(as posted in response to Dreamknight at FBU on 17.4.2006)
People do understand about the danger of welfarism.
Just talk to them frankly with facts they would have no problem in understanding such a danger.
However we seem to be a country which has become over-obssessed about welfarism that our whole system has gone to the opposite extreme of charging for every services even for assets which were already paid for by the people under normal taxation.
What Singapore society has suffered from today is not welfarsim but overcharging on all the essential government services which have been paid for.
So which is the greater danger - welfarism or obsessive auto-piloting of such anti-welfare frenzy which has gone beyond the pale.
The leaders have governed the country based on such assumption about one danger or another without striking a proper balance to avoid causing fallouts and other undesirable problems.
Over the years, we have seen how ministers trying to collect all kinds of fees and taxes to make profits and accumulate surpluses in the name of avoiding welfare danger.
Even though the profits go into the national surpluses but the collorary is clear for all to see - we have run down the competitiveness and vibrancy of the private sector economy.
The biggest problem facing Singaporeans today is our government going to the opposite extreme which is worse than avoiding welfare. The ministers appear to have problem in understanding simple logic that overcharging will create more serious problem. So far they are still refusing to admit such problems even upon discovering the NKF type of witholding charity donation from spending on patients and following government's own policy of building long-haul surpluses which do not beneift anyone in particular in the face of rising costs and struggle for a living.
So is it correct for the government to corporatise and privatise essential government services in order to pave the way to increase fees and charges.
Is it right for government utiility company to charge for lands and networking infrastructures again after corporatisation when lands and network assets were already paid for historically under taxation.
Is it serving the people interest in allowing corporatised GLCs to charge for the land costs and networking infrastructure costs. A cursory check of utility will show that whereas consumption expenditure like oil and wages were below $0.10 per kilowatt-hour, an added charge is made amounting to 40% of total bill or about $0.06 per kilowatt hours. The average utility bill of household varies from $100 - $500 pm per household depending on the type and size of residence. A fair charge could be in the region of $60 - $300 if there is no double charge on fixed assets.
Should GLCs charge for such land and network costs once more, while profits are made by the government in disposing such assets to the GLCs in the corporatization.
In the same way, HDB was constituted under the HDB Act with the power to acquire lands cheaply using people's fund under the Land Acquisition Act which in effect means that people already owned the land.
Has HDB the moral right to hand over the acquired land to the Land Office (SLA) to allow SLA to make a windfall profit and ten sell the land back to HDB to justify HDB's selling the HDB flats (supposed to be constructed under HDB Act for low-cost housing) to the people at market price with a bit of discount for good presentation.
This is a contravention of the original purpose of acquiring lands under the Land Acquisition Act which was to be for public use.
On all account it was wrong to overcharge or double-charge the people to make profits for HDB which was set up to serve the people in providing with low-cost housing.
The ministers were not right in their obsessive tax-and-recover welfare-avoiding system of running the country.
MediaCorp originally collected radio and TV licence fees before it was corporatised to defray costs of running the programs and services. When it was corporatised as MediaCorp and Mediawork what happen to these licence fees. It appears that these licence fees conveniently were absorped by the Media Authority with MediaCorp having to meet its own costs from charging monopolistic fees and prices once again,
GLCs without the monopoly charging will not be able to survive. So are GLCs necessarily more efficient.
Are our corporatised public transport companies able to run more efficiently and reduce their costs and fares?
The above are more crucial issues and problems which the MM Lee government has not yet solved.
Every policy has its bad and good with bad always forgotten as has happened in the tax-and-recover welfare-avoiding policy of the past.
Transport and utility companies are corporatised and allowed to become monopolies to increase fees and charges and squeeze more profits through monopoly. Now the total transport and utility bills of lower income earner ($700-800 pm) forms about 60% of family incomes as a consequence of such corporatisation.
But the mean wages of our ordinary workers in the lower income category have dropped considerably during the last two recessions. Asset enhancement policy has flopped on its face and many of them are heavily indebted to their HDB mortgage.
So our leaders in seeking to avoid welfarism has just created the opposite - a high cost country versus dropping wages due to loss of economic competitiveness.
In the name of avoiding welfarism, HDB has resorted to charging for lands acquired under Land Acquisition Act using public fund at full market prices giving a small discount for good measure.
Just through such market-value charging for HDB flats alone, HDB has made $14 billions extraordinary profits from the people over a period of some 12 years as at 2002.
As a result, people became over-indebted to their highly inflated HDB mortgages which should not have happened if the leaders have understood the original purpose of the HDB Act which was to provide low-cost housing to the extent of "robbing the rich to build cheap flats for the poor".
The new leaders should have the talents to under such problems as posted in the foregoing and solve them instead of continuing to sweep them such problems under the carpet.
interesting..
let me digest the info a while
Good summing up the existing problems of what Singaporeans are facing. The problems are lying with the government, government needs to review thier policies and give up some of their profits for the sake of Singaporeans.
The Major Challenges for the New PAP Candidates are as follows:
- Know the meaning of the PAP Logo.
- Remember the PAP history.
- Memorise the Mission of PAP.
- Understand the PAP Manifesto.
It was very refreshing to know that most of the new PAP candidates does not even able to explain the meaining of the PAP logo.
This shows the amount of "hard work" and "loyalty".
Please do your homework before you start giving empty promise which is as vague as white smoke.
By the way, please expect the new candidates to achieve anything if the problems have already been existing and un-resolved for the past 40 years.
Just be glad that they can attend the Parliament and Meet the People Session with their heavy work schedule.