Nationalisation of the Transport Industry

The priority of a privatised transport industry, as in a commercial enterprise, is profits for the shareholders and service to the commuters is by necessity of secondary importance. So maintenance of the service becomes circumscribed by the profit bottom line and is it surprising that we get frequent breakdowns of train services much to the inconvenience of the hapless commuters who had to scramble by other means to get to their work? And many of the commuters are from the lower-income group and the regularity of the breakdowns has caused a numbness in their mental feelings to the extent that any miraculous remedy from the Government is a pipe-dream under the present privatised system. Of course, those who are affluent enough to own cars are not concerned with the frequent train breakdowns but they are a small number of the privileged class compared with the massive commuters.

A typical example of the ineptitude of the Government in this connection was the questionable appointment of Ms Saw Phaik Hwa as the chief executive officer of SMRT in December 2002. She had neither the expertise nor the experience of managing a transport system of such magnitude and it needed little intelligence to discover that she had made a great mess out of it. Her working experience was mainly in the retail business and indeed, despite her lack of expertise, she had surprisingly managed to deliver impressive profits to the company, but would appear not from managing the train and bus services. She was awarded hundreds of thousand of performance shares which were rightly forfeited after her resignation in January 2012 following two major rail breakdowns in December 2011. Her eminent successor, ex Lt-general Desmond Kuek, who took the helm on October 1 last year, is not seen to have fared better in the management of SMRT, apart from packing its management with his army cronies making it appear as an offshoot of the Ministry of Defence. Like his infamous predecessor, Desmond Kuek, with solely a military background,  lacks the expertise and experience for the running of a rail and bus system and may finally end up with a mediocre performance.

The case for the nationalisation of the transport system is a cogent one. First and foremost, it is not run solely for the profits of shareholders to the disadvantage of commuters, especially the middle and lower income earners for whom public transport is a crucial means of their livelihood, As a government-run enterprise, it should be more efficient in its management and maintenance, which could cut down on frequent rail breakdowns and the less frequent unexpected industrial action by bus workers. Because it is non-profit orientated, the nationalised system will present less demand for the increase of transport fares from time to time, a welcome relief to the impoverished commuters. Just look at the countries with nationalised transport systems like Germany and France to see how efficient and trouble-free the way it is run with a contented commuting public, is it not time the cocooned PAP Government should seriously consider the much-awaited nationalisation of the transport system to alleviate the anguish of the long-suffering Singapore commuters? If the PAP wallahs are thinking of redeeming themselves by service to the public, this will offer them a golden opportunity for them to show their worth.

The Antics of PM Lee and Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan

PM Lee Hsien Loong must have calculated that his broadside on 12 July against the Workers' Party (WP) and its secretary-general Low Thia Khiang following the pompous blustering speech by Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan in Parliament on 9 July would be certain to bring public wrath against the WP with consequent loss of public  confidence. In the present political climate, little does PM Lee realise that his words no longer command the public respect and his bluster of lack of integrity and honesty  against WP MPs Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr. Pritam Singh cuts no ice with the public. People were wondering why the prime minister and his million-dollar cabinet members should be concerned with a mundane hawker centre cleaning dispute which to all intents and purposes had been settled when they should quite rightly be looking into national issues in order to justify their colossal salaries.

This is not unlike a disguised form of witch hunting. First Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr. Pritam Singh were accused of making false and untruthful statements which could not be verified conclusively even with so-called iron clad documentary evidence. Then out of nowhere Mr. Pritam Singh was accused of plagiarism by PM Lee for passing off an Internet article "word for word" as his own in a parliamentary speech. Mr. Pritam had the permission of the author to use the Internet article and how on earth could PM Lee in his right mind have made such a terrible blunder? Is it not fair that Mr. Pritam Singh should expect an apology for having been put to such unnecessary distress?

The issue of WP AHPETC hawker centre cleaning row has been transformed into a mountain from a molehill and it should be clear to PM Lee and his cabinet colleagues that it would not be to their advantage to continue to harass the WP on it. Public opinion on this matter is evenly distributed  on both sides. So it will be wise, albeit painful, for PM Lee to let the matter rest for the time being.

