The government has admitted a new divide in Singapore: the knowledge divide.
It is the gap between what the government is doing and what the public thinks it is doing.
The candid admission came from the point man for the Our Singapore Conversation, Heng Swee Keat.
Two examples:
1. In education, it is the 40-year gap where parents who left school many years ago are out of touch with what happens there now.
“Unless we bridge that gap we will always have a problem in terms of how parents perceive education,” he said.
2. In health-care, the public just don’t know there are schemes to help them reduce their cost burden.
“The one take-away I have is that the same things have to be repeated over and over again and we really need to do a better job of reaching out to fellow Singaporeans whenever we have important policy changes,” he said.
What happened to all your spin doctors, Mr Heng?
Serious, this gap
I have a bone to pick with LKY
By Augustine Low
As a child of the Sixties, I grew up in an era when Mr Lee Kuan Yew was larger than life. He was revered, he was feared.
Today’s generation knows of Mr Lee as a paternal figure, venerated for his wisdom and remarkable contributions to Singapore. His latest book, One Man’s View Of The World, once again assures us of his undoubted and undiminished intellect.
Reading the book, however, gives me great discomfort. I have long craved for some inkling of his sentiments and frailties because he is, after all, just a man.
But the book, like the others preceding it in recent years, shows Mr Lee to be pragmatic to the core. His pragmatism is so unbending it is chilling. For example, espousing his belief that there is no afterlife, he says:
“I wish I can meet my wife in the hereafter, but I don’t think I will. I just cease to exist just as she has ceased to exist – otherwise the other world would be overpopulated. Is heaven such a large and limitless space that you can keep all the people of the world over the thousands of years past? I have a question mark on that . . . it goes against logic. Supposing we all have life after death, where is that place?”
Yes, logic is all or nothing to Mr Lee, even in the twilight of his years.
Here is a quote which could well serve as a summary of his entire perspective and philosophy:
“Between being loved and being feared, I have always believed Machiavelli was right. If nobody is afraid of me, I’m meaningless.” – Mr Lee Kuan Yew, 1997, South China Morning Post
I think of Nelson Mandela who is universally beloved, never feared. His life is well documented, so his triumphs and his faults are there for all to see. He has become an everyday hero, a beacon of hope, forgiveness and conciliation.
Mandela is reassuringly human. We cherish and love him – even from afar – because he represents the notion of a greater good.
As a proud Singaporean, I would dearly love to love Mr Lee.
After all that he has done, why is it so difficult – almost impossible even – to connect “beloved” with Mr Lee?
My thoughts turn to a novel which I first read 15 years ago, The Remains Of The Day by the Japanese-born British writer Kazuo Ishiguro. The novel’s narrator, Stevens, is the perfect English butler. Snobbish and humourless, Stevens has devoted his life to the concept of duty and responsibility, hoping to reach the pinnacle of his profession through totally selfless dedication and ruthless suppression of sentiment.
Having made a virtue of stoic dignity, he is proud of his impassive response to his father’s death and his unflinching attention to detail in the face of adversity. There is irony towards the end as the butler unwittingly reveals his pathetic self-deception. Stevens poignantly and belatedly realizes that he has wasted his life in blind service to a man discredited for seeking peace with the Nazis and that he has never discovered the “key to human warmth.”
Logic says that it is just a novel and Stevens is just a fictional character.
Whilst Mr Lee carved his own path and can equally be said to have devoted his life to the concept of duty and responsibility, and certainly reached the pinnacle of leadership, sentiment tells me that fiction mirrors truth and knowing the key to human warmth can mean absolutely everything.
Where is the referee?
SingTel may come across as being the bad one in the latest public spat between it and StarHub over allowing the latter’s customers to watch EPL matches.
The red team has gone to the wire in sending its cross-carriage provision to the green team even though SingTel started selling its EPL package on Aug 1.
SingTel says the deadline was on — Aug 12 — and it has played by the rules by sending the details to its rival two hours after StarHub’s complaint was made.
