SINGAPORE: Leader of the House Mah Bow Tan has reminded MPs that they must maintain decorum and be responsible when making statements in Parliament. This is to keep public trust in Singapore’s parliamentary system, Mr Mah said before Parliament was adjourned on Friday. Without identifying the MP, Mr Mah, who is also the National Development Minister, said a member of the House had criticised the media based on unverified information.

Source: CNA

The member in question was MP for Tampines, Sin Boon Ann, who on Wednesday quoted an unsubstantiated e-mail he received, alleging the media was biased in its reporting of the AWARE saga. He had since apologised in Parliament.

Does Dr Thio Li-Ann have to apologise too?  After all, in her speech on ‘militant secularism’, she relied on seemingly unsubstantiated sources.  In a excerpt of her 27th May speech printed in the ST: 

The feedback I received from friends and strangers on the reporting of the Aware controversy was that much of the reporting, particularly in one paper, was biased. It largely lacked a diversity of views in singing the same chorus that religious groups should not get involved in secular organisations. Some spoke of their new lists of ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’ journalists.

Shouldn’t Mah take issue with Thio’s alleged “feedback from friends and strangers”?  I’m not trying to be anal.  I just think Mah is not being realistic.

Mr Tharman told Parliament that Temasek’s portfolio grew $56 billion from March 2003 to November 2008, even after taking its recent sharp decline into account, averaging a return of just over 15 per cent a year during that period.

The minister said Temasek’s $58 billion fall in value came after a ‘much greater gain’ of $114 billion over the preceding five years.

Source: The Straits Times

The sale of Bank of America shares which Temasek booked hugh and unknown losses occurred in May this year. If we include that loss, would the damage be more than S$58 billion? We still have no idea. Why is Tharman not getting this piece of critical data from Temasek for us, and instead chose to provide information for up to November 2008 only? We would have expected Tharman to do better, given that he is still clinging on to his ridiculously high salary, unless he is just trying to massage the figures to paint a better picture to defend his boss.

Increasing the number of Non-Constituency MPs to nine, and entrenching the NMP scheme, further undermines Parliament as a representative legislature elected by the people.

Source: The Online Citizen

We are not interested in this type of “managed” electoral process so that dissent voices could be “controlled”. We want to see a fair political system whereby alternative parties can complete on fair ground (ie get rid of the GRC scheme and stop shifting electoral boundaries) and minimal barrier to entry (eg., do away with the election deposit).

Until fundamental changes could be seen (eg no ISA, stop controlling the media), transparency and accountability of the Singapore government remain, in our view, very much in doubt. We will have no other options but to do what we will be doing when we go to the ballot box.

SINGAPORE: Opposition MP Low Thia Khiang had said on Monday that a more effective opposition presence can provide checks and balances on the ruling party. Mr Low had asked what recourse Singaporeans have if the ruling party were to abuse its power, trample on people’s rights and become corrupt. Indranee Rajah, Deputy Speaker and MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC, replied that the citizens of Singapore have the right to vote against the PAP, and said Mr Low’s suggestion is unsound. She said: “If that day ever comes, then the people are at liberty to vote out the PAP government and should do so in that situation.

Source: CNA

Indranee Rajah said, “The premise of Mr Low’s suggestion is flawed. He’s really saying just in case PAP becomes corrupt in the future, then people had better vote for the opposition now.  But if you apply the same logic, then the argument can also be made that if you vote in the opposition, then they may become corrupt in the future, so in order to avoid that, you might as well vote for PAP now.”

I think she is missing Low’s point.  Elections come every 5 years.  And so if a party abuses its power and builds ’structural corruption’ within its system, Singaporeans have to just bide their time and stand at the sidelines while national reserves get wasted and elites continue to enrich their own coffers.  Clearly, Low’s concern is legitimate and logical.  What is unsound is the PAP’s persistent use of democratic choice (amidst the re-drawing of electoral boundaries and the ungamely use of the GRC system) as a defence against the need for opposition politics.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have said they are seeing a huge impact on foreign workers due to the economic recession. Thus, despite more steps being taken to improve the working conditions of foreign workers, NGOs want to further strengthen activism for them. Three NGOs – Migrant Voices, Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2) and Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME) – have come together to form a coalition called the Solidarity for Migrant Workers, which taps on the expertise of the three foreign worker NGOs.

