study or at work following the set systems. Are the ex-generals tested in battlefields or in the exam halls? Are the PAP CEOs self-made millionaires who started an enterprise from scratch and take it to star war? Or are they good employees promoted through being politically correct and longevity?
Actually, I am even more worried about PAP newbies because they are tea-party invitees who have no burning issues to score or want to champion. They don’t even want to sacrifice anything without promise of reward. Compare them with Opposition candidates who appeared to have the desire to score something or take a challenge or are passionate about something. It is easy to stand as candidate for the incumbent party as success is almost guaranteed.
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