February 14, 2010
Influential international journal The Economist has hit out at
the Singapore government of being a “stingy nanny state” in
reference to its antipathy and resistance towards public
welfare.
Though it acknowledges that the government “does run a handful
of schemes directed at some of the needy, from low-income students
to the unassisted elderly, these benefits are rigorously
means-tested and granted only sparingly.”
“The most destitute citizens’ families may apply for public
assistance; only 3,000 currently qualify. Laid-off workers receive
no automatic benefits. Instead they are sorted into “workfare” and
training schemes,” it added.
Known as the Public Assistance (PA) scheme, it gives applicants
a monthly allowance of $330 which is hardly sufficient to survive
in Singapore. One has to be completely destitute without any living
relatives or certified permanently unfit to work by a medical
specialist before one can qualify for it.
The process of seeking help is also made tiresome and in some
ways humiliating on purpose to deter “free-riders” from “abusing”
the system.
Singapore workers have no job security to speak of as a result
of the government’s open-door policies towards foreign migrant
workers who now make up more than 35 per cent of the workforce.
“Official reassurances that migrants create growth do not
convince those competing for scarce jobs. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s
founding father and still its “minister mentor” has maintained that
ambitious migrants help to keep citizens on their toes. In an
interview given to National Geographic last July he said that if
native Singaporeans lag behind “hungry” foreigners because “the
spurs are not stuck on [their] hinds”, that is not the state’s
problem to solve,” noted the Economist.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal editorial, the
relentless influx of foreign workers has depressed the wages of
ordinary Singaporeans, increased the cost of living, especially
that of public housing, decreased labor productivity and led to an
overall decline in the standards of living.
To compound matters, there are no independent trade unions to
represent and fight for the interests of Singapore workers. The
only legal trade union in Singapore – NTUC is a pseudo-PAP
organization which is always headed by a PAP Minister (without
portfolio).
Right after he became Prime Minister in 2003, Lee Hsien Loong
emphasized that “welfare is a dirty word in Singapore”, a sign that
his administration will not do much to help those who have fallen
behind.
In a speech made in Parliament in November 2006, he said:
“We need a sustainable approach. You saw the
numbers. You see how quickly the number of old people and the
proportion of old people is growing in Singapore. Some MPs
and some other commentators outside writing in the newspapers have
suggested old age pensions, which they argue every Singaporean
should have as of right, because I am born here, I carry a pink IC,
I should have an old age pension. But if every old person,
whether rich or poor, is entitled to an old age pension, it is
going to impose a very heavy financial burden on the State, which
means a very heavy financial burden on young Singaporeans, because
they are the ones who are going to be working and paying the taxes,
which is where the State will get the money.”
Yet the state is flushed with cash as evident by the billions of
dollars it lost recently in failed overseas investments via its two
sovereign wealth funds – GIC and Temasek Holdings.
The Economist Society of Singapore (ESS) recently proposed to a
government committee that it should build a more robust safety net,
starting with unemployment insurance which would promote social
stability and help muster public support for Singapore’s open-door
migration policies.
“While self-reliance is a good principle in general, it may
be neither efficient nor just if taken to extremes,” it
claimed.
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/02/14/the-economist-accuses-pap-of-being-a-stingy-nanny-state/
First, it's National Geographic. Now, it's The Economist!
All these are british and american are just jealous of us, they
should mind their own business, westerners likes to about others,
with so much human rights in their culture, what rights do they
have to talk about our society, aren't their economy falling, ask
them to take care of their own economy, gay marriage and
unemployement rates before bumping us again. No wonder Malaysia
also asked Aussie to shut up over Anwar case, each individual
country must respect each other domestic issue, each should not go
in meddle with it, just like, if my house got a problem, i dun need
a neighbour a come and critise me, what right does he/she has??
You guys had already truly said that we are being conned by the
western banks of billions of lost, and now you still go on and
listen to their comments and critics on you, i think you must be
very stupid lor