It shows the mediocre calibre of a politician when he says: politics is a contest for power. So Dr. Balakrishnan is in politics for the sole purpose of contesting for power and not for the purpose of serving the people. If his political doctrine is representative of all PAP ministers and MPs, do you not think that Singaporeans who have all along been asserting that PAP ministers  are self-serving who are in politics for the money are correct in their assessment? The PAP ministers are paying themselves astronomical (many call it obscene) salaries from taxpayers' money and have the impudence to call this as service to the people. Where in other parts of the world can one find a prime minister drawing a salary four or five times that of the American President? And is Singapore bigger than America with its prime minister being more important and holding greater responsibility than the American President? When GE 2016 comes along, Singaporeans should know what to do and opposition parties should, besides other bigger issues, capitalise on these two issues of politics is not for serving the people but contest for power and ministerial salaries in the election campaign.

A Comical Display Of Pomposity

 His reputation has been on the wane because of his lacklustre performance as a minister and the Workers' Party AHPETC hawker-centre cleaning row had presented the pompous Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan with the rare opportunity of giving a comical display of pomposity with a so-called eloquent castigation of the Workers' Party (WP) in Parliament. The WP MPs Ms Sylvia Lim and Pritam Singh were apparently caught unprepared for Dr. Balakrishnan's onslaught and did not make a creditable effort in demolishing his accusations. So one can see the smugness on the conceited Dr. Balakrishnan's face as he finished off his pompous speech with what he believed to be a coup de grace.

Dr. Balakrishnan is decidedly aiming to score a political point on the unsuspecting Workers' Party in order to redeem his flagging political fortune in time for GE 2016. He belaboured ad nauseam on the so-called mistake of the WP Property Manager to require hawkers to pay for the  cleaning of the hawker centre which in the end remained unproven because documents he produced  in Parliament to prove his case remained inconclusive. Ms Sylvia Lim, Chairman of AHPETC, was able to make a robust denial of the allegation. But Dr. Balakrishnan was bent to make a capital out of the saga and summoned up his Dutch courage to make a pompous display of his oratorical skills to support his case which indeed captured the imagination and interest of both those inside and outside of Parliament. He had indeed prided himself of having performed magnificently to dent the reputation of the Workers' Party and score a political point for the PAP. But little does Dr. Balakrishnan realise that his political ranting against the Workers' Party could have the opposite effect of drawing public sympathy for WP. Some would view his so-called oratory as bluster, especially when he ended his speech by calling on the WP secretary-general to investigate further into the hawker-centre cleaning row and branding WP officials as false and untruthful.

Dr. Balakrishnan asserted that the issue was about integrity and clean politics. The WP secretary-general countered quite rightly that it was not a problem of integrity but pure and simple market cleaning. Mr. Low Thia Khiang also brushed off Dr. Balakrishnan's call for him to further investigate  the issue. Whether this episode will enhance the political standing of Dr. Balakrishnan in the eyes of the public is open to interpretation. As mentioned earlier, he has not been very impressive in his ministerial performance and is in need of an opportunity to show his talent. He saw the WP AHPETC hawker-centre cleaning row as the opportunity he had been waiting for and he promptly jumped on it. He did not disappoint his political master and can be certain of his candidature in GE 2016 but whether he can convince his electorate to return his GRC team is another matter considering the fluidity of the political situation in GE 2016.

Continuing Spectre of Dr. Yaacob's Licensing Rules Saga

The fact that the draconian new licensing scheme for online news sites was foisted on the Internet public with hardly any notice, much less any consultation with the concerned public or debate in Parliament does not bear the hallmark of a government that is confident of clinching GE 2016 or   people-oriented. Very craftily, Dr.Yaacob Ibrahim presented ten news websites which included seven Singapore Press Holdings sites, two Mediacorp sites and Yahoo Singapore which required licensing from 1st June and pledged that other Internet users or bloggers would be free to continue to criticise the government without fear of governmental restrictions, unless racial and religious issues were involved. The PAP Government hopes that in this way it will be able to pull a wool over the public's eyes and deflect any agitation from the Internet public against the licensing scheme.

The groundswell of resistance against the scheme was something which the PAP Government may or may not have expected and Dr. Yaacob  became the PAP hatchet man to try to manage damage control. The bloggers formed a "Free the Internet" movement to spearhead and co-ordinate action to pressurise the Government to rescind the licensing scheme which is regarded as a sinister move by the Government to clamp down on dissent. On this Dr. Yaacob and the Media Development Authority (MDA) are seen to be  strenously working to try to assure the Internet public that the Government has no such intention but the bloggers remained adamant and would accept nothing short of rescinding the sinister scheme.

