Long term issues to consider in GE2020

In today’s interview with Bloomberg News, Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing that there’s “not much time” left for Singapore’s government to hold its next general election as the city-state has to dissolve parliament in January, months ahead of an April deadline.

Mr Chan also said, “Coming up against a hard deadline to hold elections, there’s actually ‘not much time’. We would like, when the opportunity arises, to have a strong mandate because the challenges that we are going to face in the coming years will indeed be the challenge of an entire generation.”

When the time to vote does come, Mr Chan thinks Singaporeans “are wise enough to look at the government performance not just on an episodic event”, but how it has done in the long term.”

 

My thoughts on this are:

1. The PAP has been given a super strong mandate since 1968, I believe the strongest for any country with democratic elections even in their worst performance. The current strong mandate that the PAP had been given certainly allows it to do whatever had been required to in the fight against Covid-19.

2. Yes, we should not judge based on just an episodic event, even though the government themselves had admitted that they could have done better in the explosive Covid-19 infection outbreak amongst migrant workers, if they had hindsight, etc.

The issue with migrant workers though, is actually a long term one that has become worse and worse each year. In the Population White Paper debate, Singaporeans had given their views very strongly yet the move towards the 6.9 mil ‘cap’ continued. The 2013 Little India riot cast a spotlight on migrant workers again. The key response was to curb drinking, especially among the migrant workers past 1030 pm. The Foreign Employees Dormitories Act (FEDA) was passed in 2015 but three manpower ministers later, some key parts of the bill appeared to be unimplemented, including the appointment of a Commissioner to oversee safety, maintenance, health and other issues across all large foreign workers dorms. We now know that half of the large dorm operators flout regulations yearly, thanks to questioning by MP Png Eng Huat. Singaporeans are paying a huge cost in now trying to control the situation at the dorms. How much we are paying is not yet clear but the government had said they will fund the additional costs that the already very profitable dorm operators have to incur for the required additional Covid-19 safety measures. Should Singaporeans fund dorm operators especially if they had cut costs and constantly flouted regulations previously and yet made huge profits each year?

3. In researching on this issue for an earlier blog post on how Singapore grew to nearly 1.5 mil migrant workers, I found that several of our prominent first generation leaders including the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew and the late Dr Goh Keng Swee had been against the idea of growing our migrant workforce beyond what we can manage, for many good reasons – our space cannot handle the large numbers that the PAP wanted, the negative impact on our culture and society, that over-reliance on cheap foreign workers will kill the push for innovation and entrepreneurship, etc. Dr Goh had warned that Singapore’s growth will one day come to a grinding halt if we become too reliant on these low wage workers. This is a long term issue that must be urgently addressed. The explosive number of Covid-19 cases has put a timely spotlight on our over-reliance on these migrant workers, living in what I believe are overpriced, poor and crowded conditions.

Former GIC Chief Economist Yeoh Lam Keong cited a IPS study in 2014 which projected that if our labour force was allowed to grow at just 1.7% annually, Singapore would hit 10 mil population by 2050, just 30 years from now. Can we handle this? Will more migrant workers issues explode in our face in the coming years after GE2020? Will we come to a grinding halt as warned by Dr Goh? Will the wealth and income inequality become too crazy to handle as we overpopulate? Can we even have a Singapore culture with local-born as minority?

Yes, there are indeed long term issues Singaporeans should be concerned about in the coming GE. It will certainly be the challenge of an entire generation as we seek to deal with a very tricky over dependence on low wage migrant workers problem and other issues caused by years of grow-at-all-cost..

Monopoly of Wisdom will Cripple Singapore

At a May 15 virtual forum on the topic, “What are the sacred cows that Covid-19 might force us to reconsider?”, a panel of academics and other prominent social commentators believe that the Covid-19 pandemic is challenging some of the Government’s “sacred cows”. These include the country’s addiction to cheap, transient labour and what the panelists described as the policymakers’ “fear of social responsibilities” and the idea that they hold “the monopoly of wisdom”.

Yes, I feel much needs to be done. Covid-19 has brought to the forefront issues which our society has been sweeping under the carpet for far too long.

1. We have a long entrenched and ever growing reliance on foreign workers. We were not like that years ago, definitely not under the first generation leaders who had repeatedly warned that we should never let ourselves become too dependent on low cost migrant workers. Those advice were swept aside in the chase for stellar annual GDP growth when the 2G leaders took over and grew worse over time. I have traced the 30 years journey of how we got to this mess today : https://yeejj.wordpress.com/2020/05/12/1-5-million-fw/. Just in case we think this is unavoidable, many developed economies such as Australia, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong have done far better especially in the construction industry compared to us by taking a different path.  The productivity of their largely local-based construction workers are way higher than their counterparts in Singapore.

2. Assoc Prof Theseira spoke about the myth of Singapore exceptionalism. Former NMP lMr Sadasivan said that the Government needs to come to terms with the fact that it “really does not have the monopoly of wisdom”.

For far too long, given the vast success of our first generation of leaders in transforming Singapore and shutting down criticism, Singapore has gone deeply down the path of believing that only the government has all the wisdom, that we only have enough for one A team, etc. We have been conditioned since young, from schools to just follow rules. The government celebrates creativity and innovation only when they fall in line with what they like to see, but clamps down or withhold support when they feel ideas are not consistent with their views. There are many examples. Just to name one, graphic novelist Sonny Liew had his grant of $8,000 from the NAC revoked on the eve of the official launch of his novel, The Art Of Charlie Chan Hock Chye for ‘sensitive content’.  He went on to become the first Singaporean to win at the prestigious Eisner Awards, considered to be the ‘Oscar Awards of comics. He won not one, but three awards at that event.

Only the government can be right and all other views are portrayed as dangerous for society or ‘irresponsible‘. As former veteran Permanent Secretary Ngiam Tong Dow had warned, many in government think they are little Lee Kuan Yews when they have not yet earned their spurs, preaching and dictating others like they know-it-all, and even mocking other world leaders.