This practically shuts the window for StarHub to sell the EPL programme to its customers as the deadline for them to send in their orders was the day before.
Come on, SingTel. We know you are angry at being forced to sell your content to your rival’s customers.
But why make it so difficult for so many soccer fans as they await the kick-off this Saturday?
There is this thing called the spirit of the rule, you know.
And where is the regulator in all this? Their job is not only to adjudicate but also to make sure the process is smooth.
Referee kayu!
Kuala Lumpur – A city of fear
A personal account by Johnson Fernandez in Kuala Lumpur
I look nervously at my watch, probably for the fifth time in the last five minutes. It’s 10.30 pm.
My wife walks into the living room from the kitchen. “Is she home yet?” she asks.
“No,” I reply. “Didn’t she say what time she’d be back? Why don’t you call her and see where she is.”
I am agitated. My daughter’s a big girl. She’s 23. She was out with a friend for a movie and dinner.
Normally, I would not have been so edgy. She’s been out late before, sometimes even for midnight movies.
But these are hardly normal times.
A string of murders, gangland-style, has gripped the nation. Since April this year, there have been about 40 gun-related incidents, resulting in 25 deaths.
I live in a gated and guarded community. Yet, as I pass the guardhouse, a notice is a grim reminder of how close danger lurks. It reminds residents of two cases:
1.House broken into by four robbers armed with parang along Jalan 2/62C
2. House owner’s Toyota Fortuner was robbed at gun point along Jalan 2/62
That’s just three streets away from where I live.
Mind you, this is a guarded and gated area for which residents pay an annual fee. Yet we are exposed..
Though the authorities have said the recent killings were gang-related, it has created a climate of fear among netizens. They say the repealing of the Emergency Ordinance has unleashed about 2,600 criminals back on the streets. Some of them are exacting revenge on those whom they suspect had snitched on them.
Yet others want to take back control of their turf — the lucrative drug trade, loan sharking, prostitution rackets.
Still, there is cause for worry. The oft-heard “wrong place, wrong time” keeps ringing in the head.
Yes, it may be gang-related. Yes, it may be a turf war. But there would be collateral damage.
And I have no wish for those close and dear to me to be part of that statistic.
Whether it is my daughter, wife, sons or their wives…I remind them to be aware of their surroundings.
Do not be out on the road if you do not need to be. Fuel up during the day,” I remind them. “Do not get out of the car immediately. Look around. Look into the kiosk and see if everything is normal.”
Just last week, a friend walked right into a robbery at a Petronas station and was greeted with a machete at her neck.
She was unharmed but lost her wallet, mobile and some jewellery
“Alfresco dining” at the local mamak stalls are a Malaysian delight. Most of these places operate from dawn to dusk. Such was the business.
But lately these places (shops and stalls) have been deserted. Gangs with machetes have attacked these outlets . Customers have lost their mobiles, jewellery, money and a host of other valuables.
People are opting to stay home, perhaps the instant noodles in the comfort and safety of one’s own home a better option now.
Then, there are the incidental accidents.
“If you are knocked, don’t worry about the dent. Drive straight to a pollice station or if you are closer to home, get back to the house. Just be safe,” I keep pounding, especially into my daughter and wife.
We have lost our freedom. This is not a free country anymore. We live in fear.
We are close to losing a very basic human right — freedom of movement.
And yet while our home is our castle, we remain vulnerable to the shenanigans, the beasts and the desperadoes.
Chill the champagne
In about a month, a Singaporean might just do us proud. Ng Ser Miang’s audacious move to become the Olympics supremo will be decided in a secret ballot in Buenos Aires in September.
If he hits the jackpot, it will not only be a joyous occasion for Singapore but also for Asia as the rising continent has never had somebody to head the International Olympic Committee.
British sports columnist Alan Hubbard, who met the Singaporean in London last week, says in a column: “There is a huge groundswell for Ng, not least because all the eight presidents of the IOC have been either from Europe or America.”
