January 28, 2010 by admin
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OPINION
The twin issues of immigration and foreign workers have
perpetually hogged the headlines since last year, an indication of
how it has become a “national obsession” of Singaporeans.
Despite the ruling party’s fervent attempts to assuage rising
resentment, frustration and anger on the ground, Singaporeans
remain unconvinced by their reasoning that foreigners are
“essential” to Singapore.
To be fair to the PAP, there is nothing fundamentally wrong in
Singapore recruiting more foreigners to boost its declining birth
rate – the root cause of the problem lies in the way the policies
are implemented which takes into little consideration the possible
long-term impact on the rest of the populace.
Three questions come to mind immediately:
1. Why do we need immigrants?
2. How many immigrants do we need?
3. Who are we targeting exactly?
The first question has been addressed many times by the PAP
leaders and academics – being a small nation without any natural
resources, human resource is our greatest asset.
Singapore’s birth rates has been declining to below the level
needed to replace the population and if no measures are taken to
rectify the situation, we will end up like Japan – an aging society
with manifold repercussions for the nation.
Hence, we need immigrants to keep our population growing and to
economy competitive.
Unfortunately, the PAP appeared to have implemented the policies
too hastily under their ambitious plan to increase Singapore’s
population to 6.5 million people while neglecting the other
intangible consequences of immigration.
Six major flaws of the PAP’s immigration
policies:
1. Too many, too soon:
Singapore has been accepting immigrants since the 1980s and
1990s from Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan without
causing much discomfort to the local population.
This is because the immigrants have come in smaller numbers and
are similar to Singaporeans in terms of culture, language and
beliefs and have few problems assimilating into Singapore
society.
The pace of immigration picked up when Prime Minister Lee Hsien
Loong assumed office in 2003 and all of sudden the floodgates are
opened to accept foreigners from all over the world especially
China and India where the majority of the newcomers hail from.
In the span of less than 5 years, foreigners now make up 36 per
cent of Singapore’s population, up from 14 per cent in 1990. Of the
remaining 64 per cent who are citizens, a significant proportion
are new immigrants born overseas.
Does Singapore really need to let so many foreigners into the
country within such a short period of time?
In 2008 alone, there were over 90,000 PRs and 20,000 new
citizens which is obviously stretching the nation’s infrastructure,
such as public housing to accommodate all of them.
PM Lee now promised Singaporeans that the rate of immigration
will be continued in a “measured and calibrated” manner. Is this a
tacit admission that the uncontrolled influx of immigrants between
the years 2003 – 2008 had been a mistake?
2. Inadequate infrastructure such as public housing to
accommodate newcomers:
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that with so many foreigners
flocking to study, work and live in Singapore, one needs to
increase the number of public amenities and upgrade the
infrastructure to accommodate them such as public housing.
Only slightly more than 11,000 new flats were built between
the years 2006 – 2008 when there were over 90,000 PRs and 20,000
new citizens alone in 2008:
[Source: HDB Financial Report 2008/2009]
Below is a graph illustrating how the rise in the prices of
resale flats coincides with the rise in the number of foreigners in
Singapore between the years 2000 and 2008, courtesy of Kojakbt, the
moderator of 3in1kopitiam:
The lack of foresight on the part of HDB to plan beforehand to
build more new flats to house the immigrants is appalling and its
failure to do so has led to sky-rocketing HDB flat prices
today.
Due to the lack of new flats, especially those in the prime
districts, Singaporeans have to compete with PRs in the resale
flats which resulted naturally in the rise of the prices of resale
flats.
Public transport such as buses and MRTs are also poorly prepared
for the increase in population as evidenced by the packed buses and
trains every morning.
3. Targeting the wrong people:
Singapore should be targeting foreigners who can add value to
Singapore and not open its doors indiscriminately to every Tom,
Dick or Harry.
Mainland China is one important source of immigrants for
Singapore, but we are not getting their cream of the crop.
According to a Gallup poll done in July 2009 among Chinese
college students, their top emigration destination is the United
States, followed by France and South Korea. Singapore isn’t even
featured among the top five.
Why isn’t Singapore attracting the best Chinese talents? Instead
of examining the cause, we settle for their “lesser talents”, many
of whom are uncouth peasants from the poorer inland provinces.
What Singapore is getting are not first class talents but
economic migrants who cannot survive in their own countries and
they are now competing with Singaporeans for limited jobs because
they cost much less.
China is vast country with 23 provinces and more than 1 billion
people of various races and religions.
The ethnic Chinese in Singapore come mostly from the southern
provinces of Guangdong and Fujian.
