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This article was originally written for The Online Citizen

How will raising the foreign worker levy improve the lot of locals who are faced with stagnant wages and rising costs?

By Ng E-Jay

The Economic Strategies Committee (ESC) has suggested raising the foreign worker levy to discourage businesses from importing too many low-skilled foreign workers and motivate them to invest more in productivity.

Speaking to the Straits Times a day after the ESC had released its recommendations for overhauling the Singapore economy, Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong said that companies that cannot raise productivity might have to go out of business or leave Singapore, and that the rate of import of foreign workers has to be moderated in light of “social constraints”. [1]

However, it is not clear how raising the foreign worker levy, which is a blunt instrument that merely increases business costs for companies hiring foreign workers, would help very much in achieving the intended objective of raising productivity or of raising the overall standard of living of our workforce.

Some economic analysts seem to have accepted the notion that penalizing companies for hiring foreign workers would magically make them think about investing in new technologies or improving the efficiency of their business operations.

This could be unrealistic in many situations, for example, in the case of a construction company that is already operating on a tight schedule, or in the case of a wholesaler that is constrained more by cost factors rather than lack of technological investment. For such companies, merely increasing their cost of hiring foreign workers would only hurt their bottom lines, but would do nothing to spur higher productivity.

A higher foreign worker levy may also not be effective in making businesses look upon local workers more favourably. Businesses do not have to make CPF contributions on behalf of foreign workers. Hence, even with an increased foreign worker levy, they may still find it cheaper to employ unskilled foreigners who are prepared to accept very low wages because they don’t have to finance an expensive mortgage or raise their families in high-cost Singapore.

Certainly, merely increasing the foreign worker levy will not in itself do anything to raise overall wages and improve living standards if Government policies still favour foreigners over locals.

Ultimately, the decision to hire or fire is also influenced by many other factors such as overall business costs which include rental and cost of raw materials, as well as the ability to compete effectively in our small domestic market. For instance, small businesses who feel crowded out by the growing entrenchment of Government-Linked Corporations would not be able to expand their workforce to include more locals because they would be more worried about operating as a going concern.

The Government has to make fundamental changes to its policies, such as controlling the overall rate of import of foreign workers from the top down, fine-tuning the criteria for awarding various employment passes, and paying more attention to attracting quality foreigners rather than indiscriminately importing unskilled foreigners.

To make the domestic economy more competitive, the Government also has to keep a lid on escalating costs which are hurting small and medium enterprises. It also has to reduce the entrenchment of Government-Linked Corporations in the economy, which might be an unpalatable move to the establishment, but necessary if we are to revitalize our economy.

Despite the Manpower Minister denying that the increase in foreign worker levy is politically motivated, it is hard to deny that the Government is pulling out all stops in assuring Singaporeans that their interests are being taken care of.

However in this case, raising the foreign worker levy is a blunt move that is will likely only penalize businesses that hire foreign workers but will not improve the lot of low income Singapore workers whose wages have remained stagnant for the past decade.

Written by Ng E-Jay
04 Feb 2010

Mr Ling Tuck Mun’s ST forum letter “Imagining a Singapore without the PAP” (03 Feb) is a classic example of using vague, unrealistic, hypothetical scenarios to plant in readers’ minds the notion that it is unimaginable for Singapore to function without the PAP.

His exercise of building sandcastles in the air starts with asking the reader to imagine that the PAP distributed all the reserves to Singaporeans, making them millionaires overnight, and then stepped down from power to make way for a new party to take over the governing of Singapore.

Mr Ling then stated that he doubts if any Singaporean would still feel confident of the worth of having a million dollars without the PAP at the helm controlling the CPF, import of foreign workers, our defence, housing, and so on.

First of the bat, who is Mr Ling trying to fool with his atrocious mathematics? Distributing our reserves of $400 billion to a population of 4 million Singaporeans (excluding PRs) would only yield $100,000 per person, hardly making everyone a “millionaire”.

Mr Ling’s excursion into fantasy land to justify his support for the ruling party would have made hilarious bed time reading were it not indicative of very deep faults in the Singapore system.

The reason why Mr Ling doubts if anyone can realistically imagine Singapore without the PAP is because over the decades, the PAP has systematically hollowed out civil space and political discourse, entrenched itself in all aspects of society, and either co-opted or eradicated individuals or groups that did not conform to its ideology.

Over time, as the PAP monopolized all forms of political and civic discourse and established a complete hegemony in the Singapore psyche, it became almost impossible to contemplate life without the PAP — exactly what Mr Ling is experiencing.

This quote from the book “Paths Not Taken” by Michael Barr and Carl Trocki sums up the situation:

… … by the end of the 1960s, pluralism was fighting a rearguard action against the monopolisation of all public discourse – not just politics – by the state. The PAP had won the 1959 elections as a radical socialist party with strong left-wing backing. Once in government, however, the right wing of the party under Lee Kuan Yew embarked on a more conservative and authoritarian course.