Bold change so far happens mostly when the ruling party feels their hold on near absolute power is being threatened, such as after GE2011. Unfortunately, group think has and will impede Singapore from innovating and moving forward. I believe too often, the false sense of exceptionalism will make us complacent, lazy to think deeply, just follow rules and unwilling to embrace divergent views.

I have long believed that only when the competition becomes stronger will the government be forced to be more innovative and more responsive. I remained even more convinced after GE2011.

Covid-19 has exposed that our government does not always know it all and that we do not always have the ‘Gold’ standard. We should be humble to learn from others, whether from other countries or from Singaporeans with differing views. Given the uncertainty of the 21st century, we need to learn to embrace diversity to continue to be relevant.

 

(Note: a shorter version of this was earlier posted on my personal FB page)

Privatising Profits and Socialising Costs

We need to be mindful of privatising profits and socialisiing costs.

It was recently report that the government will absorb additional operational costs for dormitory operators during the circuit breaker. Responding to queries from The Straits Times, the Manpower Ministry (MOM) had said that the Government will offset the increase in operating costs for operators of purpose-built dorms, factory-converted dorms and construction temporary quarters owing to the longer hours workers now spend in their residences.

To qualify for additional relief from the government, the criteria certainly must be more than what is the operators’ normal running cost versus the additional costs incurred due to measures required due to Covid-19.

Firstly, the operators would, like all businesses in Singapore, qualify for Jobs Support Scheme (JSS), support for foreign staff, property tax rebates and perhaps other measures. These must be factored in before allowing them to claim additional costs. When ECDA made all preschools give 50% rebate on net fees for Apr and May to Singaporean parents, the main rationale was that centres already receive JSS and foreign staff support from government and these must be used to provide the fee rebates. All preschool centres definitely had increased costs during this period due to additional cleaning, health screening, additional MCs for staff, etc, on top of loss of revenue due to withdrawals and deferred enrollments. The centres all bore these costs as part of the expectation that these are part and parcel of their business risks.

The dorm operators, especially the larger ones, seemed to have been rather profitable in the good years as the government pushed foreign workers away from HDB and other places into large dorms in a short period, plus a constant growth of low wage migrant workers coming to Singapore. Have all the operators complied with the regulations, health and safety measures required by the Foreign Employees Dormitories Act? Or were a number flouting regulations and cutting on costs needed to implement these? Surely their level of readiness must be factored into how they would qualify for additional support.

While I can understand that the situation at foreign workers dormitories is urgent due to the fight to contain massive explosion of Covid-19 infections, I do hope the authorities will be very careful in reviewing carefully all applications for additional relief. It seems to me from a cursory read of the Straits Times report on this issue that the criteria to give out additional relief is far too simple and these businesses can continue to enjoy the normal good profits they make and no mention was made on whether the regular generous business support that they already received from our Budgets would be taken into account. We must not double support them given that they already automatically receive support like all Singapore-based businesses. There should be sharing of pain, in fact more needs to be borne by the operators as they had benefited in the good years and they will want to continue to partake in this business after Covid-19.

Singapore’s journey to nearly 1.5 million migrant workers

The massive explosion of Covid-19 cases has cast the spotlight on migrant workers. Much has already been said about living conditions for these workers and whether this has contributed to the spread of Covid-19. The purpose of this article is not to add to these debates, but to examine how we ended up with such a vast number of low wage workers, living in a different world from Singaporeans even though they are very much in our midst all the time. What could have been the economic thinking behind this massive influx?

 

Singapore has seen migrant workers grow from 3% [see notes] of our workforce since 1970 to 38% today (presented by NMP Associate Professor Walter Theseira at a recent IPS forum). Currently, 72.4% of these migrant workers are on Work Permits (WP) and 14% are on S-Pass (SP). In absolute numbers, the migrant workforce grew from just over 60,000 fifty years ago to a staggering 1.472 million today. The vast majority of 1.234 million are WP and SP holders (Source: MOM & Migration Policy Institute).

 

WP and SP workers form the lower wage spectrum of our work force. Their numbers are so large now that they occupy almost every area of our social spaces. In 2008, the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew said that he was not convinced on his own party – the PAP’s plan to have 6.5 million population, to be achieved largely through immigration to drive economic growth. “There’s an optimum size for the land that we have, to preserve the open spaces and the sense of comfort,” the late Mr Lee said. Other than occupying our social spaces, the presence of so many low wage foreign workers have depressed the wages of less skilled Singaporean workers, which has in turned caused a great divide between those who have benefited from our economic progress and those whose real wages have stagnated or even regressed in the past two decades.

 

How did we arrive at this situation of so many migrant workers, many stuck at low wages and with low productivity compared to other developed countries?

 

I believe it was the obsession with economic growth when the baton was passed from the first generation of leaders. Economic growth is good, but we also need to look at how the growth is derived, whether it is sustainable quality growth and how the benefits are spread across society. Our rapid growth from independence till the 1990s has made many countries and economists praise Singapore as a role model for development. One contrarian view was that of renowned Professor of Economics, Paul Krugman. To him, Singapore’s miracle was based on perspiration rather than inspiration. The growth had come from a very successful mobilisation of the population to participate in the workforce, jumping from 27% in 1966 to 51% by 1990. Professor Krugman warned that Singapore’s workforce participation rate was by then so high that it was unlikely to be further increased significantly. Such ‘sweaty’ economic growth model has its limit. Unless productivity, efficiencies and innovation are raised in the future, economic growth has to be captured through an ever-increasing migrant workforce.

 

By the 1990s, the ruling party had monopolized parliament with absolute or near absolute monopoly since 1968. The leadership was transferred to our second PM, Mr Goh Chok Tong in 1990. There was an unprecedented loss of four seats to the opposition in GE 1991, a really big deal to a party that will not tolerate any loss or the rise of a serious competitor. Mr Goh had in 1984 promised that Singapore would reach the 1984’s Swiss standard of living by 1999, in per capita GDP terms. The measure of success was to boost up GDP.

