From: Singapore Inc,
Department of Minister Acquisition,
Istana, Orchard Rd, Singapore 238823
To: Leaders of the Free World
RE: Singapore seeks new Prime Minister
Dear Sir,
Singapore Inc. was formed in the aftermath of the latest spate of ministerial salary increment. Disgruntled Singaporeans, tired of being powerless, got together and the first Annual General Meeting of Singapore Inc. was convened to discuss the various problems plaguing our nation.
Faced with a soaring CPI, our elite team of ministers, who are incidentally the highest paid group of politicians in the world, offered this advice to citizens affected by the slew of price hikes: switch to cheaper products.
We at Singapore Inc., were so impressed with their creativity that we took the advice to heart. Not only that, as responsible citizens, we have voted to carry this advice further and to its logical conclusion: switch to cheaper politicians.
We did our sums and arrived at the conclusion that if we were to replace the current Prime Minister and his cabinet with cheaper but more talented foreign imports, we would save millions for the Treasury in the short term and billions in the long run. Therefore, we at Singapore Inc. appeal to world leaders in both the political and commercial arenas to apply for the post of Prime Minister of Singapore.
Ideally, the incoming Prime Minister should be willing to work long hours for very little money.
Should you accept the post of Prime Minister, we are pleased to offer you the following terms:
- An annual salary of US$800,000 dollars. It may be much lesser than the US$2.05 million paid to our current Prime Minister, but why do you think we are seeking a replacement in the first place? US$800,000 dollars is twice the amount the American president is earning, and not to be sneezed at.
-The position of Prime Minister of Singapore is hereditary, and you can even exercise the option of choosing your successor from either your own family members or close associates.
-Guaranteed return to power at every 'General Election' for the Prime Minister and his party.
-Stock options and a seat on the board of directors in the GIC. The GIC is a Sovereign Wealth Fund established to manage Singapore's foreign reserves which amounts to more than US$100 billion. Unfortunately, we are unable to give you an exact figure at the moment. Please have fun finding out when you become Prime Minister.
-The spouse of the Prime Minister will be offered the post of CEO of Temasek Holdings, the executive arm of the GIC. It currently manages a portfolio of more than *US$100 billion. (*Exact figure unknown)
-A compliant judiciary to offer flexible interpretations of the Constitution and Legislations to suit your every need, such as when you need to sue pesky opposition politicians for defamation.
-Health, dental, life and disability insurance.
Duties and Responsibilities:
-Upon assuming office, the Prime Minister will form the new government. We at Singapore Inc. advise a complete overhaul of the Cabinet. Currently, a Singapore minister earn an annual salary of US$1.32 million. We advise appointing ministers who will be happy with US$360,200. That is much lower than the current pay scale for a Singapore minister but twice the amount a US Cabinet Secretary is earning. With 15 Cabinet ministers (excluding the Senior Minister and Minister Mentor), this exercise to curb the excesses of the cabinet will save the Treasury US$14.4 million a year.
-We at Singapore Inc. advise that the posts of Senior Minister and Minister Mentor are redundant and a waste of taxpayers' money. No other Prime Minister in the world needs to be advised by a Senior Minister and mentored by a Minister Mentor at the same time. Doing away with these redundancies will save the Treasury another US$4 million a year.
-Traditionally, Singapore has a President who is the ceremonial head of State. However, after Ong Teng Cheong's term of office, what little executive power the post of President conferred has been further curtailed. We at Singapore Inc. therefore consider the current salary for the President at US$2.6 million to be an excess and an unnecessary burden on taxpayers. We advise keeping the ceremonial post of President but reducing his salary to US$315,000 which is on par with what the President of Germany is getting.
-If our advice is taken and implemented, that will save the Treasury approximately US$22 million a year. And you will be popular with the people.
We look forward to you joining us.
Singapore Inc.
(For the people. By the people)
*Amendments made to letter:
-Annual salary for US President should be US$400,000. Twice that amount should be US$800,000.
-A Cabinet Secretary is earning US$180,100 per annum at the moment. Twice that amount should be US$360,200.
-Therefore, if our advice is taken and implemented, that will save the Treasury approximately US$22 million a year.
PS: Don't think we are not kicking ourselves over the mistakes, but as that gives us a good excuse to send out the appeal one more time, we are not kicking ourselves too hard.
A list of world leaders and newspapers you can send this appeal to. And in case anyone doesn't get it, it is a fucking satire. Do not expect any replies from the politicians. Do not expect any world leader with an ounce of common sense to actually apply to be Singapore's PM. But this is a damn good way to get their attention, in my opinion.
Obviously, there isn't a Department of Minister Acquisition at the Istana. This is just my way of protesting against the obscene ministerial salaries and the lack of People Power in Singapore.
The Office of Tony Blair
P.O. Box 60519
London
W2 7JU
United Kingdom
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/public/default_en.htm
www.europarl.europa.eu is the website for EU Parliament. You can send them messages through the link provided above.