In 1963 the Singapore government arrested most of the leading leftists in a security operation called Operation Cold Store, and then systematically began to dismantle and marginalise all forms of civil society in the country – from the labour and student unions to the clan associations and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

By the beginning of the 1970s, it was clear that all paths were closed except for the one being built by the ruling party. This path of elitism, meritocracy, ethnic essentialism, state-directed industrialisation, and – a radical departure from reigning political orthodoxy among post-war nationalist movements – integration with global capitalism.

By the mid 1970s, the ruling party’s hegemony was so complete and its rule so successful – at least by its own measures – that it had become difficult to conceive of the earlier alternatives having ever had merit. Public discourse now contemplated with horror the possibility that the nation-building project could have had form other that which emerged. Alternatives were seen as options for failure, if not chaos and anarchy.

Yet the studies presented here suggest that was not necessarily true. Alternative outcomes to the current state of affairs used to be well within the imagination of Singaporeans, and some of these alternatives may have have even contained viable seeds for a different kind of social development than that which Singapore experienced.

The present did not just happen. It was crafted.

It used to be within the imagination of Singaporeans to contemplate and indeed to chart a course different from the one the PAP has designed.

It should not be impossible even today, because people are meant to be free, not permanently bound by the dictates of an authoritarian regime.

Those who, like Mr Ling, accept the status quo as permanent, will not be at the vanguard of change which is inevitable as Singaporeans mature socially and politically.

To accept the notion that it has to be the PAP managing our CPF pension scheme, our foreign talent policies, and our housing policies is to accept the idea that regardless of how flawed those policies currently are, we have to continue accepting the status quo and that no one else can manage them better than the PAP.

I find such a notion belittling to Singaporeans as a whole because surely in a population of 4 million citizens, it cannot be just a handful of PAP cabinet ministers and slightly over 80 PAP MPs who are knowledgeable or qualified enough to implement policies that will benefit Singaporeans over the long run.

I also find such a notion belittling to Singapore as a nation because the PAP is not Singapore and Singapore is much more than the PAP.

To Mr Ling who challenges us to imagine life without the PAP, I say: Why Not?

EDITOR’S NOTE: This post originally appeared on Chia Ti Lik’s personal blog.

A mutual activist friend of ours had earlier shared with both of us some very pertinent points about the supposed relationship between having good paper qualifications and being a good political candidate.

Ti Lik’s post is reproduced in full here as it cuts straight to the chase.

Also appended below this post is a Straits Times Forum letter I wrote concerning the same topic which was published on Saturday in the print edition.

By Chia Ti Lik
02 Feb 2010

A very learned friend was a participant in an IRC discussion.

The IRC discussion was about the local political scene purportedly mandating paper qualifications for credible candidature. I was told that a lot of good arguments were thrown up and they are in short summarized hereinbelow.

I have reproduced these with the kind permission of the author, which until he tells me that he does not mind being named, i shall not name him :)

1. Having paper qualifications has little to do with integrity.
2. Political education and savviness is not usually formally taught.
3. Not having paper qualifications does not mean a person does not have an education, i.e., he can be self taught.
4. There is also the question of who should decide what the formal criteria for the eligibility of candidates ought to be.
5. The requirement of paper qualifications for candidates reserves the right to rule to the upper classes, which will entrench themselves and is therefore undemocratic.
6. Politicians, even ministers, always have a team of specialists which they can consult. It’s more important to look at the qualifications of that team.
7. In a system where money has incredible corrupting influence, politicians must above all have backbone, not simply paper qualifications.
8. The quality of candidates should be judged by the people, not by some institution (schools).
9. Candidates with paper qualifications is a bonus, but if they are one with the citizenry, they will be elected anyway, and hence no requirements for paper qualifications are necessary.
10. Having an educated electorate is the priority, not highly educated candidates per se. This leads to a more sustainable political system.
11. Putting point 4 and 9 together, mandating paper qualifications creates an aristocracy/dictatorship that will dumb down the public to maintain their grip on power. This is unsustainable.

In a short 11 points, the entire rubbish of elitism woven by the ruling party gets torn to shreds :)

I was taken aback speechless. And I now share this with you.

Ex-scholarship holder in opposition? No big deal

I REFER to the report on a former government scholarship holder joining an opposition party (’Ex-Admin Service officer joins Reform’, Jan 20).

While some have hailed this as a significant plus for the opposition, I view it as a non-event.

First, many talented graduates have joined the ranks of the opposition in recent years, but many of them have opted to keep out of the spotlight, preferring to build a credible profile first. For example, Workers’ Party secretary-general and Member of Parliament for Hougang, Mr Low Thia Khiang, mentioned recently that his party has been recruiting new members, many of whom are probably academically well qualified.