The resistance to the licensing scheme does not confine to local bloggers and has attracted world-wide concern which should give the Internet public a well-deserved fillip to their movement. The Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) -comprising Internet giants Facebook, Google, eBay, Yahoo  and Salesforce - has entered the fray and has written to the Singapore Government questioning, among other things, in particular the clause which empowers  the Singapore authorities to ask a licensed news website to take down an article within 24 hours.

The United States government has also weighed in on the issue with the State Department saying that it was "deeply concerned" by the "restrictive policy requiring the licensing of news websites. The State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki said: we urge Singapore to ensure freedom of expression is protected in accordance with its international obligations and commitments. Later when asked for response to Ms Psaki's general comments, the Straits Times was referred to what Dr. Yaacob had said in Parliament in response to concerns on the rules raised by MPs. As expected, Dr. Yaacob had nothing new to offer but simply repeated with a deadpan face like a parrot the hackneyed statement that the licensing of online news sites is meant to ensure responsibility among news providers and bring  greater regulatory parity across various media platforms. He also repeatedly assured that the new rules will not stifle  creativity or freedom of speech on the Internet.

It is doubtful if such monotonous and meaningless utterances will go down well with the Internet public. The bloggers are a determined lot and the fight for justice will go on relentlessly until one party yields to the other. The PAP Government is, as the Chinese saying goes, "Riding a tiger and difficult to get off" (騎虎難下）

Is this a prelude to a more sinister move to clamp down on dissent?

Since the loss of Aljunied GRC in GE2011 and the subsequent by elections in Hougang SMC and Punggol East SMC, there has been panicky reaction among the discredited PAP leadership to the role of the social media in contributing to their election fiasco. Especially since the victory of the Workers' Party in the Punggol East by-election in January this year, there is very persistent public opinion, especially among the netizens, that the PAP Government may fall in a freak election or, if not, will lose more GRCs in GE2016. There has been strong indication that a perturbed PM Lee Hsien Loong and his equally distraught ministers are considering the foisting of a code-of-conduct on the social websites, aiming in particular at the anti-establishment websites. The comical Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim by virtue of his position became the public face of the Government to push this desperate move for a code-of-conduct for acceptance by the social media. But the politically-conscious bloggers saw through the Government's sinister motive in introducing this code and Minister Yaacob, unless he was dumb, could see that he was not able to get his idea accepted.

The PAP wallahs could not have abandoned their plan of circumscribing the social media because of the looming GE2016 for which they need time to counter the deleterious effect of the wide-spread anti-PAP propaganda on the internet. So it came as no surprise that they have now come up with this draconian Licence Scheme for New Websites which takes effect on  1at June. To pull a wool over the public's eyes, they presented ten news websites that will need the new licence. They include seven Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) sites, such as straitstimes.com and Stomp and two by MediaCorp. Yahoo Singapore is the only site not run by either SPH or MediaCorp.

The most oppressive condition is the $50,000 performance bond for the licence. It is not oppressive to SPH, MediaCorp or Yahoo but will be oppressive if it is applied to ordinary websites like TR Emeritus and The Online Citizen. To say that the PAP leaders are "Old Crafty and Very Cunning" (老奸巨滑） is no exaggeration. They first introduced the Licensing Scheme ostensibly to deal with news websites like SPH and MediaCorp as a red herring to divert attention later on their real heinous intention to clamp down on the anti-establishment websites. PM Lee and his run-of-the mill ministers think that they can hoodwink discerning Singaporeans in this way and is an insult to their intelligence. They are taking a serious lesson from the prowess of the so-called Chinese tsunami (coined by Malaysian PM Najib Razak) in the Malaysian GE on 5th May and cannot afford to be caught with their pants down in facing a united Singapore Opposition in GE2016. The writing is already on the wall and whether the funky PAP leadership takes oppressive action against the pro-opposition websites, they should remember that the wheel of history only moves forward. Singaporean voters are a discernible lot and when the time arrives will cast their epoch-making votes in fulfilment of history.

Could this be a monumental gaffe?

