January 19, 2010
By Tan Keng Leng
Recently, PM Lee declared that “Singaporeans will always come
first” for his administration. Predictably, this announcement was
met by a storm of protests both from the pro and anti-government
factions of netizens.
The anti-government factions denounced his declaration as just
propaganda intended to divert attention from his administration’s
staunchly pro-foreigner policies, while the pro-government faction
denounced the anti-government faction as a bunch of ingrates who
failed to appreciate everything the government has achieved.
So do Singaporeans really come first for the Lee Administration,
and if so, how do exactly do they come first? To arrive at a
correct conclusion to the answer, it would be best to count the
ways in which Singaporeans are obviously coming in first for the
administration.
1. Ordinary Singaporeans will always be the first to die in war,
because the foreigners and elites will flee the country. Of course,
one cannot reasonably expect the foreigners to stay and fight for
Singapore; after all, this is not their country.
In fact, it may even be better to get rid of them entirely,
because if Singapore happens to be at war with their homelands,
then they may well become a fifth column against the SAF. But what
about the elite?
Of late, there have been a number of fatal accidents in the SAF.
All the dead soldiers came from middle or lower income families;
none came from the families of the elite. So what’s the reason for
this?
Are children of ordinary locals actually being placed in
dangerous frontline positions while children of the elite are
placed in safe rear-echelon positions? After all, if children of
the elite are facing the same risks, then one should reasonably
expect at least a few of them to get hurt in training periodically,
right?
No one expects the SAF to answer this question even if it was
put forward to them. Even if they were to reply, it would just be
the standard stock answer: Singapore is a meritocracy, and that it
just so happens that the elite children are the best. But of
course, if this was truly so, then many of the fatal accidents
could have easily be prevented in the very first place, since they
would have planned for adequate safety procedures to safeguard
against them happening at all
2. Ordinary Singaporeans will always be the first to be
retrenched in any recession, while job priority goes to the elite
and foreigners. This isn’t just idle supposition; it is actually
borne out in the current recession.
One would imagine that any CEO who lost $48,000,000,000/- in
failed investments would be out looking for a new job the very next
day, but in the case of Temasek Holdings CEO Madam Ho Ching, it was
her successor Mr. Charles “Chip” Goodyear who found himself looking
for a new job after just five months instead. Exactly why was never
revealed, except that it was “due to strategic differences”.
A very important question that should be asked but never was is
this: strategic differences over what? Selling-off of money-losing
investments? Dismissal of non-performing scholars from
politically-connected elite families? Diversification of investment
portfolios instead of putting all of TH’s eggs into a few baskets?
What?
Furthermore, as a supposed “meritocracy”, the heads anyone found
responsible for these blunders should roll, so where were the
announced dismissals? Or was Chip Goodyear’s head the only one to
roll? If this is so, then the interesting issue would be why his
head should roll when he clearly had nothing to do with the debacle
since he wasn’t in charge of the organization at the time.
Madam Ho has since been restored to her position because
according to Finance Minister Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, “she’s
the best person for the job”. Of course, if this was so, the
question of why her resignation was even accepted and Chip Goodyear
appointed as her successor in the first place should be but was
never answered.
One thing this bizarre incident did prove though was that the
government failed to live up to its promises of “more good years”,
since a prominent Goodyear did quit in a huff and leave over
bureaucratic meddling in his job.
The current recession has also proven something else: contrary
to the government’s previous pronouncements on the issue, foreign
workers are NOT a buffer against retrenchments for locals. In fact,
if anything, it is the locals themselves who are serving as a
buffer for the foreigners. Thousands of locals have lost their
jobs, replaced by foreigners. Presumably in the same way that
Temasek Holdings earned “negative profits” of $48,000,000,000/- in
the recession, so too are foreign workers a “negative buffer”
against retrenchments for locals.
3. Ordinary Singaporeans will always be the first to suffer pay
cuts in a recession. The foreigners will only have their pay
frozen, while the elites will get massive pay increments for being
“talented” enough to come up with this solution.
At the start of the recession, the government was quick to
implement pay cuts. However, as they failed to announce ministerial
pay cuts as well, presumably they continued to receive their
over-bloated salaries. True, they did announce no bonuses or pay
increments, but then again, the same applied for the “lesser
mortals”. And now that the economy is picking up once more, while
the government did call upon employers to restore staff salaries,
they are not enforcing it. And sooner or later, they will announce
the restoration of their own bonuses etc.
And as for the foreigners, even if their salaries were cut, the
very fact that their employee CPF contribution is only 5% means
that they are far better able to absorb the impact of such cuts
better than locals can, simply because foreigners earning the same
basic salary as locals have a much higher take home pay.