Cabinet Office
70 Whitehall
London SW1A 2ASTel: 020 7276 3000
Website: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Ministerial e-mail: [email protected]
Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Tel:020 7219 6345
Fax:020 7219 5734
[email protected]
The Hon Kevin Rudd MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600
http://www.pm.gov.au/contact/index.cfm
[email protected]
Clinton Global Initiative
1301 Avenue of the Americas
37th Floor
New York, NY 10019-6022
Tel: +1.212.397.2255
Fax: +1.212.397.2256
[email protected]
www.clintonglobalinitiative.org
The Carter Center
One Copenhill
453 Freedom Parkway
Atlanta, GA 30307
(404) 420-5100 or (800) 550-3560
[email protected]
WORLD POLICY INSTITUTE
220 Fifth Avenue, 9th floor
New York, NY 10001
Telephone: 212.481.5005
Fax: 212.481.5009
For inquiries about the World Policy Institute and its programs:
Email: [email protected]
Tel: (212) 481-5005 ext. 1
The Foreign Press
New York Post
mailto:[email protected]
San Francisco Examiner
mailto:[email protected]
Washington DC Examiner
mailto:[email protected]
The Independent
mailto:[email protected]
The Times
mailto:[email protected]
The Sun
mailto:[email protected]
The Age
mailto:[email protected]
The Sydney Morning Herald
mailto:[email protected]
South China Morning Post
mailto:[email protected]
Singa Crew,
In the same way as government is opening the door to foreign talents for workers, like cleaners, masseurs and others, there is no reason why foreign political talents like Howard, Tony Blair, Rudd, Clinton who have greater talents than our ministers cannot do a better job in governing our country in the next lap.
After all our MOM, MOT, MTI, and MHA have failed to solve our long-standing economic restructuring, manpower and transport problems.
To ensure their loyalty, we could introduce certain residential or other conditions. They should be offered about US$400,000.00 pa (without life pension or bonus so as not to spoil the market) and I am sure they will not compare with other CEOs' salaries because they have the higher intelligence to realise that each vocation is different and there should be no such comparison in the first place.
With such foreign talents becoming our ministers we could save a lot of tax monies for citizens who then could begin to work harder and save from lowering costs of living to prepare a better life and enjoy better retirement at the same time.
We can be sure that they are more mature too and more open to criticisms and are more accountable, so our people will integrate better with them because of such leadership quality and greatly support and unite behind them and not be color conscious.
Without such foreign talents to lead us we will continue to go downward in our economy as seen in deep recessions every few years due to lack of substance and fundamentals or motivations of the people.
Will you please forward a copy of this welcome letter to the press overseas as you have my support to invite these foreign talents to be our leaders.
And I found this link too...
The UK Office for the European Parliament
European Parliament
2 Queen Anne's Gate
London SW1H 9AA
Director: Dermot Scott
Tel: 020 7227 4300
Fax: 020 7227 4302
Fax: 020 7227 4301 (Library)
Fax: 020 7227 4327 (Press)
Email: [email protected]
Heya Robert Teh,
I have already finished mailing everyone - the politicians and foreign press. That went well despite the amount of emails I have to send out. Thanks to cut 'n' paste technology. :)
By the way, good letter you wrote there. Perhaps you would like to email the foreign media yourself? Because it would look better if more than one Singaporean send out the appeal.
The millions saved every year could go toward helping the poorest in our society. And there are just so many uses I could think of! For example, the public libraries in Singapore require users to pay to use their computers. Public libraries in other countries, also funded by taxpayers, provide such services for free. Maybe the libraries here are not getting enough funding? Well, they can apply for more funding if we can save the US$21 million a year! :)
Crew
Heya Robert!
Just made amendments to my original post. Check it out again.
A helpful poster in another forum informed me the figures for the presidential salary and cabinet secretary salary are not up to date.
So the 'offer' for a new PM is now at US$800,000.
Still much lower than what our Dragon Prince is earning, so the impression I was trying to make with my letter has not changed in any way.
I don't know if you have posted this elsewhere or sent it to anyone, but if you did, maybe you would like to make the corrections?
Crew
Dear Honorary Mr. Tony Blair....
On behalf of many forumers of sgforums.com, I wish to express my admirations of your many talents and leadership in governing your country. You have been able to stand up despite all odds for democracy and freedoms of your citizens in the governing of your country giving citizens every opportunity to take part in processes of government through free speeches, unbridled expressions of views and opinions and much more.
Through such free and unbridled participations by fellow citizens in expressing their views and opinions of government actions and policies, your leadership is another milestone in the progress of mankind.
Even though in a mature democracy you have to handle many responsibilities like making collective decision conducting governance with accountability and transparency to the parliament and MPs and citizens, you have never backed down from such duties and rsponsibilities.
At the end you have succeeded in establishing a government which is elected by democratic process capable of bringing about the greatest good of the greatest number. This is democracy which is admired by countries all over the world.