Singapore should be focusing on luring prospective migrants from
these two provinces instead of allowing Chinese from all across the
mainland to come here.
As they share the same dialect and culture as local Chinese,
they will have fewer problems integrating into Singapore society as
compared to Chinese from far-flung inland provinces who come
from a completely alien world altogether.
4. Ease of getting PR and citizenship:
Unlike countries, getting a PR and citizenship in Singapore is
incredibly easy without any major restrictions.
Most developed countries like Australia, Canada and U.K set an
English proficiency test for immigrants and only those who pass the
test are able to work and live there.
In Australia, one has to live there three out of a period of
five years before they are eligible to become PRs.
However in Singapore, the newcomers are “fast-tracked” to become
PRs and citizens without first familiarizing themselves with the
country first and spending adequate time to make the decision.
A Chinese national and Singapore PR Zhang Yuanyuan who worked as
a teacher in a private institution in Singapore revealed to the
media that she became a PR within 2 months of application.
Even construction workers, cleaners, masseurs and prostitutes
are able to lay their lands on a Singapore PR, the stepping stone
for citizenship.
According to the Home Affairs Ministry, two out of every three
PR applicants are successful, an astonishingly high success rate
for a first world country.
Because citizenships are given out too soon to foreigners, there
is insufficient time for both parties to assess if they are really
“compatible” with each other.
5. Lack of a comprehensive plan to integrate the
newcomers:
Due to the large number of unsuitable migrants who are given
citizenships too soon, we now end up with the problem of having to
integrate them.
Again, the ruling party did not come up with a comprehensive
plan to integrate the newcomers when they embarked on their
ambitious plan to increase Singapore’s population via immigration
way back in 2003.
It is now very difficult to integrate those who are already in
Singapore because they have come in such big numbers that they tend
to congregate within their own communities than to reach out to the
rest of Singapore.
We are already seeing ethnic “enclaves” emerging in different
parts of Singapore such as the Chinese in Geylang, Indians in
Punggol and Filipinos in Tampines.
Furthermore, as they share few similarities with the Chinese,
Malays and Indians though they may be of the same race, it is near
impossible to expect them to assimilate into our society any time
soon.
As usual, the ruling party comes up with a grandiose $10 million
Community Integration Fund to throw money at the problem.
How does organizing tea parties, community events and free
language courses help to “integrate” the immigrants into Singapore
is anybody’s guess when they should have done their homework first
before opening the floodgates to immigration.
They will simply turn up for the free food and goodies before
return to their own cliques as before – do you call this
“integration”?
6. Neglect of native Singaporeans:
The key reason why many Singaporeans are so vehemently against
the ruling party’s immigration policies is because they feel they
are not getting a fair deal as citizens from the elected government
of the day.
Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said the government cannot “shield”
Singaporeans from competition, but they are the ones who forced
Singaporeans to compete with foreigners on unequal terms.
Firstly, the Singapore male is already disadvantaged by having
to spend 4 weeks away from work annually due to reservist
obligations.
Secondly, there is no way Singaporeans can compete with
foreigners in terms of cost because they do not have a family here
and they can easily support them back home with their meager pay
earned in Singapore.
While in the past only extremely qualified professionals and
blue collar workers in sectors shunned by Singaporeans are allowed
into Singapore, we are now seeing an increasing number of
semi-skilled foreigners on S-passes and these are the group of
foreigners who are competing with locals for jobs and depressing
their wages in the process.
To exacerbate the situation, there is a dearth of social welfare
benefits for Singapore citizens who have to depend entirely on
their CPF and medisave for retirement and medical expenses.
CPF is proving to be grossly inadequate to support Singaporeans
through their twilight years and many have to continue working just
to feed themselves and their families.
With so many grouses bottled up inside, it is only natural to
expect Singaporeans to blame foreigners for their woes, whether
rightly or wrongly.
Had the ruling party taken the necessary measures to ensure that
Singaporeans are well taken care of first before they let the
foreigners in, there will not be so much anger against them
now.
Conclusion:
The PAP has screwed up badly on the immigration and foreign
talent issues and there is no way it can salvage the situation now
that we have accepted so many foreigners into our midst.
This policy oversight is the result of having a dominant one
party in parliament without adequate opposition to keep it in check
and to challenge its policies.
Singaporeans have to vote wisely in the next general election or
they will really be reduced to being in the minority one day,
swarmed by the new citizens whom the PAP is actively recruiting and
wooing to shore up its flagging support base so as to preseve and
perpetuate its political hegemony for eternality.