Ser Miang also has the credentials. He is an IOC vice-president, campaigned vigorously to get his committee to choose Singapore as the venue where London was picked as the destination for the 2012 Games and was the prime mover in convincing officials to hold the inaugural Youth Olympics here.
If he hits the big time, it will be a major trophy for a country that is insignificant in the world sports map.
With the country caught in a mid-life crisis, we need something that will give us a chance to celebrate.
The art of listening
The conspiracy theorists are already having a field day. Goh Chok Tong’s speech on Sunday night is the latest talking point with many focusing on the fact that the “government needs to win hearts, not just arguments”.
As that debate continues, let’s focus on the thrust of his speech which revolves round the one word that is being used very often these days:Trust. There has to be trust in government, and we would like to emphasise, in the people, too.
Trust, as we all know, doesn’t happen overnight. It happens after many years of developing mutual respect for each other, sharing of thoughts, ideas, plans, and most important, listening to each other’s point of view.
So who should clap first? The one with the power. Nothing like going down a few steps to show genuine care, empathy and support. No harm in temporarily putting aside ideology while throwing out a lifeline for those who are crying for help.
Is anybody listening?
Worrying, satisfying
Pieces of the puzzle are beginning to fall into place. Now we know that the man who died in prison might be alive today if the officers who restrained him had checked to see if he was ok. And if the officers had understood the risk in pinning down a prisoner and placing him chest down in an isolated cell.
Both were not done and Dinesh Raman’s family has lost a son.
Another piece of another puzzle is the revelation that CPIB director Eric Tan could have prevented his colleague from allegedly embezzling $1.7 million in public money if he had been more diligent in implementing the rules.
There is a worrying link between the two cases. The Prison and CPIB officers, despite being in sensitive and critical departments, were lackadaiscal in the way they went about their work.
There is no doubt that Singapore’s reputation for being a stickler for rules has taken a knock. You can have all the standard operating procedures but they have to be followed by all and sundry.
And it is the job of the leadership to send out the clear signal that zero tolerance is the way forward.
Having said that, we are satisfied that the people responsible have been dealt with, that the government has accepted responsibility for the prisoner’s death and that his family is being compensated.
The numbers and the realities
By The Independent
Good news on GDP. But MTI confirms that importing more foreign workers in 2003-2008 led firms to substitute workers for machines, dampening productivity growth.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry increased its GDP forecast significantly, from the 1% to 3% range to the 2.5% to 3.5% range. This came on the back of a final Q2 GDP figure that was higher than the flash estimate: 3.8% versus 3.5%. The quarter-on-quarter figure – a scorching 15.5% versus an anemic 1.7% in Q1 – suggests an economy picking up momentum.
All this will come as a relief to Singaporeans and rightly so. However the report makes clear that structural improvements remain elusive. Singapore citizens unemployment rose slightly, and productivity growth, while significantly improved, is still negative.
The improvement on the GDP front was essentially driven by four factors:
- a stellar performance from financial and insurance services, especially “financial intermediation and sentiment-sensitive clusters”
- a less-bad-than-expected manufacturing performance thanks to biomedical production
- decent growth in business services, particularly engineering and architectural services; and
- an uptick in wholesale services, driven by electronics re-exports.
Unemployment rose slightly, from 1.9% in Q1 to 2.1% in Q2. The unemployment rate for Singapore citizens, however, stubbornly stood at 3.1%, up from 3% in Q1 and higher than that for the population as a whole, in line with historic norms.
The Q2 Economic Survey paints a picture of an economy that is being increasingly defined by two things: services as a growth driver, and productivity growth as a speed-bump.
Much of the growth in the past few quarters has come from services. In Q2 2013, some sub-sectors stood out as growth turbo-chargers: financial services, retail and tourism, logistics and professional services. Tourist arrivals, for example, rose 7.5% year-on-year in Q2, driving revenue in hotels and food-services.