 

The late Dr Goh Keng Swee, architect of Singapore’s economic transformation in our first 2 decades, had since the 1970s till his retirement in 1984, warned of the dangers of growing our GDP through large influx of foreign workers and foreign direct investments. In the Future of Singapore (FOSG) talk in 2017, former Chief Economist at GIC, Yeoh Lam Keong who had worked under Dr Goh, said that Dr Goh frowned upon those who dare suggest growing the economy by boosting immigration. Dr Goh had felt that getting unlimited access to cheap labour would impede the critical need for upgrading and innovation.  The first-generation leaders seem well aware of the dangers of large influx of cheap foreign labour and overpopulation. The next generation of leaders however, felt that it was imperative to capture economic growth fast. I believe they must have felt the pressure to retain their super majority control of parliament through continued economic growth.

 

There were massive infrastructure projects in the 1990s. It opened the doors for a much looser migrant workforce policy to feed the expansion. Foreign workers grew from 311,264 in 1990 to nearly 800,000 in 2000 (a 255% increase in just 10 years). In the mid-2000s, to capture another wave of economic boom, Singapore had another massive round of migrant workforce. The 2009 Global Financial Crisis put a temporary pause but in 2010, our GDP grew a phenomenal 14.7% and the influx continued. Foreign workers numbered 1.3 million by 2010. As infrastructure had been a key part of the economic activities, the construction workforce grew very rapidly in these two decades, from 114,000 in 1996 to some 300,000 in 2019. This numbers will potentially be even higher going forward as the Singapore Business Review recently projected a 3.3% average annual growth in the construction industry from 2019 to 2028. The late Mr Lee Kuan Yew had observed in 2011: “We’ve grown in the last five years by just importing labour. Now, the people feel uncomfortable, there are too many foreigners.” He had estimated that it might take five years for the country to scale back its need for foreign workers, something which the government is still grappling with nearly a decade later and the numbers have continued to increase.

 

During the 2013’s debate on the government’s Population White Paper, we were reminded of this simple formula: Economic growth = Annual Productivity Growth + Growth in Workforce. Singapore’s productivity in recent years have been miserable, mostly flat for the decade of 2011-2020. It even fell by 1.5% in 2019 and is likely to be worse in 2020 due to Covid-19 disruptions and an impending recession. Today, despite recent acknowledgement of our low construction workforce productivity and some efforts to improve on this, we are still lagging very far behind our developed peers such as Australia, Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. For example, Australia’s and Japan’s construction workforce are 3.9 times and 2.8 times respectively more productive that their peers in Singapore. In other sectors that depend heavily on low wage migrant workers such as F&B and retail, our productivity has lagged significantly behind that of Hong Kong, a city state economy like ours.

 

The trouble with looking at purely GDP numbers is that it is misleading. GDP can be divided into three components – Wage share, Profit share and Tax share. Singapore has now one of the highest GDP per capita in the world but its wage share has been hovering just above 40% for the past few decades, way below those of OECD countries which are around 50% and some even much higher.

 

The profit share component of GDP would go back to shareholders. In Singapore, the government owns a disproportionately large share of the economy compared to other developed countries. We encourage foreign investments and the profits would have to flow back eventually to where the investments originated from. Prior to Covid-19, the Marina Bay Sands was the most profitable casino in the world. It was generating some US$1.5 billion in earning (EBITA) a year. It is owned entirely by Las Vegas Sands Corp, listed in the USA.

 

For a long time and up till 2011 when astronomical ministerial salaries became an issue in GE2011, GDP was the measure for how well the civil service did. GDP growth was a key determinant of the bonuses of political office bearers. With the rapid rebound from the Global Financial Crisis, in 2010 the salary bonus for ministers went up to 8 months on a then-super high salary base. When productivity is low, growth in workforce can boost up the GDP growth; so we should also look at the quality of GDP growth, as well as how income growth had been distributed to the median and lower income groups.

 

I believe that the last three decades of drive to boost GDP numbers through large-scale foreign labour import had masked many brewing long-term structural problems. It has come to a stage where our Singapore Inc. economy is hooked on an ever-increasing base of low wage, low productivity workers to continue with our model for ‘prosperity’. I believe it is this obsession with GDP that impedes bold decisions such as having a national minimum wage.

 

It is unsustainable. In the same FOSG talk, Yeoh Lam Keong shared a 2014 forecast by IPS: A mere 1.7% annual growth in labour could see Singapore hitting 10 million population by 2050! The 2013 Population White Paper only presented a population scenario of 6.9 million by 2030. What’s beyond 2030 if we continue at this rate? This is quite a frightening thought considering that our imported labour is indeed growing at beyond 1% per annum currently. At a population of 10 million, the IPS forecast was for 3.3 million migrant workers, a 235% increase from currently. This will be on top of regular injection of new citizens and permanent residents. How do we manage the housing and social spaces by then? How do we manage the growing wealth and income inequality that will come? What will our Singapore identity be like then?

 

We have seen how troubles like that of the Little India riots of 2013 could happen when we overcrowd our small city state with the many people that we currently have, not to mention if we allow it to explode to another 235%!  The government now collects some $3 billion per year in workers’ levies. These add significant costs to employers and force them to keep wages of workers low. There has to be big structural changes, initiated by the government to bring us away from the ‘perspiration’ driven model that Paul Krugman warned of in the 1990s.  We have to also look at the ‘optimum size’ as advocated by the late Mr Lee that our island can hold and figure a more sustainable quality and innovation-led economic growth. The government has to take the leadership to effect big structural changes to sectors that persistently have this problem of huge dependency on low wage workers.

 

For too long,  we have kicked the can down the road from one generation of leaders to another in the drive to capture GDP growth in the quickest (and lazy) way, even though we had been warned by prominent leaders and economists that such methods will lead to unsustainable population growth, depressed wages for the bottom income earners and social problems associated with vast inequality. We are all feeling the negative effects now in a very real way. Uncomfortable though the changes may be, the time to tackle this escalating problem is now.

 

Note: The views expressed here are the opinions of the author.

