If this is not an idiot's way of
counting beans recovered, after having spilled the entire pot into
the drain.
From a paper presented at the GaWC - Annual Lecture 2000 about
Singapore's Globalisation :
"Keppel Corporation, a major GLC with
shipyard background, led a consortium of 24 Singapore companies to
form the Singapore-Suzhou Township Development Company (SSTD). 10
of these 24 Singapore companies were GLCs and statutory boards and
their share was S$115 million (The Straits Times, 15 January 1998
). "
"The China Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park Development Company
(CSSD) is a S$75-million joint venture between the Singapore
consortium, SSTD (65%), and their Chinese counterpart, China Suzhou
Industrial Park Company (CSIPC) comprising 11 state-owned
enterprises mainly from Suzhou (35%). It is commissioned to develop
an industrial township covering an area of approximately 70 square
kilometres. The total cost of the township is estimated to be S$30
billion and it takes about 20-30 years to complete. When fully
developed, the township will be able to support a population of
600,000 and provide employment for more than 360,000 people. In
November 1994, three consortia led by Keppel Group were set up to
develop utility plants in the township. It included a massive S$4.5
billion power plant with a generating capacity equal to almost all
the electricity consumed in Singapore in 1993.
By June 1998, four years after the initial launch of the Suzhou
township project, it became clear that the loss-making developer
CSSD could not expect to make money in the near future (The Straits
Times, 18 April 1998; 19 June 1998 ). The Singapore consortium
invested about US$155 million into the CSSD (The Straits Times, 10
July 1999). "
From all the selected announcements
of expenditures already known - what was the selling price that
Keppel Corp received after having spent S$115
million as its capital to form the SSTD Company ?
What about other "unannounced"
miscellaneous expenses up till the time of divestments ?
With regards to the Suzhou Industrial Park, the actual accounting
of the amount spent has never been revealed by this
Government.
Are Singaporeans supposed to be comforted that after divesting our
Singapore's majority share of the project, and assuming a smaller
stake that the "company
achieved a net profit of $7.6 million in 2001 and a profit of $3.58
million in the first four months of this year."
?
What will be the rate of this return of these announced profits on
the entire amount that has been expended by the Singapore
Government on this project ?
What is the percentage of this small profit that will be
distributed according to the lesser share now held
by Singapore ?
Should the results announced be any cold comfort to the helpless
Singaporean Citizens who cannot even cater to our retirement needs
- while this Government will spent millions and billions on
overseas financial jaunts ?
