Is govt guilty of dishonesty or deception in 07 GST increase

robertteh SG

Last year, 2007 when PM Lee announced his proposal to increase GST from 5% to 7% many forumers have asked PM Lee to be truthful in telling the actual government surpluses suspected to be in billions made by the SLA, HDB, URA etc from people's lands and other assets already paid by taxes.

True enough it is now confirmed that the government has been quietly making huge profits from land sales and all the profiteering schemes of GLCs resulting in our actual surplus of 6.4 billions instead of a 0.7 deficit as presented to justify the GST increase.

Who is to be blamed? Hasn't the government always prided itself as MM Lee or GCT has been saying for years for honesty and transparency?

Why not tell the actual surpluses more accurately in asking for more tax or GST increases?

Is this sort of inaccuracy not amounting to dishonesty or deception by the world's best ministers said to be better than Scandinavian counterparts as told by MM Lee to large audiences in the world conference?

If a private sector CEO made this kind of inaccurate budget forecast where would he end up with should the final profits differ drastically from that of the budget? Would shareholders tolerate such inaccuracy?

Just imagine giving wrongful information such as a 0.7 billion deficit to deceive parliament into approving the 7% GST increase which caused so much inflation (6%) and suffering of the people. Who is answerable for such error of judgment?

If only we have a more honest government who is willing to tell people the truth about our profits or surpluses made by various government agencies as requested by ex-president Ong Teng Cheong we would not be having so many more fee increases and taxes and profiteering by SLA HDB and all the government agencies?

If only the Straits Times and our many public media been more truthful with their news and been more candid in reporting honest feedbacks from the ground all will certainly be better off today.

Now we would be hearing too finally the more mistaken forecasts were made with regrets about our actual unemployment figures and job creations figures as disclosed by Dr. Ng Eng Hen.

Let us face it. A government should be honest in the first place.

If it is less than honest we will keep getting more NKF and all the embarrassments now being faced by the government.

May be some excuses will still be given by Tharma to cover up such serious mistakes.

Must he do so ? Why not admit mistakes of such blatant nature like Gentleman to show that we the little red dot is indeed better and is in a position to tell the world we are different and can lecture the rest of the world how to run a government.

Many a times, because of the government stubborn refusal to listen to people's feedbacks e.g. NKF, ministries various money losses, Temasek's GIC's hasty uninspiring throwing of our good monies after the bad monies in Shin Corp etc and LTA's big mistake in treating all roads as expressways leading to CBD to collect more monies without solving problems, or the multi-billion profiteering schemes of SLA or HDB, it will be the government who finally has to face the bigger crisis and problems down the road.

In the face of so many past mistakes of such nature why can't our ministers just learn once to be more humble and admit errors and make corrections once and for all.

kramnave SG

Robert, don't mind me saying this but...I can read most posts in Sgforums but i can't read yours. Can't pinpoint the problem but if i can i let you know. If it only happens to me then i must apologise.

alwaysdisturbed SG

paper can never cover fire.

eagle SG

It seems like if our ministers admit errors, it is to further a cause. Eg F1 and IR.

fishbuff SG

the rules in PAP politics are;

Rule #1 - PAP is always right.

Rule #2 - in any case if PAP is wrong, refer to rule #1.

robertteh SG

Kramnave,

I suggest you check up on my many past posts concerning the hidden billions of profits made by HDB, URA, SLA on selling of HDB flats built on lands already paid for and owned by the people.

Such profits came to more than S$2 billions per annum accidentally published by the Straits Times some years back.

For the period 1900-2000 alone such land sale windfall profits amounted to more than S$20 billions. For 2006-7 such windfall gains amounted to some S$6 billions.

If only citizens are able to stay united and perform our duty of querying on wrongful acts and policies of government today we would be a much more successful country.

Very simple, without such profiteering schemes of overtaxing and underspending on provisions of basic services people will be able to live a better life and businesses will survive better and we would have retained many of our own local companies and talents.

Sad to say, through narrow and selfish policies to benefit only the governing party and elites today we have lost out to many rising economies.

It is even sadder despite paying higher and higher salaries and bonuses and life pensions and other rewards to our ministers and civil servants we are suffering more and more problems.

It is quite clear that none of our MPs are doing their jobs by querying on such fundamentally wrong governing of the country which keep using pretentious propaganda to postpone solutions to problems.

With all the heavy taxing and underspending on basic government services as a country we are losing our competitiveness as all the monies and profits are sucked away by the government at the expense of growing the real economy.

For all you know if we have more monies in the pockets of the people today we could have reached a higher standard of living for all and produced many more competitive companies within the country instead of being enslaved to foreigners and foreign companies.

We reap what we sow. So as a people, we have to stay united and question all the wrongful government policies and not keep disagreeing among ourselves over so many petty issues.