The Anti Neo-Democracy Theorist

Plight of Low Income Singaporeans. It always amazes me till today how so many of my friends and acquaintances claim that there is no poverty in Singapore; there’s housing for poor Singaporeans; and how creating more avenues of welfare will take Singapore down the road to a “lazy” country. While all these are off-the-top impressions, I wonder if the education system perpetuates that sort of myth in our efforts towards nation building.

I am glad there is still an institutionalized political system called the Meet the People Session, where MPs still are forced by precedence to meet lower income Singaporeans. Without MPS, I think Singapore will be worse off, with our representatives not seeing the true reality of Singapore and Singaporeans. That’s why I particularly appreciate Union MPs who interact a lot with blue collar workers; they can bring some of these important concerns into parliament.

Honestly, if you are a senior accountant working in a Big Four, living in Orchard Road, club in Clarke Quay during the weekends and shop at Isetan’s supermarket, how would you ever see the Singapore that many of us see? If you are a top engineer working in a MNC, living in Redhill, visit your friends downtown for dinners and partake air-conditioned food courts only, do we really care about the Singapore that we do not see? Do we make trips to Aljunied one room flats to talk to families living in them? Do we know that their corridors often lack adequate lightning? Do we know that their sons and daughters depend on ST pocketbook fund? Do we know that a loaf of bread to them means a lot for their sustenance? Do we know that the lack of two forms of GST could be potentially difficult for them?

What does it mean to be an “open and inclusive” society? Is it merely a slogan for the elites to debate the theoretical of democratic openness or for Members of parliaments to call for media freedom? Surely, it must also be an powerful rhetoric to bring Singaporeans, ill-suited for the relentless pace of competition and globalisation, together? Surely, it means empowering unions, civil society and social enterprises to provide governance where the state cannot provide? Whose governance? Whose voice? Whose party?

The Straits Times (Singapore)
January 28, 2007 Sunday

For homeless, it’s no job, no money, no choice;
Living on the streets is their only option as they have nowhere else to go; welfare homes try to help but some fall through the cracks

Nur Dianah Suhaimi & Melissa Sim

FOR driver Hashim Eusuff, home is a 14-foot lorry. After he knocks off each night, the 41-year-old parks in a quiet Marine Parade carpark and sleeps in his seat. Once the owner of a four-room Sengkang flat, Mr Hashim was evicted last November after defaulting on his home loan repayments.

He was unable to pay because he was retrenched. His 33-year-old Indonesian wife sleeps at her stepfather’s one-room flat with three other family members. Mr Hashim’s plight got an airing in Parliament last week, when Marine Parade GRC MP Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim brought up the issue of the homeless in Singapore and asked what the Housing Development Board (HDB) is doing to help.

This prompted Parliamentary Secretary Maliki Osman to remark that some people are ‘homeless by choice’ because there are other housing options open to them, including subsidised rental flats, open-market rental flats, or living with relatives.

This is evidently not the case for many.

Ang Mo Kio GRC MP Inderjit Singh said many residents are in negative equity and, as a result, the banks force a sale and the residents do not have excess cash to rent a flat. Of the six MPs who spoke to The Sunday Times, five said they had handled cases involving people who were either already homeless, or on the verge of being so.

They said those who are homeless are generally hit by the same few problems: no job, no relatives and negative equity. Banks say they try hard to help these customers by lengthening the loan period and deferring payments, and insist that eviction is only a last resort.

HDB also offers various financial assistance measures which include extension of the mortgage loan term, payment of a smaller mortgage instalment under the Reduced Repayment Scheme and deferment of mortgage payments.

For those who are eventually evicted, the other housing options suggested by Dr Maliki are sometimes not viable.

For example, Mr Hashim does not qualify for an HDB rental flat because his wife is a foreigner. He cannot rent anything on the open market because he does not have enough cash for the three-month downpayment. Living with his siblings is also not an option because his relationship with them is not good.

Tampines GRC MP Ong Kian Min, who has seen six homeless cases, said: ‘Surely people are not homeless by choice. People would rather have a roof over their heads.’

Even Dr Maliki’s third option of living with family is not always possible, either.

Of the five family service centres that spoke to The Sunday Times, three said they had seen cases where the homeless keep away from relatives because of misunderstandings, psychological abuse or shame. Jeny K, 45, will be evicted from her flat in just three days. At the moment she has no job and nowhere else to go.