Second, I agree with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s assessment that we should not judge political candidates based on their paper credentials, but on what they can do for society. Using Mr Lee’s yardstick, I judge many opposition candidates favourably as they provide an alternative voice for the people, regardless of their qualifications. In fact, good grades are irrelevant to being a good politician, as the work of serving the community requires the heart more than the head.

It is time we look past superficial measures of success like academic credentials, and pay more attention to an individual’s track record at work and in community service, which are more accurate indicators of his calibre.

Ng E-Jay

By Dr Wong Wee Nam
01 Feb 2010

Mr Mah Bow Tan, the Minster for National Development, certainly confuses me. All along I thought a general election is the time when the country and its people take stock of the past and signal what they want of the future. It is also the time when the voters of a constituency assess the candidates offered to them and give their verdict. If there is an incumbent, it is also a report card on their past performance.

It is, therefore, very strange that Mr Mah should come out and declare that a general election is “not about me, an individual minister or an individual MP. It’s really about the residents themselves …”

Where in the world has an election been about the residents and not the candidates?

I believe this slip from the Minster of National Development is the result of undue pressure since it has been reported that his constituency is the target of a few opposition parties, including the National Solidarity Party, the Worker’s Party, the Singapore Democratic Party and the Reform Party. With such huge interest in Tampines, Mr Mah cannot be faulted if he should suddenly feel vulnerable.

However, whatever he says about elections being about residents themselves, the National Development Minister will be judged for his work as a Member of Parliament and a Minister. The Minister Mentor understands this. That is why he said, “If Mr Mah is unable to defend himself, he deserves to lose.”

So a General Election is not about the residents. It is about the candidates. Mr. Mah should know this. When he contested his first General Election in Potong Pasir, his excellent Senior Cambridge examinations results were compared to that of Mr Chiam See Tong’s relatively mediocre results. This was to try and show he was the more qualified candidate.

Similarly, in a recent Singapore Perspective Forum, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong also touched on the importance of judging a candidate in a General Election. Referring to the trend of scholars joining the opposition parties, he said that “we hope Singaporeans will judge individuals like that as rigorously as they would judge individuals who join the PAP side.”

“Let’s look at the person, not what degrees he has, but what he is able to do for Singapore.”

All said, a General Election is about the candidate and not about the residents themselves.

Thus, in the coming General Election, the voters of Tampines will judge Mr. Mah for what he has done for them as a Member of Parliament. It is also natural that the opposing candidates will also want the voters to give their verdict on what he has done as the Minister for National Development.

When the Housing and Development Board was formed in 1960, its task was to tackle the acute housing shortage problem in Singapore as well as to get rid of its slums. It was meant to provide affordable housing to the citizens. It has done so admirably until recently when prices of HDB flats sky-rocketed.

The Minister should know that if ever the prices of property go beyond the reach of the average worker and the asset inflation pushes up the costs of living for the low income group, there will be unwanted social consequences. An underclass will be formed and the poor, the destitute and the very low income groups will be slowly pushed out of the mainstream of social and economic life. As we have no countryside where the poor and destitute can go to, this underclass will have to form slums to manage their lives of despair.

At the moment, the prices of flats are slowly going beyond the reach of many young Singaporeans. This is not because these Singaporean have become lazy and not competitive. In truth, most workers still work beyond their normal office hours. Many do make frequent trips abroad, separated from their loved ones, to earn their keep. Some even stay overseas for a lengthy posting when their duty demands. Our students are still scoring the As in examinations and many are still sacrificing their youthful adult lives doing night courses to better themselves.

The reason why houses are slowly going beyond the reach of young working Singaporeans is that the wages they are getting are not keeping up with the escalating price of housing.

When property prices are high and our workers are paid reasonably, they can still manage to pay their mortgages and own a home. However when the prices of flats are high, pushed up by the demands of a sudden increase in population, and the workers’ wages are depressed because of the great influx of cheaper foreign labour, the dreams of the young in wanting to own a home must be shattered.

30 years ago, the moment a young person comes out to work; he can confidently start looking for a flat even on one income and a loan for fifteen years. Nowadays, a young couple would need a dual income and a loan of thirty years and a very tight belt to just barely make it.

The PAP government has always used asset-enhancement as a way of making Singaporeans feel rich. Since 80% of Singaporeans live in HDB flats, enhancing the price of HDB flats serves this policy. However, this only makes Singaporeans rich on paper and poor in cash, a situation they have to pay for because high property prices also make life more expensive for everyone.

No, Singaporeans have not yet become lazy. However, they will, when the prices of flats go beyond their reach. What’s the point of hard work if your dream is beyond your reach? Why care about family, friends and community when it is better to grab everything when you can? Why bother to help the poor? Better to use the time and effort to make your buck as soon as you can.

There is a real problem. If this problem is not solved, the next generation of Singaporeans and their children are the people who are going to suffer for it.