* Earlier, I had published that ‘Singapore has seen migrant workers grow from 7% of our workforce since 1970 to 38% today’. This was based on data from an earlier presentation by A/P Walter Thereisa. I later shared with A/P Thereisa another data I found for our manpower in 1970 and we agreed that the figure could be more accurate and hence it should be 3% of our workforce in 1970 were migrant workers.

Early GE or delay till Covid-19 is controlled or when required by constitution?

My post is in response to former NMPs Calvin Cheng and Eugene Tan in Calvin’s public FB page and Eugene in ST Opinion.

1. Yes, no one knows when the situation will ebb. There is a year left till April 2021 and even if you minus off the very short period that is required by our constitution from dissolving of parliament to nomination and 9 days of campaigning plus 1 day cooling, there are still 10 months to go. There is no immediate necessity to call the GE now.

2. The government received a very strong mandate in 2015. So there is no question of the PAP needing a strong mandate to carry out what they need to do in a crisis. I do not know of any democratically elected government that has a stronger mandate. Nor has anyone stopped the government so far from doing what they need to do in this crisis. If they need to pass any new laws or implement any drastic measures in this near end-of-term period, they have the mandate to do so anyway. If they need to tap on reserves which I believe they will in tomorrow’s announcement, who will stop them? No fresh mandate is needed.

3. So what if there is still a bad Covid-19 situation nearing April 2021? Firstly, we often tend to overestimate how good or bad things are. China managed to control quite well in a short period. Italy seemed to have peaked. Yes, many countries are still climbing up the infection curve but countries have taken note of the seriousness and most have implemented quite drastic measures. Medical research is proceeding rapidly to find some cure. Even if we have to do GE in March / April 2021 with Covid-19 still very much in our midst, then we will just have to proceed and no one will fault the government for doing what is required constitutionally. If there had to be curbs on rallies and gatherings still by that time (hopefully with other alternatives allowed), there are no strong reasons to complain.

4. With no disrespect to Eugene or Calvin, for they have done their good contributions in parliament; they did not get into parliament by elections. I have contested, twice. I do not believe in going into a contest just to put my name up and hope for the best. Even if the odds are stacked heavily against me, even if I have to walk till my shoes break (which they had) and I lose my voice or suffer cramps from too much climbing of stairs (and I had many times), I will still have to contest as hard as I can knowing that if I lose, it is not for the lack of trying.

Any serious campaign will take not just the candidates but a large number of volunteers, reaching out to a large number of Singaporeans. Any serious party will have to make sure that their message reach to as many voters as possible. Rallies will not be allowed. Sure, there can be e-rallies but can these reach to all? Will it have the same effect?

Elections are once in 5 years. Do we accord seriousness to the process or are they meant to just endorse the incumbents? Will their candidates, especially the new ones who do not have to sweat it out to win support really understand their constituents?

In serious campaigning, there has to be house to house visits and outreach in public places. No matter how we try to have safeguards, the population will be unnecessarily exposed. Just take a look at the viral video of the PM’s visit to a market in Ang Mo Kio last weekend to see how all our social distancing rules were broken.

Right now, businesses and people are asked to make sacrifices to keep everyone safe. We are almost in a shutdown. We have gone past DOSCON Orange and are just a step short of Red. We appreciate these efforts to keep Singapore safe.

So if we call the GE now, a lot of campaigning activities will go on despite trying one’s best efforts to keep it lower key. The PAP is the price setter. They introduce new faces in public places and go about doing house and market visits, the price-takers will follow suit. If it has to take place, sure, the price-takers will have to be ready and will step up but is it what’s good for Singapore at this time?

If by March 2021 the situation has not improved and we really have to do a Covid-19 GE with restrictions, then I am sure Singaporeans will understand. But to force it now when there is no time urgency and when the priority should be Covid-19 containment, you will leave many with a bitter taste. Sure, the PAP will win again, but it will be tainted with #notmygovernment.

 

Note: This post is strictly my personal opinion. It was first published on www.fb.com/yeejj.wp. Since the publication of my opinion on FB, Singapore saw a huge jump of 73 new infections in a day, including 35 locally transmitted one, of which 18 were from the PCF Fengshan cluster. Nevertheless, Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean hinted of the strong likelihood of an early GE despite the rising number of cases.

A Journey in Blue (II)

3 weeks ago, I reflected on my past decade of journey with the WP with a FB post. We had our annual Members’ Forum today. As I listened to the various sharing by the party’s leaders and selected members, I reflected further on the journey I as well as the Party had made in this past decade.

My entry into politics was belated and sudden. In the 2000s, I began to take more interest in local politics and in policy making. I was serving on a couple of government policy committees and also wrote regularly to the forum pages. But various factors held me back for several years from venturing further to the alternative movement, fear being the biggest factor. I felt that the political monopoly was unhealthy and was disappointed with many government policies prior to 2011. I had felt that the ruling party was losing their way and deaf to what was happening on the ground. There had to be stronger political competition for Singapore to be more resilient. With GE2011 looming, I approached the Party and found my way to become their candidate for Joo Chiat SMC. With the narrow loss of 388 votes (1% of the votes), I entered parliament as NCMP and was co-opted into the CEC. That began my journey in an event packed 2011.

2011 was a milestone year in Singapore’s politics, the worst ever showing by the ruling party since independence and the first ever loss of a GRC in the supposedly impregnable GRC system, a clever political innovation to entrench the PAP in power. It was followed by two further consecutive by-election losses for the ruling party in 2012 and 2013. To the PAP’s credit, it was able to shift back to the left to recapture support. Coupled with the passing away of our founding PM and SG50, the political pendulum swung back very dramatically in 2015 – so dramatically that it surprised political observers, the press and even the PAP itself.

One of the ruling party’s key strategy has been to keep the opposition weak. Fear became a powerful factor. People became frightened even to vote for the alternative, even though our votes are secret and I am convinced they are, being a participant and witness to the electoral process. People fear their estates becoming rundown or losing their jobs. More importantly, fear has kept many good people from offering themselves to the alternative camp for a long time. Without candidates deemed electable, PAP can stroll any candidate into parliament especially via the GRC route. And their MPs do not have to do much in parliament because the number of opposition voices are so few and their opponents will be weak again at the next elections.