She is single and unable to find another single to rent an HDB flat. Renting on the open market is too expensive for someone who has only $12 in her wallet. She is also adamant about not returning to her mother’s home because she says her mother has caused misunderstandings between her and her siblings, who are unwilling to take her in.

This week, she might find herself in a welfare home, but even there a place is not assured. Welfare homes accept only destitutes, who, as defined by the Destitute Persons Act, must be found begging or idle in a public place. There are 10 welfare homes run by the voluntary sector that provide care for about 1,700 destitute people in Singapore.

Said Ms Frances Lee, a senior social worker at Care Corner Family Service Centre (Toa Payoh): ‘There are some like Jeny who fall through the cracks and there is nowhere they can go. The last resort is to sleep in the void deck and get picked up as a destitute.’

Even for the most desperate cases, though, there is often hope. Mr Singh cited a case where one resident with two school-going children lost his job, stopped paying his mortgage payments and got evicted. The mother and children are staying with a friend while the father is still sleeping in void decks and parks.

Although he has already received two HDB subsidies, a meeting was called between HDB, Ang Mo Kio Family Service Centre and some grassroots leaders. The grassroots leaders will provide the deposit for a rental flat and HDB will expedite the process for an HDB rental flat application.

A HDB spokesman said it is prepared to help genuinely needy cases to rent or downgrade to a more affordable HDB flat.However, such appeals need to be carefully scrutinised to ensure that our limited housing subsidies are fairly distributed to those that need them most.

Mr Singh said: ‘All in all, not everyone ends up on the street. A handful do and in most cases that’s because they come to us for help at the very last moment or after they have lost their flat.’

‘There is nowhere they can go. The last resort is to sleep in the void deck and get picked up as a destitute.’ MS FRANCES LEE, senior social worker at Care Corner Family Service Centre (Toa Payoh)

Very commendable of the NTUC to be proactive in helping their workers in retraining. I noticed that NTUC under the helm of Halimah Yaacob has began to shore up to its core competency and rightful interests; that is to help the workers in Singapore prepare for the competition that globalization bring into Singapore. In another ST forum article today, NTUC has taken the lead to employ older workers in their co-operatives such as NTUC supermarkets.

Another excellent way to help the workers would be for NTUC to talk more with SMEs, to encourage not only their workers to be unionize with NTUC but also to provide them with the necessary information to employ older and retrenched workers. They have the potential to reach out to many of the SMEs, who may be more flexible and open to employing these retrenched workers.

On a slightly different note, it seems that a lot of debate on helping lower and middle income workers (LMW) seem to divert away from the topic of trade unions in Singapore, as if it is simply a contractual (elections) or tensional (through media and official talkshops) issue between the government and the LMW. Can we revisit the issues of giving more autonomy to the NTUC so as to create a more organic support system for the LMW? Can NTUC be still linked to the PAP or the government but yet foster a more competitive and active spirit to help workers? Should we follow the model of the Malaysian Trade Union Congress, where it links with the government have not prevented it from raising issues of minimum wages, privatization of government services that result in loss of jobs as well as issues of migrant workers?

I personally feel it shameful that our NTUC while trying to do so much for our workers in Singapore, have somewhat neglected the plight and problems faced by migrant workers. We as Singaporeans delegate our compassion for these people to VWOs, civil society such as Transient Workers Count Too, and Religious organizations. Can the NTUC be yet another pillar in supporting them? Why is our NTUC not doing much for them while the MTUC, a government-linked Union in Malaysia, can?

The Straits Times
January 27, 2007 Saturday

NTUC to sponsor training of workers; It will also tap other agencies to help improve workers’ skills

Ken Kwek

THE National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) is going to step in and sponsor the training of unionised workers in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Labour chief Lim Swee Say made the promise yesterday to these workers who are rarely sent for training because their employers either cannot afford it or cannot spare them as they have few employees.

‘The Workforce Development Agency (WDA) will allow the NTUC to function as if we are their employers…We can sponsor them for training,’ Mr Lim said at a press conference after his presentation on what he wants NTUC to achieve this year.

The workplan seminar was attended by about 500 unionists and employers.

This move to upgrade their skills will be done in concert with the WDA. Last November, the WDA announced that it would shift more funds towards ‘worker-based training’, so that employees could apply for courses without needing the backing of their bosses.

The labour movement will also step up its efforts to improve the skills of SME workers by working more closely with other agencies such as the Standards, Productivity and Innovation Board (Spring Singapore).

