ST – 3 Nov 2008,
pA4
Get
real, accept foreigners
By Kimberly
Spykerman
FOREIGNERS were the hot topic at a community dialogue session
chaired by Law Minister K. Shanmugam at the Queenstown Community
Centre yesterday together with five other Members of
Parliament.
At the dialogue, which drew a crowd of about 250, comprising
grassroots leaders, residents and students, Mr Shanmugam said
Singaporeans must have 'a certain broad-mindedness and spirit of
humanity' to welcome foreigners here.
This came as a response to a member of the audience who asked if
the Government was too focused on economic growth which may
compromise opportunities for locals here.
Such policies could only work to benefit Singaporeans, the
minister said, citing major banks and multinational corporations as
examples. 'As a major bank or corporation, you would want to put
the best man possible. If Singapore says that man must be a
Singaporean, what's going to happen? Either they won't come, or
they will limit their operations.'
Emphasising the importance of 'symbiosis', Mr Shanmugam, who was
on his first community walk-about outside his constituency since
becoming Law Minister in May, said that Singaporeans stood to gain
in terms of employment opportunities if these companies succeeded
in their operations here.
He also tackled the prickly issue of the foreign worker
dormitories in Serangoon Gardens, saying that Singaporeans needed
to 'get real, and get practical', for the sake of national
interest.
'Who builds our HDB flats? Who builds our roads? Can we even
have our basic infrastructure without foreign workers? Which
Singaporean wants to do it? Some jobs Singaporeans won't and can't
do,' he quipped.
Another grouse brought up by the audience was the perception
that local students were being denied places in the local
universities due to the influx of foreign students and were being
forced to go overseas instead.
Mr Shanmugam said the problem lies with the fact that
Singaporean students all want to study certain courses such as law
and medicine which have limited vacancies here.
Senior Minister of State for Education Lui Tuck Yew told the
audience: 'They are actually offered places and their results are
good enough, but it's not something they wish to pursue.'
When they do not get to study what they want to, they head
abroad to do it.
For example, Mr Shanmugam pointed to how local law schools offer
only 250 places but receive over 2,000 applications each year.
'We have plenty of places in engineering, but those who want to
do law, medicine, architecture or business don't want to do
engineering,' Mr Shanmugam said. 'So what happens? Our engineering
places are then offered to the foreigners.'
Other bread-and-butter issues such as the hike in electricity
tariffs and Electronic Road Pricing issues were also raised.
Mr Shanmugam said the ERP gantries were a 'necessary evil' and
also said that electricity tariffs will be re-looked in next year's
Budget
OK, I'm agreeable to what he said about companies hiring
foreigners for the most part. However, he really needs to just try
living and travelling like the average singaporean for a week to
experience for himself exactly what the situation is like. Its all
very well to talk about national interest when you're fully
isolated from the unwashed masses.
I'm not sure if tharman realised it but he just highlighted the
reasons why singapore is losing good people.
Its like....WTF should I decide to be an engineer just because I
can't get into the course of my choice? If I can't do what I want
with my life here I jolly well do it overseas. Who is the
government to decide what I want to do with my life?
National interest my ass.