Clearly these rising stars should command maximum attention from both policy-makers and companies, so that Singapore can wring even more high-value exports and productivity increases from these sectors. At the same time, risks from an overly exuberant financial services sector need to be watched closely. The recent policy moves in respect of mortgage financing show that MAS is taking a vigilant stance on this front.
The manufacturing sector is also showing signs of improvement, but some of this is due to the artificial stimulant from bio-medical exports, which are notoriously volatile and tend to drive export figures more than job creation. Manufacturing contributed very little to net job creation in Q2. However manufacturing does seem to be on an upswing, with robust quarter-on-quarter growth. Moreover, the manufacturing sector does have many positive linkages with services industries such as finance, construction and professional services. The bigger question may be how to restore manufacturing’s role as a mid-to-high end job creation engine.
MTI’s optimistic prognosis for the second half of the year may yet be challenged by some economic realities. The fact that external demand grew 3.1% in Q2 while contracting 4.1% in Q1 suggests that the full effect of the Q2 slowdown in China, to which Singapore is more vulnerable than many other economies, has not yet been fully felt. Financial services growth may be crimped by an outflow of global funds into the US as the US dollar appreciates on the back of Fed tapering. Moreover, MTI’s composite of leading indicators – its basket of more predictive indicators of economic performance – showed a mere 0.2% increase in Q2, versus a 0.4% hike in Q1. This suggests that the outlook is less sunny than might be thought.
On productivity growth, some improvement was noted in Q2. Labor productivity fell by only 0.3% in Q2, in contrast to the 3.8% drop in Q1. However this is probably due in large measure to the pick-up in economic growth, which tends to give productivity a short-term lift. Moreover, the picture differs sharply by sector, with productivity growth being pulled up by financial services (which grew by a whopping 10%) and contracting significantly in almost all other sectors. In tackling the fundamental structural impediment of low productivity growth, a hard struggle lies ahead.
Perhaps the most striking element in MTI’s Q2 report was an econometric study that demonstrated how the liberalization of foreign worker importation in 2003 to 2008 led companies to substitute workers for machines, with dampening effects on productivity growth. In mitigation, the MTI report did point out that the substitution effect was small and the “the government has already taken steps to reduce firm’s reliance on low-skilled FWs”. This is in keeping with the past practice in government statements of qualifying admissions of past policy mistakes by pointing out that corrective measures have already been taken. However this still leaves one question unanswered – do the measures that have been taken to control FW influx go far enough?
While this conclusion is hardly surprising and has been the opinion of many commentators and economists for years, the MTI team should be commended for their intellectual honesty in publishing this conclusion so forthrightly. This admission is a timely reminder of the urgency of Singapore’s productivity challenge. It is also a useful warning to future generations of policymakers about the perils of putting headline GDP growth on steroids, to the detriment of long-term economic fundamentals.
The way we see it
The Independent’s view of the news
SAME SAME, AGAIN?
This newspaper hopes that today’s sitting of Parliament will not cover old ground, as has happened so often in the past.
But the questions tabled by PAP MPs — on the spate of high-profile scandals involving government officers — don’t give us much confidence because they revolve round the same old theme of trust.
The PM and his deputy have already issued statement after statement on that.
The real questions are:
- WHY did it take the case of the CPIB officer, who was hauled to court for allegedly siphoning $1.7 million, four years to uncover?
- WHY are scandals like this cropping up with such regularity?
- ARE there any flaws in the government’s check-and-balance system?
Probe, MPs, probe.
No need, PM
It is strange that the PM has to elaborate on why S R Nathan was given the top award for this year’s National Day.
Everything that Lee Hsien Loong said on Friday was a repeat of what was mentioned when the honour was announced.
So why? The only reason we can think of is that some questions must have been raised about the choice of Nathan.