The government agency has been tasked, among other things, to help SMEs grow.

Besides the SME workers, NTUC has identified five other groups of workers that will also be given help so that they can be more secure in their jobs, work longer, and get better jobs and salaries.

They are low-wage workers; older workers; contract workers; workers at risk of being retrenched; and PMETs, or professionals, managers, executives and technicians.

For older workers, re-employment is the way to go. Mr Lim said labour leaders had studied employment practices in Japan, where 70 per cent of workers at retirement age of 60 and beyond are re-employed.

He called on companies in Singapore to learn from Japan, by restructuring their wage systems and promoting workers’ health so they are fit for re-employment.

More can also be done to improve on last year’s record. Said Mr Lim: ‘On the ground, some of our union leaders are frustrated that the pace of re-employment is still slow,’ he said.

Last year, 161 companies here re-employed 2,500 older workers, while this year the target is to get 300 more companies to re-employ 4,000 older workers.

Asked what level of re-employment Singapore should aim to achieve in five years’ time - the period in which Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong recently said he hoped to see ’significant progress’ - Mr Lim again looked to Japan for inspiration:

‘We hope that in the next five years, we should reach out to at least 70 per cent of the companies within the unionised sector.’

For low-wage workers, the NTUC wants, among other things, to get them on the Central Provident Fund scheme to boost their long-term savings.

‘We must find a way to at least top up their Medisave…so that they can take full advantage of the Workfare bonus,’ he said, referring to the income support scheme for low-wage workers.

The labour movement will also set up a Unit for Contract Workers and aims to retrain 1,000 of those at risk of retrenchment. It will also help PMETs claim jobs in such new growth areas as integrated resorts.

Mr Lim said a tripartite institute, called the Employment and Employability Institute, would be set up to provide infrastructure and information for the retraining and re-employment of workers.

4 Quotes of the Day

The government should not and cannot hold itself responsible for what the people see or read. Otherwise, Singaporeans risk losing the ability to think, evaluate and judge for themselves. The Mr Brown incident illustrates too clearly how new and old media could have engaged each other better. Having driven negative comments or untrue information about the government underground, into the labyrinth of virtual space, the government loses an opportunity to engage the propagators and dispel the erroneous statements.
-Baey Yam Keng, PAP MP (Nov 10 2006)

In conclusion, what I have talked about assumes that building democratic societies are universal goals. Is this true of Asian societies? There have been views expressed by some Asian leaders that Western democracy promotes individualism, which is inconsistent with collectivism and Confucian values. My view is that if democracy embodies citizen participation in public life and in determining the kind of society we have, there is enough scope within it to cater for Asian values. All politicians should face their electorates squarely and seek mandates which are truly democratic. To this extent, democracy has value for all societies.
-Sylvia Lim, WP Chairperson, NCMP (Aug 21 2006)

Gajah di-depan mata tak nampak, kuman di-seberang kelihatan
-Malay Proverb

You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.
-Abbie Hoffman

Accountability at work; a Reader asks, their MP’s reply

Straits Times
Jan 25, 2007
Bukit Panjang Town will get sports complex

WE REFER to the letter, ‘Will Bukit Panjang residents get a stadium?’ (ST, Jan 20), by Mr Ho Khin Peng.

A sports complex will certainly be built in Bukit Panjang Town. In addition to the original proposed site at Petir Road, we are evaluating the possibility of building an integrated sports complex at the Bukit Panjang N5 Park. A decision on the location will be made when the plans are finalised after consultation between the relevant agencies, grassroots leaders and residents of Bukit Panjang Town.

Although this consultation process may take a little longer, we hope that it will generate a better solution which benefits all residents of Bukit Panjang, including the divisions of Cashew and Zhenghua.

We thank Mr Ho for his letter.

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan
MP (Holland-Bukit Timah GRC)

Dr Teo Ho Pin
MP (Bukit Panjang)

Liang Eng Hwa
MP (Holland-Bukit Timah GRC)

Senator Jim Webb, in reply to President’s Bush State of the Union Speech, spoke on the rising inequality in the United States. I felt he was articulating clearly the reality of the “dualization” of not just America’s economy, but also Singapore’s one. (However, I am not convinced of protectionism as advocated by the Democrats) Will consensual politics in major “capitalist” states continue if the winners keep winning, and the losers do not find a social safety net?

