The following (from singaporegovt.blogspot.com) could be old
news but it is for the benefit of those who missed hearing it from
a PAP MP's mouth:
Let me bring you back to 10 November 2003 in the parliamentary
seating where LTA was again in the spotlight. MP Wong Kai Yuen
said,
Sir, EZ Link could do so (charging the commuters $5 for every
EZ-link card purchase) because its parent, the LTA, is both the
regulator and the owner of the fare collection system. This, I
believe, is fundamentally wrong. It is wrong in terms of principle.
It is wrong because there exists a conflict of interests between
the regulator and the operator. Getting the commuter to pay for the
cards is a solution to a problem that could only be arrived at by
decision makers with a civil service mindset. The fact that we see
such befuddled thinking from the LTA should no longer surprise us
in this House. In fact, it is the same agency that causes none
other than Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to publicly
acknowledge its two very big mistakes. Firstly, Deputy PM Lee Hsien
Loong described the scheme to charge the taxi drivers a fee in
order to monitor their performance "invidious" in the House
recently. So he actually changed it. On the North East Line,
Minister Yeo Cheow Tong did - which he denied - a policy U-turn.
And Deputy PM Lee described it in public that it was a mistake made
by the Government to require more than one rail operator under the
premise of increasing competition. Are these just "honest
mistakes", as we have a tendency to classify such mistakes made by
civil servants? Or is it symptomatic of something deeper?
Which brings me actually back to the fundamental question: why
would LTA set up EZ Link Pte Ltd to be a 100% owned company in the
first place? Having done so, why does it sign over the right to
manage the float to a bank? Why did it not adopt the same model as
the TransitLink company that the ez link system be replaced? The
TransitLink company is a jointly owned company by the transport
operators. In fact, in that system, more than 8.7 million farecards
were issued, and the company did not complain that too many cards
were issued. There are several reasons for that. Firstly, the cards
were cheap. I believe they were 20 cents each. Secondly,
TransitLink held the float. More importantly, Sir, there were
sufficient savings from the other operations of the TransitLink
system to subsidise the cost of the cards.
So, indeed, Sir, why did LTA not replicate the same model? I can
only surmise the reasons by looking at the moves EZ Link has made
as a company. EZ Link card is designed to be used beyond
transportation to pay for retail purchases. EZ Link, as a company,
has entered into an exclusive agreement with QB Pte Ltd to extend
the use of ez link cards for this very purpose. To enter into the
realm of multiple electronic applications, MAS stipulated that EZ
Link be tied up with a bank. QB Pte Ltd is a subsidiary of Green
Dot Payment Services Pte Ltd which is, in turn, owned by Green Dot
Capital Pte Ltd which is, in turn, owned by Singapore Technologies.
As we all know, Singapore Technologies is a Government-linked
company. So the Government has its hands in all this, somehow or
other.
