Let's throw in some ideas on what we want for Singapore

fymk SG

Let's throw in some ideas instead of singling out people. I just want ideas to improve singapore as it is.

I will do my bit to suggest :

Abolish the million dollar or near million dollar pay of ministers and divert those cash into some funds for the underprivileged. The pay is really ridiculous for the size of the country and I don't see them doing much except raise prices. Reduce the number of ministers. Singapore don't need so many .

Healthcare - concentrate on community support services for the aged in each GRC /SMC - community nurses that travel about checking up on the aged. Instead of crowding them into one huge retirement village. Think of ways to retain nurses as well instead of some cursory recognition thing one week per year or waste money on adverts on how great nursing is - everyone knows it is not that great .

Schools should impose volunteer services in social studies on students to let them see the other side of a world they are sheltered from, instead of relying on bloody social studies textbooks to tell them to smile and be courteous.

Abolish streaming from primary school and make them start streaming when the kids are 14 years old into science/arts/commerce/vocational training. Open up opportunities for young students to attach themselves to research in NUS/NTU to bring out new talents or give them a pseudo work attachment in something they are interested in. Talented ones do university subjects when they are around 16years old if they have the apititude (they do it in australia) .

Sports funding - abolish foreign talent scheme except for bringing foreign coaches in to coach our OWN. Not some china pr to win a gold of the olympics.

Send something to overseas scholars or even overseas students who give the ministry of foreign affairs notice about their address, to make them aware their country remembers them - a card will do ( Brunei does it for their sponsored students). It goes along way.

Instead of outsourcing for foreign talents, send our own out for training and an attachment. Exchanges of information is always good. Protect jobs of our own people first .

fymk SG

I think the opposition and government should work together instead of bashing each other . All MPs must have equal access to fundings to help the disadvantaged in their area. Resident committees must have no ties to the government at all.

The above I think I wait long long to see.

shade343 SG

Wow. Thats really bold. try telling that to the Cut Waste Panel Laughing

shade343 SG

Btw, Schools have already imposed voluntary service under Civics and Moral Education. A student must clocked in 6 hours of Community Invovement Project(CIP) b4 he can graduate.

SnowFlag SG

x2 Simple yet some ppl find it so hard to understand

Also remember the fact that the ministers are under pension scheme, and will received the last drawn pay after retirement.

dibilo SG

legalize home downloads Mr. Green

mayham321 SG

do u think top managment will give up their $$$ to give to the poor???

av98m SG

yes, the pension scheme for ministers and mps should be abolished. after all, its been abolished for civil servants. sometimes its like being caught in a bad orwellian novel living in singapore, all are equal, but some are more equal than others. everyone else must accept lower pay, less benefits, ministers and mps must continue to be highly paid if not cannot attract talented people, plus they will become corrupt if they don't get paid enough. Confused

leilan84 SG

how much is enough? that kind of pay is just legalised corruption

av98m SG

One of the justifications given by the government for the million dollar salaries a few years ago was that it would help to prevent corruption, the inference being that if ministers and mps are not paid enough, they will steal. Confused

greengoblin SG

Hmmm... MPs are chosen base on their traits of honesty....
but yet we are paying them to prevent them from being corrupted....
so which is which...? That the core is rotten and it permeates to the rest of the branches?

av98m SG

Only the government can answer that question for sure. Something else you can interpret from their statements from years ago when the whole thing was brought up is, the current crop of ministers would not be interested in serving the country unless they were entitled to the inflated paychecks. Confused One of the arguments was that without such high pay, you cannot attract talented people who would otherwise work in the private sector. So our ministers are really in it for the money and benefits. For the MPs, no problem lah, just sit and collect their MP's allowance(followed by lifetime pension after serving a minimum of 2 terms), and director's fees(for doing nothing other than making the company's board of director's list look good)

Suicine SG

attracts the capable ppl too

raihanraihan SG

[quote]Originally posted by fymk:
[b]Let's throw in some ideas instead of singling out people. I just want ideas to improve singapore as it is.

I will do my bit to suggest :

Abolish the million dollar or near million dollar pay of ministers and divert those cash into some funds for the underprivileged. The pay is really ridiculous for the size of the country and I don't see them doing much except raise prices. Reduce the number of ministers. Singapore don't need so many .