Even the Economists has an article on this issue.

Excerpt from Senator Jim Webb of Virgina:

Economy

When one looks at the health of our economy, it’s almost as if we are living in two different countries.

Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits.

But these benefits are not being fairly shared.

When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it’s nearly 400 times.

In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.

Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world.

Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them.

In short, the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table.

Our workers know this, through painful experience.

Our white-collar professionals are beginning to understand it, as their jobs start disappearing also. And they expect, rightly, that in this age of globalisation, their government has a duty to insist that their concerns be dealt with fairly in the international marketplace.

Without WP Chairperson Sylvia Lim, will we (ever) know about these figures? Should these numerous figures raise alarm or delight? We had about 5.85% increase in population over the last five years ago from immigration alone. In the next five years, the govt is aiming for another 240,000/4 million = 6% increase in population.

The Straits Times (Singapore)
January 23, 2007 Tuesday
240,000 new PRs, citizens in next 5 years

SINGAPORE can expect to add about 200,000 permanent residents (PRs) and 40,000 citizens to its fold in the next five years, if it draws the same numbers as it did in the last five years.

This is part of the three- pronged approach to arrest a falling birth rate, along with encouraging more Singaporeans to have babies and keeping citizens based overseas committed to the country, said Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng.

In his written answer to Non-Constituency MP Sylvia Lim on the Government’s projection for additional foreigners, Mr Wong also revealed that the Republic had a yearly average of 38,700 new PRs and 8,300 citizens from 2001 to 2005.

This works out to 193,500 PRs and 41,500 citizens over five years.

Mr Wong said many new PRs and citizens were employment pass holders - usually graduates or diploma holders who are skilled professionals or managers in areas such as finance, biomedical sciences and the creative industries.

He added that many countries are competing for talented migrants to increase their population.

Even Japan has begun to open its doors to non-ethnic Japanese immigrants, he said, noting a recent report that more than two million such immigrants are Japanese citizens today.

Very interesting articles from The Campus Observer

Dear Singapore Media/Analysts/Rest of Singaporeans/Myself,

Why do we call opposition parties in Singapore (fan dui dang) 反对党 instead of the term (zai ye dang) 在野党 which is used to address opposition parties in the rest of the world, especially Taiwan, South Korea and Japan?

Sincerely,
Wayne

As I hold a copy of the FEER in my hands in the U.S., I am reminded yet again of the importance of FEER for independent economic, social and political analysis. I wonder if ordinary people and analysts who need independent news on Asia would be worse off with this banning of the magazine in Singapore. Of course we might not agree with the authors in FEER, but the people who subscribe to such a magazine has the mental capacity to discern for themselves, either through their own experiences or other readings, these articles. Also, letters from readers to FEER are often robust and of high quality; signifying the intelligence behind people reading FEER. None of these articles hold the absolute truth, but banning such a decent magazine is somewhat problematic.

If we allow trashy magazines such as “Cosmopolitan” in Singapore, surely…….

This month issue is so interesting, ranging from latest analysis of China’s new labor law on doing business in Asia, the inside workings of Bank of Thailand, AND more interesting for me, is a review focus on higher education in Asia; of which Singapore’s attempts in attracting top notch institutions and its outward mobility of local high school graduates was mentioned positively.

Also, Cherian George’s book “Contentious Journalism” is reviewed fairly and very well by Garry Rodan.

Would the ban of FEER be lifted one day? I wonder if younger Singaporeans, when they grow up to be lawyers, analysts, politicians, ordinary workers, will wonder why the FEER was banned from Singapore? I wonder if expats posted to Singapore would wonder why such an important magazine is banned from our shores? Or as some have argued, no one really cares?

Interesting Forum letter; seems that S’pore voters are not that forgetful. P.S. The MP for BP is Teo Ho Pin.

Jan 20, 2007
Will Bukit Panjang residents get a stadium?

BEFORE the election last year, the MP for Bukit Panjang promised residents that a stadium would be built in the area. A signboard was even put up on the proposed site.

However, the signboard has since been taken down and there has been no sign of any construction work.

To use a sports facility, I have to go to either the Choa Chu Kang or Bukit Gombak stadium. This is very inconvenient as I do not drive and I have to take two buses to get there.

What is the status of the Bukit Panjang Stadium? Why is it taking so long to start construction?

Has the plan to build the stadium been scrapped?

Ho Khin Peng