We say there is no need for PM’s explanation because, if nothing else, of Nathan’s two long-forgotten actions:
- HIS offer to be the hostage during the 1974 Laju hijack.
- HIS appearance as ambassador to Washington on the Larry King Live TV show to defend Singapore’s decision to cane American teenager Michael Fay for vandalism in 1994.
And with the world’s spotlight zeroing in on this little red dot.
Strange……really strange
A Straits Times report on the launch of Lee Kuan Yew’s latest book had this intriguing sentence: He was not assisted to his seat.
Duh?
Maybe ST wanted to show that Lee was still sprightly. Maybe it was told to do so.
The bigger worry is if it was the former because it shows an institution, which has a longer history than the PAP government, stuck in the mud of old habits.
Self-censorship, again?
Throwaway line, but…
Acting Manpower Minister Tan Chuan-Jin made an important point but, oh, but what a throwaway line it was.
In an interview with The Straits Times he spoke of his encounter with a “landed property resident who was quite established, working in an important establishment”.
What are you doing for people like me, she asked him.
Well, minister, welcome to the new world of entitlement where the rich are not shy to ask for more while their poor cousins are toiling away, some even suffering.
Now, how to even start talking about philanthropy?
Politics in digital world
A new book co-authored by Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt says Singapore is a good case study on political pressures and technological challenges.
“Even in as tighly controlled a space as Singapore, government restrictions and social codes have limited leverage in the online world,” the book says.
PM Lee Hsien Loong is interviewed in the book, The New Digital Age: Reshaping The Future of People, Nations and Business.
But his quotes — like “the danger we face in future is that it will be far easier to be against something than for it” — just shows how the government has yet to come to grips with this transformative medium.
Our advice: start by liking it, the rest should follow.
The adopted son of Singapore
By Zafar Anjum
Movement is life—that’s what I had learnt at an early age. Prophets, sages, poets, soldiers—all had taught me this lesson. I was born in a nondescript part of India where most of my relatives lived in a 30-kilometre radius, making me feel claustrophobic, making me yearn to get out and see more of the world. As an Urdu couplet goes:
The essential thing is to undertake a journey; of hospitable persons there is no dearth; There are a thousand shady trees on the roadside. (Khwaja Haider Ali Atish)
After the early years, came a succession of reliefs—just before my high school exam, I moved from my native village to a small town, and after my matriculation exam, I moved to a university town, Aligarh, close to Delhi, India’s capital.
Even in that sleepy university town, the five years that I spent were restless, filled with a longing to escape. Finally, I moved to Delhi where after attaining some more degrees I started upon my first job. With my new-found salaried existence and the umbilical cord with my parents snapped, I walked like the happiest man on the planet, free to make my own destiny.
That feeling was not to last for long.
In nearly eight years, I changed five jobs. Not all my fault. New businesses were forming and bursting like soap bubbles, emanating from the straw out of Manmohan Singh’s new bottle of ‘economic liberalisation’ policy.
In 2004, when my career was teetering on the precipice of uncertainty and a tsunami of regret of not opting for a government job was about to wash off my remaining confidence, a miracle happened. I was picked up for a job in Singapore. My career was saved from a crash landing.
When I came to Singapore, life unspooled for me in a slow motion in this Big Apple of Asia. The country’s prosperity, its clean and transparent system, its open-hearted people flashed like a beacon of hope. I thought my suffering was over. I thought I was going to achieve nirvana by the bank of the Singapore River.
It was not to be so. The lightening of misfortune struck me once again.
Within a year and a half, my employer, the National Kidney Foundation—at that time, Asia’s biggest non-profit organisation with S$120 million in reserves—was hit with a scandal. The poisonous effluent that spurted out of NKF CEO TT Durai’s fabled ‘gold tape’ devastated the organisation. As a result, when the knife went over the beast’s belly, hundreds of employees floated out like dead babies covered in the slime of stigma. I was also one of them.