4. Ordinary Singaporeans will always be the first to receive
priority in selecting the schools of their choice. This comes after
all the best schools have been reserved for the elites and
foreigners of course.
This statement may be an exaggeration, but not by much. Twenty
years ago or so, the then-PM Lee announced the graduate mother
priority scheme. In this scheme, children of women graduates who
are married to other graduates would be given priority for
schooling in keeping with his theories of the genetic intellectual
superiority of graduate parents.
There are many major flaws in this theory: for one thing, if
talent and intelligence are hereditary, then one would reasonably
expect the children of Oscar-winning Hollywood stars to also be as
talented as their parents, but many if not most are not.
For another thing, there are many geniuses whose parents came
from modest backgrounds, most notably Professor Albert Einstein.
Predictably, the scheme failed, because the graduate mothers who
chose to register their children under the scheme quickly found
themselves ostracized by their outraged friends. One can’t help but
wonder about one very important point: if scholars really are so
intellectually superior, then why did they fail to predict the
outcome of this ill-conceived scheme?
As for the foreigners, there has been much controversy in the
public and debate in government circles over whether they should be
given equal opportunities as locals, notably sparked off by the
arrogant, sense-of-entitlement letter written by Mrs. Sweta
Agarwal.
The government is always going on and on about how to convince
the PRs to become Singapore citizens, but really, this debate is a
non-issue that proves that the elite scholars are anything but the
best and brightest in the country. Locals should always be given
privileges not available to foreigners, whether PRs or
otherwise.
If foreigners have the same benefits as locals, then why should
they adopt Singapore citizenship? Conversely, if locals have no
advantages in anything at all over foreigners, then why shouldn’t
they be “quitters” and leave behind a country that does not
appreciate them and takes them for granted instead? Since any
lesser mortal can realize this, then why can’t the elite scholars?
Or are they so high up in their ivory towers that the rarefied air
up there has caused them to hallucinate and become delusional?
Perhaps replacing them as policy planners with lesser mortals
would give them a reality check if this is the case.
5. Ordinary Singaporeans will always be the first to be called
upon to donate generously to the less fortunate. Whether it is for
foreign disasters, needy locals or whatever, the government is
always exhorting locals to keep donating even though the salaries
and living standards of ordinary locals have been steadily
declining.
Given its huge reserves, the government can easily pay for these
programs, but they refuse to. This is especially appalling when one
considers that they have actually dipped into the reserves to pay
for cost overruns in the two casinos.
The government is always saying that they have to take actions
that are good for the country and not those that are necessarily
popular. Applying this logic to the above, presumably they regard a
crutch mentality among the wealthy elite as being good for the
country.
6. Ordinary Singaporeans will always be the first to be rejected
for welfare or other benefits. A couple of years ago, the
government raised GST, ostensibly to “increase Workfare assistance”
to the needy, but when Dr. Lily Neo, one of the few PAP MPs who
show genuine concern for needy locals appealed for assistance to be
raised by at least $100/- per month, MM Lee curtly told her off for
it.
After much debate, the government finally settled on a $30/-
increment, with 20% deduction for CPF of course. This was then
followed by a massive pay increment for ministers. This was then
followed by an announcement at the end of the year that per capita
income had gone up substantially, meaning that the standard of
living in the country had improved.
What was left unmentioned was that it went up only for a few
elite people, not the vast majority. Presumably this was how the
GST increase was meant to benefit the needy: by using it to give
themselves massive pay increments so as to raise per capita income
with minimal increase in assistance for the people who truly need
it, the poor.
From time to time, the government says that they are well on
track to provide a Swiss standard of living for the country. What
they obviously failed to mention was that by that, they meant a
Swiss cheese standard of living for the country, with all the
cheese, the good parts in other words, going to the elite and
foreigners, and all the holes being left for ordinary locals.
The government justifies its refusal to provide welfare benefits
because they claim that it will cause the poor to develop a crutch
mentality, and yet at the same time, they encourage locals to
donate to private charities (see #6 above) when this will also
create a crutch mentality in them.
Further contradicting themselves, the government has also
announced a series of programs to integrate foreigners with locals.
So it would appear that the government doesn’t want to support
locals with a crutch mentality, but is all too happy to support
foreigners with the same crutch mentality. Obviously they have
forgotten that locals from low income families pay taxes, serve NS
and vote too.
Perhaps they should be reminded of it by losing a few GRCs.
7. Ordinary Singaporeans will always be the first to bear the
brunt of massive housing cost increases. According to several
ministers, including MND Mah Bow Tan, HDB will always provide
affordable housing for locals. The problem though, is that
affordability is a subjective matter.