The opposition is, therefore, right in wanting to Mr. Mah, as Minister of National Development, to defend his policy in the coming General Election. If he cannot defend his position in a constituency that he has nursed for 22 years and whose residents have already bought flats at an affordable rate long time ago, then his opponents deserve to be congratulated.

Written by Ng E-Jay
01 February 2010

After National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan came to know of opposition parties wishing to contest Tampines GRC with the aim of raising the issue of escalating HDB flat prices, he tried to pour cold water on the opposition, saying they should focus on how they can best serve the people rather than making him the focus of their campaign.

In his own words as quoted by the Sunday Times: “A General Election is not about me, an individual minister or an individual MP. It’s really about the residents themselves … … I offer myself up for election because I believe that I can do the best and the most for them. But ultimately it’s for the residents, the people to decide.”

According to the same article, while the minister acknowledged some people may be adversely affected by the housing policies, he pointed out: “There’s no question that our policies are designed for the good of the people.” (ST, “Mah blasts opposition’s GE strategy” 31 Jan 2010.)

Firstly, how can Mr Mah claim that the Government’s housing policies are designed for the good of the people when he has admitted that some have been adversely affected by them? What kind of logic and accountability is he displaying?

Secondly, Mr Mah Bow Tan appears to have missed the point altogether. The opposition has never made him personally the focus of its campaign, but the Government’s housing policies which he directly oversees, which have driven Singapore citizens almost to the point of despair and desperation.

NSP’s Secretary General Goh Meng Seng clarified in a Channel News Asia article that the party intends to contest the General Election in Tampines over Mr Mah’s policy decisions and not over personalities.

It is unthinkable how Mr Mah could have missed the point so completely. Is this the same wool he pulled over his own eyes when he failed to forecast demand for public housing and indirectly allowed prices to skyrocket way beyond demographic and economic fundamentals?

When asked about Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s remarks made earlier last week that Mr Mah deserved to lose if he could not defend his housing policies, the latter replied: “That’s MM speaking, very frank and very blunt … … But it’s a fact. If I’m not able to prove or convince a majority of my residents that I am able to do a better job than the opposition, then I will not be their MP. It’s as simple as that.”

Mr Goh Meng Seng also positioned the NSP likewise: “It’s up to us to convince constituents that Mr Mah’s decisions are not good … … If we fail to do that, we deserve to lose. Nobody owes us anything.”

As Mr Goh further elaborated to Sgpolitics.net, it would be good for politics in Singapore to be conducted based on informed choice drawn from open and thorough debate. This will result in greater accountability.

I agree with this sentiment. Currently, it is PAP’s monopoly on political discourse in the mainstream media that leaves a huge void and results in complacency and lack of accountability on the part of ministers. The flaws in PAP’s policies are not given a free and fair airing in the public arena. Faults are allowed to fester and misguided policy actions accumulate over time, resulting in an avalanche that buries the masses. This is precisely what has happened to our housing policies which have buried many existing home owners in a pile of lifelong debt.

I urge opposition parties to unite on this matter and conduct a vigorous campaign to put political pressure on the PAP to take urgent and drastic measures to correct the housing malaise that has infected Singapore.

Written by Ng E-Jay
31 January 2010

A Sunday Times article “Affordable flats still available” (31 Jan 2010) stated that there are still “gems” to be discovered in some housing estates, with 4-roomers in the suburbs like Jurong or Woodlands going as low as $300,000.

$300,000? Is that considered affordable?

According to the latest Monthly Digest of Statistics (Dec 2009) published by Statistics Singapore, the average monthly nominal earnings for CPF members was $3,500 in Q3 2009.

Assuming a combined monthly gross household income of $7,000, it would take a married couple at least 20 years to pay off their mortgage for a $300,000 flat, and they would have paid around $85,000 in interest over the duration of their housing loan, assuming a very conservative 2.5 percent interest rate.

Needless to say, a 20 year mortage is not a good recipe for retirement planning. What are this couple going to live on after they have fully paid off their home?

What about those individuals earning below the average nominal wage of $3,500 per month? Even with the cheapest flats in towns, which are in reality anything but affordable except to the upper middle class, low wages earners would most likely have to straddle themselves with 30 year mortgages and spend their entire working lives working to pay for their home.

Can you really blame home buyers for being disgruntled when resale flat prices have risen 40 percent from 2007 to 2009, especially when average nominal wages have remained stagnant over the same time interval? This means affordability of flats has fallen sharply for the average Singaporean in the last couple of years.

We pay Mr Mah Bow Tan, Minister for National Development, a multi-million dollar salary, yet he has been asleep at the switch, having allowed supply to fall far short of demand, resulting in escalating prices.

We have seen housing prices rise even in recessionary times. And if a 40 percent rise in 2 years is not a sign of rampant speculation, what is?