I had approached the WP in 2011 because I had seen that it was responsible, rational and respectable. It was a branding built deliberately over a long period by then-SG Low Thia Khiang, even though it made him unpopular with some members especially with some long-time members. WP started to attract capable and educated people onto its team. Over the past decade, I have seen that progressed even further, not just in WP. A couple of other parties have managed to attract professionally successful people. My personal belief is that each party should find their own branding and direction. A mega alternative party formed with just the aim of being anti-PAP will not last and will be damaging to the alternative cause when it flops.

The PAP had also made managing town councils into a test for whichever party wishes to win elections, because residents will be worried if their communities are not run properly. While I find it reasonable to expect elected MPs to prove their worth on the ground, I find it unreasonable to withhold public monies to opposition wards for estate upgrading (that has changed post 2011 but even so, biases and challenges remain for opposition wards for funding). I also find it absurd that computer systems built with residents’ funds can be denied to opposition wards.

Fast forward 9 years since Aljunied GRC was won by WP, there has been no rubbish piled up three storeys high. Yes, there were hiccups especially at the hasty handover with incomplete data that plagued the financial reporting for years. The earlier computer system taken over from Hougang TC was insufficient to meet the demands of a GRC that included Hougang SMC and later Punggol East SMC. That too has changed since then with a new IT system whose development was overseen by MP Png that is now capable of what PAP-led TCs can do  It took time to build such a system. And having gone through hell from being deprived of an IT system, I believe WP is willing to share their system with other alternative parties if needed. That will remove one big banana skin in our political system, unfortunate though that Singaporeans should even have to deal with this in the first place because such as system should be from HDB and then charged back to any TC who wishes to use it on a cost recovery or reasonable cost basis. There was also the decision to outsource the town council operations out commercially. That attracted much scrutiny, provided avenues for attacks and eventually a long court case. I am sure with perfect hindsight, the MPs and WP would have avoided a lot of the mistakes. What is encouraging is that the TC has taken over the running of the operations itself for several years already with directly hired employees managing contractors, MND report card on the AHTC operations are in line with that of PAP-run TCs, corporate governance report is green, auditors have now given a clean unqualified financial report, and the TC is operating with surpluses.

The PM has recently said that Singapore needs a “first-class political leadership” to work with a high-quality public service. His interpretation of that is a monopoly of the political positions by his party. First class political leadership will need to go through the fire of competition to be pushed, just like how companies in the private sector need to be innovative to excel and be relevant. Leadership should not be ordained nor should leaders be allowed to stroll into parliament because of opposition is deliberately made weak.

2020 will be another elections year. The road to a first world parliament is long. The foundations have to be build. In my journey in blue, I have seen the components being built. Eventually, it is for Singaporeans to decide. Majulah Singapura!

Note: The post contains my personal views which are not necessarily that of the party’s.

Unpaid school fees – What are the teachable moments?

Here are thoughts on the issue of the student not getting the original PSLE results over unpaid fees, which has gone viral online and MOE has officially responded.

The incident reminded me of a case I took when helping at a Meet-People-Session in Aljunied GRC a few years back.

It was almost 9.30 pm then, which was the closing time for residents to register to meet the MP over issues. I had just completed a case and I was about to leave as there were no further cases needing a case writer. Then, a young lady rushed to the counter and registered. I popped over to check and decided to take her case. It turned out that she was a 2nd year diploma student at a government supported non-profit college. She had unpaid fees and was told by the college that unless she paid up, she would not get her official results and she needed the results to register for her courses for the third and final year. She was very distressed because the last date to register for her courses was like that next day or very soon after that. She was sobbing as she told her story. She is the eldest with only her uneducated mum working part time to support the family. The family was constantly in debt, borrowing from relatives. Her previous year fees had been paid by an aunt who was not able to give her another loan so soon. She worked part time but that was only enough for her own living expenses and not for her fees. She believed she would be kicked out of college because of her unpaid fees. She did not even know what her 2nd year results were because the school’s policy was that they could not release the results without payment of fees.

I happened to have a friend working in the school. I called him. He was kind enough to set up a rushed meeting the next morning with the finance manager. I called the young lady to come along. The school did not know of her financial situation. The finance manager was very kind and revealed that she had passed and may register for the third year courses and asked her to apply for a bursary. The school also gave her time to pay up for the previous fees, which she eventually borrowed from her relatives. She got a bursary for her final year of studies. As she had the relevant skills, I engaged her on a part-time basis for my art company that year as well.

She graduated, found a job in a MNC as a web designer and I last heard she was still working there. Hers is a happy story that could have turned out badly. I asked why she did not try to apply for any financial assistance before then. She said she was not aware (even though the school had schemes and were indeed kind and fast to act when her situation surfaced). It is hard to blame her as she was not yet an adult then and the family already had so much problems. Relatives were afraid of them requesting for more financial assistance. She only came to the MPS because she shared her problems at a church meeting and her friend suggested going to meet her MP, which she promptly rushed to because the MPS happened to be that evening.

Back to the MOE case. Like MOE, the college the lady was in had to have some policies over unpaid fees. So I do not fault these organisations for needing to have rules to go by. MOE said it is a teachable moment for the parents. The problem often is that when there are persistent unpaid fees, there are often some deep issues or dysfunctional family situations. I am not sure if the family would be in a good situation to talk to the child about the learning points of having to pay their dues if they had many other daily stresses or were dysfunctional. I do not know the exact situation for the PSLE student as to why financial assistance was not applied for. I know schools have lots of ways to help low income family pay for fees and even get pocket money allowances because I have been involved in helping to raise such funds for schools. The young lady I had helped could have raised her problems to the school much earlier and she would likely have gotten a bursary from day 1 but she said she was not aware of support schemes and did not know that she would have qualified.