For example, to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, a US$20,000,000/-
mansion is affordable. To a middle manager earning Sg$5,000/- a
month, this is an insane price to pay for a house. Likewise, to a
government minister earning Sg$1,000,000 a year or more, a HDB flat
costing upwards of Sg$400,000/- is affordable, but to a local
couple whose joint income is Sg$4,000/- per month or less, they
will need to slave away for 30 to 40 years to pay off their
mortgage loans, with little if anything to support them in their
twilight years.
The government claims that their calculations are based upon a
per capita salary of Sg$7,000/- per month, or in other words,
Sg$14,000/- per month for a married couple. Given that many if not
most ordinary locals earn only a third of that amount, this of
course means they will need more than three times as long to pay
off their housing loans, not including the interest. This clearly
shows just how out of touch with reality the policy makers have
become.
But then again, what can one possibly expect from people whose
idea of raising the standard of living in the country is to raise
per capita income for the people in the country by giving
themselves massive pay increments?
8. Ordinary Singaporeans will always be the first to be given
priority for dirty, low-paid, dangerous jobs such as road sweepers,
toilet cleaners, construction workers etc.
This is because the best jobs are reserved for the elites while
the good jobs are reserved for foreigners, “otherwise they won’t
want to come”. In fact, the government has even stated that it.
Exactly why was never explained.
After all, if it is really “in the strategic interests of the
country for locals to fill these posts” as claimed, then shouldn’t
it all the more be in the strategic interests of the country to
employ only locals in the utilities industry, considering that
trouble in this sector will result in the country being shut down
and cut off from the outside world?
Furthermore, given the high accident rate in the construction
and shipbuilding industries, are foreign governments actually
threatening to ban their nationals from working in these industries
unless industrial safety standards are tightened? Is this the real
reason why it is in the strategic interests for locals to fill
these posts?
There is another issue here. Given the government’s frequent
claims that Singapore is a meritocracy, then why should jobs be
reserved for anybody at all? Shouldn’t all jobs be opened to
competition instead? Or are these elites and foreign talents so
good that they can only perform when their jobs are secure and they
are free from competition and under no threat of losing their
jobs?
9. Ordinary Singaporeans will always be the first to be blamed
for such blunders as the escape of Mas Selamat Kastari or the
Geylang Serai food poisoning debacle. In fact, several government
ministers did say Singaporeans have become complacent, which is why
these events occurred. How exactly ordinary locals are at fault for
them though was never detailed.
Terrorist mastermind Kastari’s escape came about because the
commander of the Whitley Road Detention Center (an elite scholar)
where he had been incarcerated kept ignoring repeated reports of
the danger posed by the design of the toilet he escaped from, while
his Nepalese Gurkha guards left him unattended in the toilet. How
ordinary locals caused this potentially catastrophic incident
through their complacency and negligence when no ordinary locals
were ever involved in it remains a mystery.
The Geylang Serai Indian rojak food poisoning case was caused
unsanitary conditions within the market, and according to
government officials, “failure of the victims to wash their hands
after using the toilet”.
If this is so, then this would be the first ever known incident
of people eating Indian rojak with their bare hands. How they are
able to withstand the sizzling hot oil on the fritters or the
scalding hot gravy they are dipped into without the use of a fork
is an intriguing question.
A more intriguing question though is this: what were the
Aljunied CCC and the NEA doing all the time before the incident
that the market and food center should be in such unsanitary
conditions, and why weren’t they ever publicly taken to task for
it?
10. Ordinary Singaporeans will always be the first to get the
spurs stuck into their hides for being lazy. No less than MM Lee
had said this. He even went on to declare that Singaporeans prefer
to spend time on sports and other enrichment activities whereas
China nationals spend time in libraries.
Perhaps one should give him the benefit of the doubt here; he is
an octogenarian after all. It’s only natural that he should forget
that it is the government itself that demands that Singaporeans
should participate in sports and other enrichment activities, and
that their academic performance (and chances to be admitted into
good schools) would be graded accordingly because the government
wants locals to be all-rounded and not merely academics.
Curiously though, foreign students, in particular the PRCs, seem
to be exempted from this requirement, which is why they can spend
all their time studying and in the library. In fact, the government
even provides them free English lessons so that they can bridge the
gulf in English standards between themselves and locals.
Whether they can actually compete with the local students should
they be equally encumbered with all these CCA requirements is a
good question. The answer is, probably not, since they cannot even
compete with the locals in English, the fundamental building block
of the local education system, without CCA requirements and free
additional English lessons. But then again, given that their
positions in good schools have been reserved for them, they don’t
need to care about such things either.
After a careful analysis of all the ways in which Singaporeans
will always come first for the government, it appears that the
pro-government faction is correct. Ordinary Singaporeans do always
come first for the government exactly as they claim.
It just isn’t coming in first in a positive way.
http://www.temasekreview.com/2010/01/19/singaporeans-come-first-yeah-right/