Source: CNA

Hopefully with this coalition, we will see less foreign workers protesting at the MOM building.  They deserve humane living conditions as well as workmen rights.  Similarly, we need solidarity for local workers.  While Singaporeans aren’t used to protesting and staging sit-ins, it doesn’t mean they suffer less during this economic recession or that their plight are looked after well.  After all, can they really count on our Members of Parliament and public servants?  As our leaders and ’servants’ continue to lose empathy, we need to rely more on ourselves and NGOs.

PUBLIC officers will be trained to develop greater empathy for issues that members of the public face in this recession.  The Public Service Division (PSD) is working with the Civil Service College to improve training in this aspect, said Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean.

Source:  The Straits Times

Public officers are ’strongly encouraged’ to seek views from those who will be affected by the policies, and senior officers are already attached to grassroots organisations to gain ground experience.   Strongly encouraged?  Shouldn’t it be mandatory?

SINGAPORE has lost its position as the world’s second most competitive economy to Hong Kong, falling to third place in the latest competitiveness rankings. The Republic was ranked second in 2007 and 2008. The United States remains tops, according to a world competitiveness report of 57 countries conducted by Swiss-based business school IMD. The economies are ranked according to how the nations and businesses are ‘managing the totality of their competencies to achieve greater prosperity’, said the IMD, which released the rankings on Wednesday.

Source:  The Straits Times

Among the Asean countries, Indonesia made a quantum leap, moving up nine places to 42nd, Malaysia went up a notch from 19th to 18th, and Thailand from 27th to 26th.   In East Asia, China fell three places to 20th. It did not perform very well in areas including international investment, business legislation, management practices, health and environment.   Taiwan also fell 10 place to 23rd place, from 13th a year ago, while South Korea moved up from 31st to 27th.

Too bad the reasons for our drop wasn’t reported, unlike what was done in the case for China.  That said, we can guess Singapore didn’t do well for international investment (Temask losses) and management practices (Temasek opagueness).

Californians are well known for periodic voter revolts, but on Tuesday they did more than just lash out at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature over the state’s fiscal debacle.  By rejecting five budget measures, Californians also brought into stark relief the fact that they, too, share blame for the political dysfunction that has brought California to the brink of insolvency.  Rightly or wrongly, voters in the special election refused either to extend new tax hikes or to cap state spending. They also declined to unlock funds that they had voted in better financial times to set aside for special purposes.

Source:  LA Times

LA Times reports:  Residents relish their role in the lawmaking process, but they share the blame for the state’s severe dysfunction.  A case of pushing democracy too far perhaps?  The other extreme is Singapore – due to the lack of opposition, lawmaking is monopolised by the ruling party.  And so in Singapore, residents (some of the 66.6% included, I’m sure) fret about their role in the lawmaking process, and they (the 66.6% ones) share the blame for the state’s severe dysfunction.

We help ourselves. Don’t expect others to help

Tom Wright painted a bleak picture of Singapore’s property sector going forward at The Wall Street Journal. His article ended with the following:
“I’m yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel [for Singapore],” says Mr. Tan, the high-end broker.
We would expect people to continue to dig the dirt and tell it to [...]



Our skin isn’t as thick as it should be

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) organised a seminar on March 4 to discuss Singapore’s political blogosphere.  Tan Tarn How, Senior Research Fellow and Research Assistant Tan Simin presented their paper on trends observed in the blogosphere.  As reported in the TOC, the researchers identified the following limitations:

The online-offline firewall, while somewhat alleviated by offline [...]



Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew – The answer to the African problem?

Recently, I followed a thread “Democracy and Economic Growth” which started in PoliticsForum.org.   Apparently, members there often question the role of democracy in a developing nation. “During the wave of democratization in Africa during the 90s, many people had renewed hope for the continent, immediately equating newly established democracies to economic growth. Are these democracies [...]



Tell Singapore government: Ask them a question or give a suggestion

We informed people about the “Tell Singapore Government” subsite and have received some interesting reaction at some forums.
See: 3in1 Kopitiam, Sam’s Alfresco Coffee, Singapore Kopitiam, SgForums
Our responses to some of the comments are listed below. If we are not answering some other specific questions, that is because we do not know how.
 

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I don’t know

Our Singapore

As seen by people

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• Purpose

To observe, analyse, present our position, and call for action. Read our articles, give your views, and learn together with us.