An asset appreciation scheme to “unlock” the value of home ownership, as the PAP puts it, is a bona-fide scheme that allows property prices to evolve as the economy grows only if prices stay more or less in line with demographic and economic fundamentals.

But fundamentals have been thrown out of the window in recent years. Instead, market manipulation and price fixing has become the order of the day.

The Singapore market is so small that it is extremely easy for it to become cornered by speculators. Once this takes root, a bubble becomes almost inevitable. It is insane for the Government to allow such a thing to occur by refusing to properly regulate the market.

The asset appreciation policy devised by the PAP has thus degenerated into a farcical scheme that amounts to nothing more than a pyramid game with speculators hoping to buy high and sell even higher, regardless of underlying fundamentals.

The PAP Government started off providing truly affordable housing to citizens, but in the past twenty years this has been abandoned in favour of quick gains and a clear desire to milk the Singapore demographic for what it is worth, never mind the long term future.

Hopefully it would not take the electorate another 20 years to realize what is happening to their own basic livelihood.

Written by Ng E-Jay
28 January 2010

I have never in my life seen a politician call voters STUPID for not accepting his party’s policies, and then ask them not to cast protest votes against his party, all in the same breath.

Yet this was precisely what Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew did at a conference on Wednesday commemorating the Housing Board’s (HDB) 50th anniversary.

According to a Straits Times report “Don’t cast protest vote” (28 Jan 2010), MM Lee said Singaporeans ought to understand that the Government sells them HDB flats at a subsidised price, below market rate, so that they can own an asset that will appreciate in value over the years.

He also said voters must be “daft” if they found fault with the Government’s housing policies, and cautioned Singaporeans not to cast a protest vote against the ruling party over this.

Mr Lee’s remarks were in response to a question by dialogue moderator Tommy Koh, who pulled out a Straits Times report which said that at least three opposition parties are keen to contest Tampines GRC that Mr Mah Bow Tan (National Development Minister) helms, as they want to raise the affordability of public housing as an election issue.

True to his form, Mr Lee sought once again to strike fear in voters’ hearts by saying that their flats would no longer be of any value should Mr Mah lose to the opposition.

A politician who operates in a system of free and fair elections, and who understands that he will retain power only if voters cast their approval at the ballot box will never, in desperation, call the electorate daft if they did not agree with him or his party, nor use illogical statements to instill fear in the minds of voters.

Only a politician who knows the system is rigged, or carefully engineered (in Mr Lee’s own words) to guarantee electoral success for the incumbent, and who regards the electorate not as his masters but as his servants, will do what Mr Lee did.

Even if our housing policies are sound (and they are most assuredly not), no leader from a Government that dares to call itself democratic before an international audience should cast such aspersions at its own constituents who disagree with its policies, as that goes against every grain of the social compact between an elected Government and its people.

Why should Mr Lee be so worried about people casting protest votes against the PAP, if our housing policies truly benefit the people and have kept home prices affordable to most Singaporeans?

The answer is that the Government has allowed asset appreciation to spiral out of control, such that young couples and Singaporeans starting their first home find themselves increasingly priced out of the market.

How can Singaporeans have a decent retirement if they use up all their CPF purchasing an expensive home?

How can our citizens have a decent quality of life if all their savings are tied up in property?

The truth of the matter is that the Government has provided only a market subsidy in which first time home buyers are given a discount to the prevailing market rate, and not a cost subsidy in which first time home buyers can purchase flats at a price pegged to their cost of construction.

When the general prices of property, including private property, rises sharply, that increases the total cost passed on to first time home buyers, and the market subsidy becomes of little assistance.

The HDB has also done a very poor job of forecasting demand, and has not built enough flats to meet new demand. This has caused HDB flat prices to increase even in recessionary times. Ever increasing cash-over-valuation amounts are a symptom of this malaise.

The PAP’s argument that its asset appreciation policy allows Singaporeans to unlock the value of their homes is also flawed.

Early home buyers from the 1970s and 1980s will certainly benefit from this scheme, as the PAP at that time provided truly affordable housing.

But just as the fast economic growth of the early years of independence cannot possibly be repeated again, so there is also a very real limit to the PAP’s asset appreciation scheme that seeks to allow home prices to evolve according to economic growth.

Once home prices have been allowed to rapidly adjust upwards, or “unlocked” (borrowing PAP’s terminology), their full value has been built in, and simple mathematics dictates that further appreciation can only take place at a very slow rate.

This conclusion is supported by the fact that Singapore’s economy can only grow at a very tempered rate from now on, as Singapore has reached developed nation status and has had all the “emerging market growth potential” milked out of the economy in the past two decades.

Therefore, the asset appreciation policy will no longer give future generations of Singaporeans financial security, but will instead saddle them with a lifetime of debt.

When the pocketbooks of Singaporeans have been hurt, they will rise to vote against the PAP, daft or not daft.