Maybe we can try outsourcing as suggested by siew91 of sintercom:

Outsourcing is now the buzz word for businesses around the world. Singapore govt is also adopting it in the various govt ministries. But PAP should take a step further and outsource its ministerial jobs. This would not only make good economic sense but mght leapfrog Singapore into Swiss standard of living.

The basic annual salary of Singapore minister is around US$655,530 to US$819,124 while that of the US President is only US$200,000. Singapore will, therefore, be able to save a tidy sum if PAP offshore the ministrial jobs to US. Singapore will even save a fortune if the jobs are relocated to PRC. The annual salary of PRC Chairman being only US$500. The savings made could then be used to pay for the utilities of the 3,000 households which live without electricity and water, or be doled out as relief to those who lost their jobs to structural changes in the employment landscape.

Besides cost saving, another reason for offshoring is to gain access to foreign market. If ministerial jobs were relocated to PRC, Singapore will gain an immediate foothold in China market. It would then not be necessary to spend millions developing bicultural elites to engage the potential world economic and political superworld.

To gain access to qualified personnel or services not available locally is yet another motivation to outsource. The unsatisfactory returns (1.7 to 4 per cent from 1999 to 2003) from the govt investment of Singapore reserves hinted that those govt assets managers are really not up to mark. Had the jobs been outsourced to Hong Kong, Singapore would be $17billions richer today.

With all the benefits derived from the outsourcing of ministrial jobs, Singaporeans then living in Swiss standard will definitely give PAP their 100% support!

sgsentinel SG

Originally posted by av98m:
Only the government can answer that question for sure. Something else you can interpret from their statements from years ago when the whole thing was brought up is, the current crop of ministers would not be interested in serving the country unless they were entitled to the inflated paychecks. One of the arguments was that without such high pay, you cannot attract talented people who would otherwise work in the private sector. So our ministers are really in it for the money and benefits. For the MPs, no problem lah, just sit and collect their MP's allowance([b]followed by lifetime pension after serving a minimum of 2 terms), and director's fees(for doing nothing other than making the company's board of director's list look good)[/b]

Now dun have pension because of CPF.

oldbreadstinks SG

we have to pay them that much to stop them form stealing??!?!?!? wtf!?!?!?
and who's to say they'll even be able to steal as much as their current salaries

its time to cut their pay, starting from lee hsien loong first!!!
people like them always come up with crap like "its a honnour and a duty to serve your country"
and they want to be paid that much because they "deserve" that much??

av98m SG

Originally posted by raihanraihan:

With all the benefits derived from the outsourcing of ministrial jobs, Singaporeans then living in Swiss standard will definitely give PAP their 100% support!

*clap* *clap* *clap*
Mr. Green

Too bad our local paper will refuse to publish that if you send it to them.

SilverPal SG

Ppl have said that I am anti govt, I'd like to tell everyone that I am only anti-idiot, not anti-govt. Its just a coincident that I seem anti-govt.

In keeping with the govt policies, I'd like to contribute some ideas for improving Singapore.

I think we should all support foreign talents. We should outsource all functions that takes our attention away from our core competency, making money.

Therefore we should outsource governance and defence to foreign talents! Hiring Gurkas is a step in the right direction! If we outsource the rest of our defence to Malaysia and Australia, many young men can be freed up to join the private sector.

We should also get foreign talents to take up top civil service positions like prime minister etc. After all, he high pay is meant to attract them right? Perhaps Clinton can be asked to run our country. He will be accept higher pay than if he was the President of the US, plus he would be able to contribute positively and concretely to the Romancing Singapore campaign. Of course we'll have to outsource our govt internship to PRC foreign talents too.

leilan84 SG

since the current policy of the govt is to cut cost and attract foreign talents,
why not have them at the ministeral level?
i'm sure they'll be paid less and doing a better job than the current govt that we have? Laughing
as the govt says, singaporean is "picky in jobs and are paid too high".... hmm....
wad about them? hiriing of foreign "talents" will definitely save cost for singapore at their level is definitely going to save cost... i wonder how many millions will be save each year or maybe even billions

it's a way of cutting cost... wad do you guys think of it?