This week, a 42-year-old Myanmese man by the name of Maung Maung Aung Soe Thu made news for suing the Public Utilities Board (PUB) in Singapore. His lawsuit is premised on the claims that the PUB breached its duty of care by failing to make sure that the safety drain gratings on the roads are safe. He is seeking at least $578,000 in damages in a negligence lawsuit against the PUB for the injuries he sustained last January,
From a Singaporean context, this lawsuit is certainly unusual. While Singaporeans might complain about the Government and its agencies for perceived failings, it would never cross their minds to actually take legal action against the Government. It is fair to say that the pervasive relationship between the average citizen and authorities is very much of the parent/child or teacher/student dynamic. Most Singaporeans would never imagine the possibility of suing the Government or any of its agencies, and indeed, this was the dominant view on the internet. One commenter called him “very daring” presumably for filing a lawsuit against the national water agency.
But why is it “daring” to hold a government agency accountable in court if it has indeed been negligent? After all, aren’t we the paymasters of such agencies? If they have not done their work properly, don’t they deserve to be held accountable? After all, Mr Maung Maung did sustain injuries that sounded pretty serious – head and spine injuries, facial bone fractures, and multiple face and lip abrasions, and he now walks with a limp with the help of a cane.
While we do not have enough information to discuss the legal merits of the case, the fact that Singaporeans seem to perceive the idea of holding a government agency to account in a court of law as “daring” is definitely curious given that we are a first-world democratic country. Shouldn’t it be normal that a court of law might be a forum to hold government agencies (who the public fund) to account?
Does our subservient attitude to those in perceived positions of authority prevent us from holding them to account?
As the world mourns a symbol of “old times” Queen Elizabeth II, it bears remembering that she leaves behind a world of soaring inflation as it comes to terms with the twin effects of the global coronavirus pandemic and an ongoing war in Ukraine. In this unstable global economic outlook, stands Singapore, a country whose economic prosperity is heavily reliant on world events.
Economists have warned that South East Asian countries will be affected if the United States falls into a recession, but trade and tourism-reliant nations such as Singapore are more vulnerable than others.
The first two quarters of this year have already seen negative growth in the US, which is considered a “technical” recession by some.
And if the world’s largest economy falls into a full-blown recession, CNBC reported on Sept 4, this may impact Singapore before other South East Asian nations.
How will a recession affect the rank and file citizens of Singapore where there isn’t a minimum wage and where the goods and services tax (GST) is set to rise? The Workers’ Party (WP) has long championed the need for a minimum wage in Singapore. It has also persistently advocated for the Government not to raise the GST at this point in time.
Back in January this year, the WP member of parliament (MP) for the Sengkang Group Representative Constituency (GRC). Jamus Lim suggested that the hike should be reconsidered, given the state of Singapore’s economy.
“We also need to think very seriously about the wisdom of a GST increase,” he wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday (Jan 26). “For us, a GST hike would not just add fuel to the fire, it could also shock an economy that is only just on a rebound.”
Fast-forward circa nine months, the Government is sticking to its guns to raise the GST as planned, despite the world being in a very different place from when the hikes were first planned. Will this result in further hardship for Singaporeans?
Like it or not, Singapore is a small country whose fate is bound up with the situation in the rest of the world. As an article carried out by this publication pointed out – Singaporeans have much to thank for the late and last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for setting off a chain of events which ended the instability in Southeast Asia following the fall of Saigon in 1975.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 saw Vietnam coming to terms with the new post-Soviet world order. Despite having beaten the non-communist US-backed forces in Southeast Asia, Hanoi, together with Phnom Penh and Vientiane, chose to join ASEAN to pursue a different, more peaceful destiny. The straightforward and pragmatic reason for a change in Vietnam’s direction was that the Soviet Union, its main military backer in the region, imploded in 1991 following Gorbachev’s reformist policies and rapprochement with the West.
Just like Queen Elizabeth II, Mr Gorbachev departs this world at a time when it is at its crossroads. To what extent, Singapore is able to navigate its future depends very much on how it can be nimble and flexible in conjunction with world developments. Is our Government able to do this?
Looking at the way the Government is rigidly sticking to GST hikes (which were planned) before the pandemic ever reared its ugly head, before the war in Ukraine, and before global inflation, does not bode for much confidence.
Is Singapore tweaking its internal policies in line with global events?