I will end with another story. A principal of a faith-based kindergarten told me recently that she and the form teacher of a class made a surprise visit to a family whose child had not paid the third term fees nor fees for the school bus. The boy had stopped attending school without a formal withdrawal. The bus had refused to pick him as well. The purpose of the visit was to understand what happened and to try to get the child to be back so he can finished his final few weeks of preschool with friends he has made over the past couple of years before going on to primary school.

They reached the home of the family just as the father and son were stepping out. The father was apologetic and promised to pay up the fees. He thought that the school had come to chase for the debts. The school explained that they were not there for the fees as they had already asked the Board for permission to waive off the fees. They just wanted to ask the child to go back to school as they did not want him to miss out the memorable final weeks. They even asked the bus company if they could sponsor the bus trips for the final period for the family.

What are the teachable moments? It can be to tell the family and child that they need to pay for all financial obligations. It can also be to tell them that there’s grace in the society if there are truly situations that call for it. I hope the young preschool boy will grow up well and one day remember that the school he attended reached out because they did not want him to fall behind no matter what the family circumstances were; that if he is financially capable one day, he can pay it back to others.

I do not think many families like to owe money especially over education. It is embarrassing to the child. With persistent unpaid fees, there are often stories behind these which can only be known if we probe further. Probing needs time. I do not know enough of the situation with the PSLE student as to how the school may have previously reached out to the family. Teachers and principals are often stressed out because our schools run large operations and class sizes are big. There are daily fires to fight when school is operational. Digging into problems such as persistent unpaid fees and trying to resolve them require lots of time and patience. As much as there are teachable moments to the families, there are also engagement opportunities by the schools and by social welfare organisations to use these as trigger points to dig further and to help families work a way out of problems.

#Correction: The earlier post stated the Principal and Vice Principal of the faith-based kindergarten. It should be Principal and form teacher of the class the boy was in.

Storm over PMDs – Reflections of a motorist, cyclist, pedestrian cum PMD user

Personal Mobility Devices (PMDs) have grabbed the headlines recently for all the wrong reasons. PMDs started in a small way in the past but ownership grew with LTA’s masterplan in 2013 to better facilitate first and last mile legs of commuting through better connectivity for walking and cycling, and exploded in 2017 with the Active Mobility Act that allowed PMDs onto footpaths albeit with a speed limit of 15 km/hr and with food delivery companies tapping on PMD users. Along the way up till the sudden ban announced on 4 Nov, effective the next day, there had been fatalities and many injuries, many happening on footpaths. There had also been several flip-flops by the government along the way.

You can read more of the short and explosive history of PMDs here: why-are-pmds-banned-from-footpaths/.

Let me share my thoughts as a motorist, cyclist,, pedestrian and PMD user.

I use PMD only casually because my daughter owns one which she use for commuting to her workplace under 1 km from her house. She will of course be surrendering her machine for cash incentive soon as the PMD will effectively be useless as the route is not connected by cycling tracks. A pity because it was indeed her most feasible and fastest way of commuting daily. In the few times that I used her PMD for convenient short commutes, the ride has been smooth, fast and incident free.

I am also a cyclist since I was young, both for exercise and for commute for specific purposes. I had long been concerned about the safety of cyclists because our roads are generally not friendly to cyclists and motorists tend to be impatient. I am concerned because I had a bad accident when I was young. I was in college or varsity at that time, cycling around my house in the Siglap / Bedok area. A lorry carrying workers sped past me very fast and knocked the side of my bike handle. The impact flung me onto the pavement. I distinctly heard a worker at the back of the lorry saying in Hokkien, “Hit already, run quick.” Yes, it was hit and run. I did not see the number plate as I was thrown suddenly onto the pavement. The handle was damaged and I had bruises and cuts but thankfully no broken bones. I composed myself after a while, pushed back the handle as best as I could and pushed the bike home. Since then, I am very wary of our roads even though I still do cycle. As much as possible, I avoid using the roads when cycling even if it meant the ride would be slower.

When I entered parliament, I made a few calls for more cycling paths and better sharing on the roads with motorists. I remember after one of my speeches, then MP Irene Ng spoke to me and said it was a relief that more have started speaking in parliament for cyclists. She had been a lone voice for some time advocating for this. Tampines Town where she was an MP for, was chosen to be Singapore’s first cycling town with more cycling tracks provided for.

The response from the government to her call, my call and those of a couple of other MPs had been the usual that we do have a Park Connector Network that now runs across most of the country. Yeah, it is good for leisure but for serious daily commute for work, shopping or to fetch kids? Nah, most of the time it will not get you to where you want and it is still bad and dangerous to cycle on the roads. So every time I see MND allocating generous monies at estate upgrading in the private estates, I wonder why they do not look at putting more budget for cycling paths. Frankel Estate, right next to my place is going for upgrading soon. I doubt it will improve my cycling experience much. I hope I am wrong.

I deliberately tried riding bicycles in other big cities and was impressed with my day-long experience at San Francisco. There, people can literally depend on biking to and fro work, even for long distances, and many do. They do not have cycling tracks all over the city but where there are roads, provisions are made for sharing of the road with bikes. And even when there were no special markings or provisions on the road for cyclists in San Francisco such as in the suburbs, cars were very disciplined to let us cycle past first. I rarely get motorists in Singapore giving way to me when I am cycling. For my safety and to be on guard, I always assume they will be aggressive and they usually are. After my accident years ago, I constantly watch over my back wondering if some speeding vehicles will squeeze too close to me. I have cycled in cities in Japan too and generally, the experience have been much better than Singapore. Here is a link to some cities we can learn from.

With PMDs now confined only to cycling routes (no footpaths and no roads), the spotlight is now on the bicycle infrastructure. Some improvements have been made by the government especially since 2013 but the infrastructure is still grossly insufficient. And it will be a long time before it will even be meaningful, so some other measures such as how some roads can be marked for sharing be implemented and motorists and cyclists better educated on sharing the roads. There are many cities we can learn from, if we are determined to truly make riding safer and more useful. With bicycles, there is not a lot of pressure on the government to act because it is still a small group and most do not rely on cycling daily. However with PMDs, it is now so widespread because the government had previously made it friendly to own and use and suddenly it has to solve a problem that it had helped to create.