If the PAP’s policies don’t change, one day they may wake up to find ballot boxes stuffed full of votes from citizens indicating that they would no longer tolerate having their dignity and quality of life trampled on so brazenly.

Written by Ng E-Jay
26 January 2010

Has there been a dramatic U-turn in the PAP’s economic and population policies? Despite recent statements by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on the need to raise productivity and temper the rate of import of foreigners, I remain unconvinced till I see actual results.

On Monday, Mr Lee told the audience at the Singapore Perspectives 2010 Forum organized by the Institute of Policy Studies that Singapore has to adopt a revised economic strategy focused more on improving productivity than pursuing growth at all costs.

This blog, Sgpolitics.net, has repeatedly used the phrase “growth at all cost” numerous times over the past year to describe the flawed economic and population policies of the PAP that will end in disaster should they be allowed to go on unchecked.

Mr Lee said that land constraints prohibit indefinite expansion of the workforce by importing more and more foreigners, and in his own words as quoted by the Straits Times: “We have to extract maximum value from the resources that we have; every piece of land must be put to optimum use, activities which are no longer competitive or productive have to be gradually phased out.”

He also said that both local and foreign workers “have to be be upgraded“.

Mr Lee’s latest statements are at odds with what the PAP has been doing for the past decade — aggressively and indiscriminately importing foreigners and shoring up our population base as well as GDP figures by mere quantitative expansion.

Has Mr Lee and the PAP finally realized that such a strategy simply cannot be sustained, and is already wrecking havoc on lower income Singaporeans who find it increasingly difficult to survive in an economic landscape flooded with cheap labour and unscrupulous employers not above hiding in the shadows of the PAP and using loopholes in the rules to exploit both domestic and foreign workers?

Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong also spoke on the same topic the previous day, saying that Singapore’s workforce needs to raise productivity and improve capabilities, and that if the local workforce was more productive, then the country could be less reliant on foreign workers.

Mr Goh has it backwards. The local workforce is already working hard to survive in the challenging job market and economic environment. It is the Government’s flawed policy of uncontrolled population expansion and import of untalented foreigners that have depressed our productivity levels.

Given that many of our Government-linked Corporations as well as MNCs operating here are highly dependent on a constant supply of cheap labour, both local and foreign, to maintain their bottom lines, it remains to be seen whether the PAP Government will walk its talk and address the deep flaws in its economic and population policies.

What we require is not simply a more controlled rate of import of foreigners, but much stricter controls as to what kinds of foreigners we import into the country.

We need talented foreigners who can bring in skills and expertise that we don’t have, not unskilled and untalented foreigners who offer us no advantage but who merely displace born and bred Singaporeans from the job market because they can accept very cheap wages as a result of not having been saddled with an expensive HDB mortgage nor burdened with National Service requirements.

To avoid both local and foreign workers being exploited by companies, we need a minimum wage system as well as strong and independent labour unions that genuinely champion workers’ rights, not a tripartite alliance composed of mere PAP surrogates.

Above all, we need to import foreigners who show a genuine commitment to adapting to the local culture, not foreigners who merely bring in bad social manners and who are only prepared to use Singapore as a stepping stone before venturing to greener pastures.

We need qualified foreign professions, teachers, bankers and innovators who can raise service standards and spur entrepreneurship, not foreigners who hijack SBS buses, scream at the top of their lungs at the MOE building when their children do not get into the primary school of their choice, or insist on speaking Mandarin to customers at BreakTalk when ours is a multi-lingual society with English as the official working language.

What we need are foreigners who, through entrepreneurship or hard work, allow businesses to create higher value jobs for all, not foreigners who merely take away jobs that could have been filled by Singaporeans.

The strain on the fabric of Singapore’s society brought about by flawed PAP policies over the past decade has indeed been felt by the electorate, and that is probably why the PAP is rushing to assure Singaporeans that the rate of import of foreigners will be controlled and more priority given to Singaporeans in areas such as education.

However the announcements and changes made thus far have been cosmetic.

The Singapore electorate can do its part by compelling the ruling clique to make substantial changes to its current policies by making it clear that it is prepared to use the ballot box to bring about the much needed change that Singapore needs.

If voters remain complacent, the PAP will in all likelihood continue down the current sorry path, and that will be disastrous for our long term social harmony and even national security. We would lose much more than a home. We would destroy a nation.

Grow productivity, not just GDP: PM

Source: Straits Times, 26 January 2010

By Jeremy Au Yong, Political Correspondent

SINGAPORE is to adopt a new economic growth strategy focused more on improving productivity than pursuing growth at all costs.

The reason boils down to the country’s land and labour constraints, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday.

‘Our total land area is finite, and very little of it is lying fallow,’ he told a conference examining the challenges facing Singapore.

