Is NTUC Fairprice another organisation similar to the NKF in its
set up ?
Supposedly helping Union members and Singaporeans with cheaper
necessities but also helping themselves (the administrators) more
?
If the CEO of Comfort Taxi had paid himself annually S$1Million
including bonus, how much more does the CEO of Fairprice pay
himself ?
With all the import regulations put in place during the "Nippah"
and "Bird Flu" scares, which prevented all pork, meat, and eggs
from being imported by casual shoppers going into Johor Bahru, the
law is now used to ensure a wholly oligopolistic environment where
Singaporeans can only buy from NTUC Fairprice, Cold Storage, Giant,
Carre Fours, and a few smaller players.
A "Made in Malaysia" bottle of 1.5 litre of mineral water is sold
in Malaysia for 90sen, but sold at NTUC Fairprice for S$1.20 -
despite the supposed strength of the exchange rate that is in favor
of Singapore.
Malaysian eggs sold at the hyper-markets are offered to Malaysian
consumers at Malaysian 14sens each, and yet the same Malaysian eggs
that are offered on the shelves of our Singapore hyper-marts are at
Singapore 13cents each.
Back in the early 1960s, the brilliant Dr Goh Keng Swee had
persuaded Singaporeans to believe that we should abandon
agriculture and concentrate on industrialisation, and create a
strong Singapore Dollar so as to purchase our agricultural
necessities from our neighbours at a far more competitive price
than if we had done it for ourselves at a higher cost.
Forty years later, we are trapped with a high value Singapore
Dollar that is negated by the high cost of land, and supposedly
still very high wage costs despite all the wage and CPF
reductions.
Little wonder that with all the profiteering and profitable
ventures, NTUC can build a 70 storey building to be its new
Headquarters, to accomodate all its corporate success stories from
Fairprice, Comfort, Income, Healthmart, and also from its dabbling
in Leisure and Travels, Property Development.
With all the CASH that it has accumulated into its
treasury - (from all the successful ventures that were
started with funds from the Singapore Government (money collected
from Singaporeans) and Union Membership Fees) - what has
NTUC done for its Union Members and Singaporeans
?