Most of my compatriots went back to India. I stayed back. For me, there was no escape from struggling, either here or in India. I was a member of the minority and a migrant worker in both the countries. I did not want to struggle in the heat and dust of Delhi. Delhi’s crumbling public transport system, the regular power cuts, the daily fight for water—were nightmarish enough.
In Singapore, I was jobless for nearly six months and I had a pregnant wife to support. Life seemed to be an interminable series of misfortunes and humiliations. The bed of roses turned into a thorn-filled haystack and my constant companions were worries—how to pay the rent, how to take care of the spiralling medical bills and how to put food on the table. There were times when I was scraping the bottom of the barrel and coming a cropper. By nature I am shy of social company. My circumstances made me a social recluse. Many times I politely refused dinner invitations because I didn’t have enough money to pay for the taxi and buy that bottle of wine as a gift. My writing ambitions made for the window and bankruptcy began to knock on my door. I forfeited thousands of dollars in an insurance policy that I had painstakingly built up for my daughter’s future education. The sleepless nights made me sick with high blood pressure.
Look at my misfortune! The lasso snapped,
When the edge of the parapet was just a shot way off! (Qaim)
I was never afraid for myself. I just wanted a decent life with ample time to read and write. The suffering was more on account of my wife and my child who were the unintended victims of this mishap.
Later on, some of those bitter experiences seeped into my writing. They became the blood and sinews of my collection of short stories, The Singapore Decalogue.
It took me several years to get back on my feet and I am indebted to many friends and well-wishers who held my hand in my days of want and suffering. I am still reeling under the impact of my ‘lost decade’ and clearing the debris of the disaster. I still feel like a ghost, an apparition, slowing emerging out of that haze of ignominy and defeat.
Along the way, some good things happened that helped me survive.
The same Singapore where my dreams soured gave me ample opportunities to get back on my feet. I got my first newspaper job here. I received a writing grant for a book from the National Arts Council, and I succeeded in signing up with the same literary agent in Singapore whom I had failed to entice a decade ago in India. Last year, I also turned a homeowner from a rent-paying tenant. All along, my family enjoyed the ease of life and the sense of security that Singapore offers. Today, we hardly miss India as we find the sounds and flavours of our motherland right at our doorstep.
What my struggle taught me is resilience. Failing and falling is a part of life and the only way to get through the storm is to endure it. God is with those who are patient, says the Quran.
It was precisely for this reason that the story of Satyam, one of India’s top IT services companies, attracted me in 2009. Resembling the NKF saga, Satyam was hit with an accounting fraud and its mastermind was its own founder and chairman, B Ramalinga Raju. When I heard of the scandal, my heart went out to the company’s thousands of ordinary employees who I knew would suffer for no fault of theirs. How would they pay their rents and mortgages? How would they support their families? How many of them would develop hypertension and insomnia? Miraculously, the government of India stepped in, brought in a league of extraordinary gentlemen who stabilised the company and auctioned it off to the Mahindra Group. Thousands of jobs were saved in the process.
Satyam’s story of falling and then rising again made a perfect subject for me to pursue. In its resurgence I could see my own story’s reflection. That was one reason why I decided to chronicle it in The Resurgence of Satyam, which has now become a business bestseller in India.
My story is not over yet. I am still at a sort of crossroads—between a nascent writing career and achieving literary success, between leading a bottom-of-the-middle-class existence and the creamy layer, being wedged between Singapore and India and the world beyond. There are many possibilities and many challenges. It can cut both ways, hurting me or healing me. For sure, there will be more struggles in store, more rejections and failures. Where there are dreams, there will be setbacks and struggles. But afraid I’m not. I’ll keep on moving in pursuit of my dreams, ready to embrace whatever comes my way.
Even like the wave, the caravan of my life does not know the course it is destined to pursue;
I know not whence it has come and whither it will go. (Qaim)
Zafar Anjum is a Singapore-based journalist, writer and filmmaker. He is the author of The Singapore Decalogue and The Resurgence of Satyam.