‘Our own population is growing slowly, and we cannot indefinitely expand our workforce by importing more and more workers from abroad.’

Mr Lee said Singapore would have to adjust its growth strategy and find new ways to continue to do well.

And, with that change, it has to shift to growing qualitatively not just by expansion, but by upgrading.

He said: ‘We have to extract maximum value from the resources that we have; every piece of land must be put to optimum use, activities which are no longer competitive or productive have to be gradually phased out.’

Similarly, he said, workers, both local and foreign, need to be upgraded.

His call for higher productivity came a day after Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong spoke on the same topic – a clear sign that raising productivity is high on the Government’s priority list this year.

The Economic Strategies Committee report, due for release next Monday, is expected to focus on it.

The Budget statement, on Feb22, will respond to the committee’s recommendations.

The general target outlined by both Mr Lee and Mr Goh is to double productivity growth to 2 per cent to 3 per cent a year, from the present 1 per cent.

Productivity growth is usually considered critical to improving living standards. It means getting more value from each worker, resulting in more income being available to be distributed.

Such a change will take a major effort, said Mr Lee. ‘But we have to do it so that progressively and inexorably, our economy will be transformed.

‘Then, even if our total gross domestic product grows more slowly, our workers can become more productive and our income per capita can continue to rise.’

Previously, Mr Lee has warned that Singapore would not go back to pre-crisis growth levels. Yesterday, he said the average annual growth of 5 per cent enjoyed in the past decade would be difficult to sustain.

This was due to how much Singapore had progressed, and the push for higher productivity would result in slower expansion of the workforce.

‘We must acknowledge that we are now more developed economically than we were 10 or 15 years ago, and we can no longer grow as rapidly as before,’ he said.

‘There will be good years when we should go faster. There will be other years which are tough, where we will do more poorly, but overall, if you take it over the next decade, I think 5 per cent will be a stretch,’ he told about 900 people from academia, business, civil society and government sectors who attended the conference.

Called Singapore Perspectives 2010, it was organised by the Institute of Policy Studies.

Mr Lee also disclosed that the Trade and Industry Ministry is studying what a realistic long-term growth target would be.

He was careful to stress that the push for productivity did not mean just working harder.

Businesses needed to innovate relentlessly and be bold in seeking opportunities overseas, he said.

Workers, on the other hand, had to be psychologically prepared to upgrade their skills over and over again throughout their working lives.

jeremyau@sph.com.sg

Work smarter, harder to sustain growth: SM

Source: Straits Times, 25 Jan 2010

SINGAPOREANS have to work smarter and harder, and pick up new skills to keep the economy growing over the next decade, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong said yesterday.

Given the Government’s move to moderate the influx of foreign workers, the rate at which productivity is increased will have to double if economic growth is to hit 3 per cent to 4 per cent a year, he explained.

Raising productivity is one area that the Economic Strategies Committee (ESC) will address in its recommendations on Feb 1, he said.

The Government forecasts economic growth of 3 per cent to 5 per cent this year and on Saturday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong tempered expectations of an overly strong economic recovery.

Speaking on the sidelines of a community event yesterday, Mr Goh noted that average annual economic growth was 5 per cent over the past 10 years. But productivity rose just 1 per cent a year on average.

This good growth came from an expanding labour force, of which foreigners constituted a large part. But reducing reliance on foreign workers meant Singapore had to double its productivity growth to 2 per cent, he said.

He acknowledged this was not an easy task, but said it must be tackled:

‘If we can achieve 2 per cent growth in productivity, then with the slowdown in growth of the foreign workforce, we think we can grow by 3 per cent to 4 per cent a year. So we’ve got to be prepared for slower growth. This is a trade-off.

‘If you want to grow fast, it means a larger foreign workforce, which I don’t think is advisable because already, we have too huge a presence (of such workers) and we’re not emphasising productivity.’

Productivity gains could be made in all sectors, but the service industry was one area with room for improvement, he said. He noted how in Europe, service staff performed multiple tasks: ‘One person serves so many people. Here, we have so many people serving one customer. We are not fast enough.’

Asked if raising productivity would be at the expense of jobs, he said this was unlikely.

Singapore faced a shortage of workers but if the local workforce was more productive, then the country could be less reliant on foreign workers, he said.

But working smarter and harder was also not good enough.

He said workers had to build up their capabilities and learn a range of new skills to stay ahead. The ESC will also be looking at some other areas.

Mr Goh said his focus in the next 10 years would not just be on economic matters. He would try ‘to build a qualitatively different Singapore in terms of our lifestyle, graciousness’.

Citing a Jan 23 article by Straits Times columnist Neil Humphreys, in which he noted an incident where people turned a blind eye to helping a blind man, Mr Goh said this was an area in which Singaporeans could improve in their social graces.

He said: ‘If we can do that with a matured economy growing by 3 per cent to 4 per cent, then… Singapore can be a very fine place to be our home. That’s my own personal aim.’