A recent event with possible political implications to Singapore should interest Singaporeans if they have not already read about it, not in The Straits Times. Our comical PM Lee Hsien Loong in his inimitable way gave a display of brilliant diplomacy during his recent visit to the USA at a dinner given in his honour by the American business community. One could almost scream with disbelief when he told the august American audience that in Shanghai when one turned on the tap one would find a flow of pork soup, a sarcastic allusion to the massive pig carcasses found floating in a river in China. Next he said sarcastically that one could get free smoke when one opened the window in China, an allusion to the severe air pollution in China. PM Lee could have thought that he was being brilliant in his joke and maybe never occurred to him whether or not the Chinese were amused by it. By any standard it could only be described as a sick joke considering the standing of the audience. Even if PM Lee had wanted to please the Americans, was there a necessity for him to insult the Chinese? Is it in Singapore's interest for him to show such abject adulation to the Americans at the expense of the Chinese? The Chinese are by nature a tolerant people but they also have a long memory.

It is interesting that PM Lee had tried to explain after he had cracked the unsavoury joke that he was just quoting what the Chinese had said. What is intriguing, if what PM Lee said is true, is why the Chinese would want to denigrate themselves. If the Chinese had cracked the joke about themelves it is strange that our Chinese paper could have missed it. The unsavoury joke by PM Lee was strangely given a miss by The Straits Times and the Lianhe Zaobao. They could have considered it wise not to publish it. So far, there has been no reaction from the Chinese to PM Lee,s antics, probably preferring to keep this matter close to their chest for the time being.

The Plight of the Early Government Pensioners

It is a well-known fact that the prime minister and his ministers are drawing millions of dollars in salaries which are paid out of taxpayers' money. They are in fact wallowing in wealth at the public expense and whether they deserve such humongous (some call it obscene) salaries has been viewed with disdain by the public, especially those who are struggling with the high cost of living. And are they self-serving? PM Lee Hsien Loong and his ministers, while enjoying the comforts of life with their well-deserved{?} whopping salaries, can be said to be callous in ignoring the plight of Govenment pensioners who retired in the seventies in the last century.

At that time the salary scales were very low and as a result civil servants who retired during this period received pensions which could just possibly cope with the cost of living existing at that time. This was more than thirty years ago and the cost of living has risen so many folds during that time but the sad thing is that the pensions of these pensioners have not risen accordingly. To show the callousness of the Singapore Government, two representatives of the Singapore Government Pensioners' Association met a former Finance Minister to seek his assistance for an increase in the pensions of Government pensioners to cope with the rising cost of living and the response they got from this former Finance Minister was too shocking to be believed.The former minister told the representatives that the pensioners had served their purpose, what they were getting was enough for them to get by and the Government was just waiting for them to die off. What kind of human being is capable of such callous atrocious utterance is beyond any human comprehension.

PM Lee Hsien Loong was later asked in a letter about the former minister's callous utterance but he avoided touching on this subject. He was asked in the same letter to consider the plight of Government pensioners who retired in the seventies and to increase their pensions in acordance with the current cost of living. His answer is that Government pensions are governed by the Constitution and nothing could be done about it. This could be the lamest excuse that could have come out of the prime minister as the Constitution has been amended from time to time at the whim of the Government for whatever reason and that amending the Constitution to increase the pensions of pensioners could not have been an obstacle. It is a test of the sincerity of the prime minister whether or not he wants to do it which in this case is an act oc humanity.

In Malaysia, for example, pensions of Government pensioners are increased from time to time whenever there is a rise in the cost of living. This is not the only benefit the Malaysian pensioners enjoy. When they pass away, their spouses continue to receive their pensions and enjoy the medical benefits they have all along been receiving. In some quarters, Malaysia is not regarded as progressive as Singapore and yet they look after their Government pensioners so well that the Singapore Government could emulate with pride. Some other Commonwealth countries look after their Government pensioners in the same way as the Malaysians.

While they are wallowing in their wealth provided by the taxpayers, PM Lee and his ministers should give serious and sympathetic thoughts to the plight of Government pensioners of the seventies. This is the taxpayers' money and when they can pay themselves millions in salaries out of this fund, surely the impecunious pensioners have the equal rights, if not the morality, to the taxpayers' money to assuage their wretched condiition. These pensioners had in the past contributed significantly to the progress and development of Singapore to make it to what it is today no less than what the ministers are contributing. Moreover, their numbers are dwindling  to a very small circle and could not be a burden to the taxpayers in the way that ministers' salaries are.

Whether PM Lee Hsien Loong wants to be remembered for his humanity or callousity is important and pertinent to him as a prime minister.