As a pedestrian, of course I welcome the ban on footpaths because our footpaths are generally quite narrow, and Singapore is becoming more crowded. People have said that if we ban PMDs on footpaths because of injuries and deaths, must we also ban cars on roads because there are even more deaths and injuries due to vehicles? Well, roads are meant for usage by cars and pedestrians are supposed to use the roads safely at junctions and crossings and to use with care when crossing in other segments, according to safety rules. Footpaths are meant for pedestrians, which include vulnerable ones like old folks and kids. If we allow automated machines and unfortunately some do not control their speed well, then footpaths will forever be dangerous.

As a motorist, I have experienced PMD users dashing across road junctions or zipping in and out between vehicles. PMDs users have to understand that at road junctions, motorists are conditioned to look out for users with the speed of walking. I have witnessed a couple of near nasty accidents where a PMD user dashed out of some paths or buildings onto a zebra crossing or traffic light. No doubt they have the right of way because it is a designated crossing but motorists have to look left and right at junctions. So when PMDs travel at a fast speed dash onto a crossing, the motorist may have already checked that it was clear on the left and looked to the right and suddenly the PMD appeared in front on him / her as the car started to move.

I know some motorists will be unhappy reading this post and question why I am advocating for ‘road hogging’ bicycles and potentially even PMD users to share some segments of the roads (as it is in some cities). It will take more studies but I think that until we have enough bicycling infrastructure, we will need to think about sharing on the roads. Motorists will need to understand that there are other users on the roads and the slower lane of some roads may be used by others.

Lastly, I hope in considering what to do with PMDs, we can actively explore the use of technology. Technology can help us track speed real-time and determine the location of PMDs. It can determine whether the user is registered or licensed (assuming if we move to a path of having users to buy insurance or pass a test). Right now, the explosiveness of the use of PMDs and the frequency of accidents have caused several sudden policy announcements. Many are understandable frustrated because they followed what the government said, traded their non-UL2272 compliant PMDs to compliant ones recently only to find their investments have been made practically useless other than for leisure.  Allocating $7 million for trade-in grants for food delivery users will only solve the issue for a small segment and even so, it is a poor solution that may not work for some of those doing food delivery. It will push more fast vehicles onto the road when our motorists are not so understanding of sharing the roads with other vehicles. We can explore how technology can be used to enforce regulations real-time. We also need to figure what regulations we will need to allow PMDs to start using more of our infrastructure again, and which part of our infrastructure can be opened up for use in a safer way.

 

Note: These are my personal opinions and not necessarily that of the Party’s.

 

 

Why are you talking to them (opposition)? They are bad, right?

I had an interesting conversation at a business gathering today. I was at the opening of a new facility downtown.  As I went about chatting and networking with the people, one gentleman told me that he met me recently. He reminded me that he and his boys were coming out of the Marine Parade Library and going towards the car park when a group of us from the Workers’ Party were moving to a new block to commence our house visits there.

Yes, I remembered that conversation quite well as we had a good exchange about the work that WP was doing and our team’s contest in Marine Parade GRC in GE2015 and my contest in Joo Chiat SMC in GE2011. It was about a month ago.

He told me today that one of his sons, still in primary school, asked him after we had left who we were. When the boy heard that we were from The Workers’ Party, an opposition political party, he asked, “Why are you talking to them? They are against the government and they are bad, right?” The gentleman added that he corrected his son and said that Singapore is a democracy and parties contest one another in elections. The winning team will get to form the government. There is nothing bad about that. I thanked him for setting the perspective correct.

It is quite a scary thought though. So to the young boy, I was evil because I chose to be in the alternative camp. My fellow party members and all who chose to participate in the democratic process according to our constitution are deemed bad.

Another story. Some years ago, shortly after GE2011, a friend and regular volunteer during my GE2011 Joo Chiat SMC campaign told me that her son, then in the gifted programme in a top primary school was asked to write an essay about a politician. Of all people, he wrote about me. The teacher returned his essay and asked him to write about someone else, saying that I was a failed politician. I lost in the elections and he cannot write about me.

Ouch.

The boy had followed his mother along and attended some of our rallies. He had the chance to speak with me first hand during the campaign and probably the mother had told him stories about stuff that we were doing. To the boy’s great credit, he told his teacher that he was not going to rewrite the essay because he considered me to be a legitimate politician. Today, the boy is in a top secondary school and he will do well for having the guts to reject the teacher’s suggestion, young as he was then.

I am not blaming teachers. I recently met a retired teacher and her retired civil servant husband who are staunch opposition supporters. They have not voted for PAP for decades but of course they would not talk about politics at their work place when they were still working. Some retired educators and civil servants have openly helped us with their time and donations as well.

We are no longer a young democracy at 54 years of independence. We have grown so accustomed to only having one party running Singapore, and at times so dominant that it was 100% of all contested seats. Even today, there are only 6 elected opposition members out of 89 elected seats. The ruling party has so successfully, through the mass media and education, created the impression that they are the only ones who can make it. Singapore only has enough for one A team (which of course needed to be remunerated well to attract the best). We are so used to people excelling in their studies and careers being red carpeted into politics on the ruling party’s side, guided in through the GRC system. They are not expected to fail at elections, so much so that some people see only those who have won in elections as legitimate politicians, nevermind that some of these ‘winners’ hardly have to break any sweat contesting by coasting in through sure-win GRCs and having things nicely organised for them including by the ‘non-political’ PA.

Any dirt or suspected dirt by any one in the alternative camp, whether politicians or just critics are magnified. Even segments of a poem that one wrote years ago as a 21-year old can be dug up and interpreted as unpatriotic, disruptive, or whatever they want to make it to be.

Some paint those in the alternative camp as disruptive, unpatriotic, harbouring evil intentions for Singapore and more. Some look at chaos in the region and quickly point out that this is what will happen if we are to elect the alternative. We will have violence and street demonstrations.