Yesterday, he distributed hongbao and festive goodies to 42 needy residents in his constituency, and opened the upgraded Marine Terrace Hawker Centre and Market before visiting stallholders and meeting residents there.

zakirh@sph.com.sg

Written by Ng E-Jay
26 January 2010

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke at length at the Singapore Perspectives Forum on Monday from issues ranging from the elections to immigration, but if media reports are anything to go by, he and the PAP have completely lost their perspective on national issues.

Referring to recent mainstream media reports on ex-government scholars joining opposition parties, Mr Lee said that election candidates should not be judged by their academic abilities but by what they can do for Singapore. (CNA, “Candidates should be judged on what they can do for S’pore: PM Lee“, 25 Jan 2010.)

In Mr Lee’s own words as quoted by CNA: “I can tell you, we interview many scholars and each time we field a few of them. And we interview other people too and we often field people who are not scholars. It is good to see it in perspective.”

Reading between the lines, is PM Lee implying that scholars who join opposition parties are PAP-rejects?

First and foremost, academically well-qualified people including scholarship recipients joining the ranks of the opposition is nothing new, particularly in recent years. It is only due to the fact that the mainstream media has consistently blacked out news of academically qualified Singaporeans joining opposition parties that the public has come away with the impression that this is a brand new phenomenon.

Ex-scholars Tony Tan and his wife Hazel Poa joined the Worker’s Party several months ago but recently hopped over to the Reform Party. When alternative media like The Online Citizen highlighted this, the mainstream media had no choice but to play catch up.

Secondly, if we are to judge candidates by what they can do for Singapore, then certainly more opposition candidates should be voted in regardless of their academic credentials.

Without political plurality and adequate representation of true dissenting voices in Parliament, the PAP will always monopolize political discourse in Singapore and have the ability to bulldoze their policies through regardless of whether they are truly beneficial for Singaporeans. Opposition candidates are sorely needed in Parliament to balance Singaporeans’ interests against the self-interest of the ruling clique.

In his speech, Mr Lee suggested that academic qualifications are by no means a decisive indicator of whether a given candidate will be a good one.

While hardly anyone would disagree with this, Mr Lee’s statement is also highly ironic, because in the past, the PAP has always highlighted the paper qualifications of its candidates and used that to downplay opposition candidates whom they deride as uneducated individuals.

In fact, even though the current batch of PAP MPs are well qualified academically, many of them are nothing but yes men and women who do not truly serve the interests of Singaporeans but who serve merely to legitimize the executive decisions of the PAP cabinet.

I would go so far as to add that academic credentials are almost completely irrelevant to being a good politician as we have repeatedly seen individuals seemingly armed to the teeth with paper qualifications and scholarships turn out to be duds with poor character and a wrong value system.

Hence, just as we should not get excited over the complete non-event of a couple of ex-scholars joining opposition parties, we should also not be deceived by the facade of false intellectual superiority continually dished out by the PAP in its attempt at brainwashing the masses that it is the only game in town.

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Productivity and “Growth at all Costs”

Amazingly, when Mr Lee spoke about economic issues, he said that Singapore will henceforth adopt a new economic growth strategy focused more on improving productivity rather than pursuing growth at all costs. (ST, “Grow productivity, not just GDP: PM“, 26 Jan 2010.)

He said: “Our own population is growing slowly, and we cannot indefinitely expand our workforce by importing more and more workers from abroad.” He also said that Singapore has to shift to growing qualitatively not just by expansion, but by upgrading.

It is precisely the PAP’s “growth at all cost” model of economic management that has led Singapore down the path it is today, as I’ve repeatedly highlighted on this blog.

And it is precisely the PAP’s overly liberal foreign manpower policy and the utterly indiscriminate import of foreign workers with no special talents that have not only caused considerable hardship to lower income Singaporeans, but have also led to declining productivity over the past decade.

The PAP in recent years has shored up GDP and population growth simply by rapidly expanding the ranks of foreigners, with very little attention paid to whether they really bring in skills sets that Singaporeans lack, and with scant regard for the fact that this model of population and economic management is unsustainable, and if left unchecked, will result in a colossal bust somewhere down the road.

It remains to be seen whether PM Lee will walk the talk and do away with our growth at all cost strategy that benefits the wealthy and the elite but leaves heartlanders and working class citizens out of the economic equation.

After all, so many of our GLCs depend on the ability to exploit cheap labour, both local and foreign, to maintain their bottom lines.

The complete lack of accountability of the Government to the economic well-being of Singapore citizens is truly sobering.

And that brings us back full circle to why we need political plurality and why there is an urgent need to hasten the democratization of Singapore, led not by people armed just with glossy pieces of paper credentials, but by people with the right values and mindsets, who are willing to uphold the tenets of democracy at all times.