Wednesday, 9 December 2009, 8:13 am | 280 views
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The art of evading responsibility
I refer to the report “Renewed
calls for public transport subsidies for the disabled”
(CNA, Dec 3). It states that
“The Public Transport Council (PTC) said there are agencies
which provide transport help, specifically for the disabled to get
around conveniently. The National Council of Social Service, for
example, administers the Land Transport Authority’s
Cares Fund, which provides reimbursements to disabled
persons for journeys to-and-fro home for employment or schooling
purposes”.
On reading the above report, I was under the impression that the
LTA has a fund to reimburse transport costs for the disabled.
However, when I read the LTA’s press release for its ‘LTA Cares’
fund, I realized that it was actually the staff of LTA who were
committed to raise $120,000 per year, for three years, from 2007 to
2009.
So, it is not money that is coming from LTA.
Organisations providing essential public services are
responsible for helping those in need. The current trend of passing
the buck onto their staff, to raise funds in their personal
capacity, is not healthy.
If this is allowed to continue, there may come a day when our
Members of Parliament have to raise funds to help the poor, in the
absence of funding from the Government!
Incidentally, LTA is the only winner of the President Social
Service Award, formal group in 2006.
Using the 4% disability rate provided by the Singapore Disability Sports Council,
there are about 150,000 disabled persons in Singapore, if we
estimate the current population to be roughly less than 4
million.
“In Singapore, the number of actual disabled individuals is four
per cent of its population and that is by the traditional approach,
many of whom fall squarely within the main categories of physical
impairment, vision impairment, hearing impairment and intellectual
impairment”.
Does the $120,000 LTA Cares fund mean that less than a dollar
per year is available to help per disabled person?
Since the fund is only for employment and schooling, what about
those who need to travel for other reasons? Visiting friends and
family, for instance.
As to the PTC denying that it administers any form of subsidy,
while indicating that SBS Transit and SMRT are ‘exploring the
possibility of concessionary travel for the disabled’, are they not
passing the buck to the transport operators as well?
With the responsibility of providing subsidies being passed on
from one public organisation to another in a constant chain of
‘arrows’, it is the disabled that are at the losing end. Can any
public operator provide any detailed study they have done, in
considering the implications and viability of providing some level
of subsides?
SMRT especially, has no excuse in stinging on concessions when
they register record profits almost year after year! Just look at
the excuse they have issued yet again:
“SMRT said that any concessionary travel is effectively
cross-subsidised by full-fare paying commuters. Hence, there is a
need to exercise prudence in granting travel concessions”
Since it was also mentioned in the same article that the public
has been mostly receptive of the idea of subsidised fares for the
disabled, ‘exercising prudence’ for fear of angering the public
seems more of an excuse to scrimp on essential public goods. Is it
not obvious that subsidies for the disabled will be
cross-subsidised by full-fare consumers, as is the case all over
the world?
Though SMRT takes pride in being a good socially responsible
corporate citizen (Corporate Social Responsibility), and has done
many charitable activities, their day-to-day policies show
otherwise.
Whilst I would like to commend the LTA staff for their efforts
in raising funds for the LTA Cares fund, they are contributing to a
systemic problem by being at the receiving end of the ‘buck’. It
should be the responsibility of public organisations to assist the
disabled in society, not private persons working in public
organisations.
How can the decision-makers at the PTC, LTA and SMRT look
squarely into the eyes of disabled persons, while dishing out the
same excuses, almost every other year?
When we as a society become overly focused on profitability at
the expense our compassion, we may lose a bit of what makes us
human, in the first place!