It is because I do not wish to see chaos and riots that I chose to stand in the alternative camp. Prior to 2011, I was concerned that we were betting everything on one party assuming that the PAP will forever be competent and honest.  Then, our founding PM, the late Mr LKY was visibly physically weak. I was concerned over the way policies were made. Obvious missteps have been made and the ruling party had refused to admit their mistakes. There were significant anger on the ground over various policies.

I had wondered what Singapore’s options would be as we only had two elected opposition members then; and Mr Chiam’s own health was failing. We should not take to the streets to force change as we have a democratic process to vote for change. Yet as a voter myself, I knew it would be impossible to have more of the alternative elected unless they are deemed sufficiently competent by the electorate. This process takes time and it is best to build a respectable, rational and responsible alternative whilst we have the calmness in society to do so. The barriers have been set real high for the alternative because of constant tinkering of our constitution to entrench the ruling party and an iron grip control over the media, all apparatus of government, the economy through state-owned enterprises, the PA, trade unions and more, plus a great fear factor for capable people to come forward. All the more, the alternative has to be build up till there is one that is ready to take over if the people so chooses. I think this is a better way to ensure Singapore’s resilience.

 

 

A Balancing Act – dissecting the issue on foreign scholars and tuition grants

Two days ago in parliament in response to my WP colleague NCMP Leon Perera, Education Minister Ong Ye Kung revealed that government spending on scholarships and tuition grants for foreign students fell 50% over the past 10 years. It is now around $238 million, which means the annual spending around 2009 would have been $476 million. Put this in the context of Singapore having only 3(#) government funded universities then (versus 6 now), the percentage spent by the government then to support foreign students versus how much it spent on supporting local students would have been very much higher than today.

When I entered parliament in 2011, this was one of the issues I dug into immediately. I had met many Singaporeans whose children were not able to enter our local universities because of the limited number of places. Many went into private universities here or abroad. I had filed a question in parliament in 2011 to first gather some facts.  There were then 41,000 Singaporeans enrolled in private universities and private education institutions (PEIs). This number did not include Singaporeans studying in universities abroad because the government did not track the data. Add this group of overseas Singapore students in and the number of Singaporeans seeking private tertiary education would be even higher.

In any case, 41,000 was a very high figure considering our yearly cohort of Singaporeans of university-going age by birth was then around 45,000-50,000 . It showed the aspiration for higher learning was very big but places were very limited. The cost for private education, whether done here or abroad is steep and beyond the means of many ordinary Singaporeans. It was only later that the government decided to expand the number of places for local students and supported an additional two more universities – UniSIM (now SUSS) and the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT).

My friends teaching in our local universities had told me that they were alarmed at the then-increasingly large number of foreign students on our government scholarships who could barely even get third class honours. The cost of each foreign scholarship is high, and if we have to spend money on non-Singaporeans, then it should be on those who can really add significant quality to our education standards and to our economy.

Data was scant, so I began a series of probe into this issue. I asked in February 2012 about the number of foreign scholars in Singapore and the amount spent on them, only to be told that the government gave out 320 scholarships to ASEAN students yearly. I followed up again the next month with another questions about non-ASEAN scholars and was given a figure of 1,700 scholars a year. That meant 2,000+ foreign scholarships a year, multiplied by their disclosed rate of $18,000 spent annually on average per scholar. What MOE did not disclose was that scholarships given out would be valid for the duration of the studies here as long as the scholar continued to meet MOE’s criteria, which would typically be 4 years. The cost of foreign scholarships given out annually would have worked out to be at least $144 million a year then.

Next was whether we were giving scholarships to foreigners that are of good quality enough to add to the vibrancy of our education system. From further parliamentary questions, I found out that a third of foreigners on our undergraduate scholarships did not graduate with at least a second upper honours, the typical definition of a good honours. MOE later disclosed that these scholars were only expected to maintain the GPA equivalent of second lower honours to continue to be retained on their scholarship programme, a low benchmark indeed for a fully funded foreign scholar. On various occasions, I called for this benchmark to be set higher to at least at the GPA equivalent for a good honours but that was rejected by MOE. I am not sure if the benchmark has since been changed by MOE or such low expectations still exist.

My motivations for raising those issues were not because I am anti-foreigners. I have foreigner friends who have studied here on our government scholarships. Some have become Singapore citizens or PR and settled down to have children here. My concern was that we were giving out foreign scholarships too liberally with too low expectations. Yes, other foreign universities do give out scholarships to Singaporeans but for Singaporeans to qualify on those same generous terms given by MOE, surely they are expected to do better than second lower honours. We take pride that our most established universities, NUS and NTU now rank in the top globally with the USA Ivy league universities and UK’s Oxford and Cambridge. Surely when these elite universities give scholarships to Singaporeans, they expect much higher of us.

I was also concerned about the high amount spent with weak efforts to enforce their fulfillment of bonds, whether for scholars or for tuition grant holders. The figure revealed by Minister Ong is that 4% of tuition grant awardees are in default currently. I believe the figure was higher earlier until MOE decided to step up enforcement.

In any case, $476 million spent annually ten years ago was definitely far too high. Post GE2011, the government had realised the flaws in their earlier policies on foreign students and started the reversal. Singaporeans had spoken loudly enough to be heard. In the earlier rush to boost foreign student numbers, some secondary schools with boarding facilities were asked to ram up their hostel places. There are some deserted hostel blocks today in these schools, legacy of this failed policy. We may have cut the spending down to $238 million now but I think more details are needed as to what criteria we use for awarding scholarships and whether we expect scholars to remain in Singapore to contribute to us economically. Pre-tertiary students are not bonded and about half of them do not end up continuing their tertiary education in Singapore. They do not need to return to Singapore to work as well when they graduate.

Having foreign students can be good. The question is how generous we need to be, what criteria we set especially when we give out scholarships and how we enforce recipients to fulfill their bond obligations.

#Correction: My original post stated 4. SUTD started exactly in 2009. There were only NUS, NTU and SMU 10 or more years ago.