Singapore is a young democracy set up somewhat along the line of the Westminster style of parliamentary democracy. However owing to selfishness and self-centredness of our politicians the Westminster democracy was not being followed strictly. It is merely being used to give a certain legitimacy for elected leaders to govern with ceaseless and unbridled power with election merely used as facade to give our politicians power without correspondence check and balances played by other equally important branches of governing the country the refereeing by judiciary and independent legislature of MPs elected to serve the people and question the doings of the executive in charge of administration of government.
The main reason why we feel we should publicly and openly invite foreign talents like yourself is firstly our current crop of political leaders simply do not have the qualities or prerequisites to govern the country with freedoms of expressions and other rights of participations in checking on wrongfulness by the governing elites.
Our leaders have largely through years of tweaking the democracy machinery usurped the total power of other equally important institutions of democracy with the judiciary and legislature totally taken over by the executive.
With the tweaking of the democratic institutions going on for years today we are only a democracy in name and citizens have lost their right of free election due to changing of the one-man-one-vote election process by requiring candidates standing for election as MPs using some excuse like racial harmony to find other candidates in threes or fours, fives or sixes depending on configuration of election boundaries to stand in blocks called GRC (Greater Representation Constituency) thereby depriving citizens of their rights to vote or stand for election in single wards allowing free and unimpeded choice based on good quality of the best individuals available to the population.
As a result today as you might have heard often in the news today many people are unable to stand for election and people are no longer free to vote for their own best candidates of MPs to be their leaders.
In every election, most of the wards became uncontested and politicians from the oppositions are facing law suits for speaking frank opinions or criticising the government in the course of election.
The problems caused is such that economy is being run down with little or no prospect of growth except by sheer autocratic rule disregarding problems faced by the people.
Lately for the past few years the government has even gone to the extent of importing citizens because many of our true talents have been forced to migrate to other countries due to oppressive policies at home as mentioned in the foregoing. Most jobs are now open to foreigners without any check of qualifications or availability of labor among the citizens. Jobs including cleaners, masseurs, clerks, engineers, lawyers, doctors, professionals and others,are open to applications without restraints by foreigners who often are not even qualified.
Therefore we the citizens found that this kind of government is becoming more and more selfish and only protecting their own self-interests.
We are of the opinion that if that is the case we might jolly well invites foreign talents as well to take over our government jobs. We feel that people like Howard, Tony Blair, Rudd, Clinton and many more have greater talents to do a better job in governing our country in the next lap.
After all our MOM, MOT, MTI, and MHA could not even solve simple problems from the long-awaited economic restructuring, to creating jobs for local citizens and proper use of citizens' surpluses to benefit their job creations and lowering of the perpetual rising costs of living.
To ensure their loyalty, we could introduce certain simple conditions. The job of PM is available to talents like yourself at between US$400,000.00 pa and US$800,000.00 pa and we are sure you will not compare such salaries with other CEOs' salaries because they are of different vocation and there should be no such comparison in the first place unlike our own political leaders who use such ploy in order to take higher salaries by the millions by sheer legalistic use of their political power.
With such foreign talents joining us of your calibre we are sure we the citizens not only will have greater talents to govern us we could save a lot of tax monies for citizens who then could begin to work harder and save from lowering costs of living to prepare a better life and enjoy better retirement at the same time.
We can be sure that they are more mature too and more open to criticisms and are more accountable, so our people will integrate better with them because of such leadership quality and greatly support and unite behind them and not be color conscious.
We hope you could reply to this invitation by sending your application or expression of interest to our President for such ministerial jobs before 2010 the next election which no doubt will have the full understanding of the citizens (we the forumers will no doubt ask for appropriate motion to be put through parliament in the next sitting to approve such appointment)
For the same reason as the government is opening its door to foreign engineers and professionals to join us, we feel it is perfectly legitimate and lawful too to invite foreign talents to be our leaders subject to appropriate safeguards as mentioned.
Yours faithfully
Robert Teh
A Singapore Citizen
I'm a victim of grave abuses from people in power in Singapore with access to telepathic person(s). They have friends here too. All abuses are to convince people I'm mentally ill to cover their grave evil. Telepathy is not a far off fiction. It's a fact. I've realized I'm fighting a 10 year old.
That is leadership in Singapore. Bad influence for the region. Bad. Real bad. The only good thing is the facade.
only time will tell. and its telling.
TS really gave me a tickle on my stomach :D...
Hello there Mr Robert Teh,
I posted my spoof article to various forums based around the world and have generated some interest. On a British politics forum, someone wish to know more about our electoral system, so I will post that Tony Blair letter of yours there. You explain it better than I do.
Also, since it is mainly a British politics forum, it will generate some interest I think.
Check it out here: http://www.politicsforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=552109#552109
Oh if you do not wish it to be there, let me know. I assume you wouldn't mind because you did ask me to send out your welcome letter on your behalf.
Crew
Crew,
Thanks for posting my invitation letters to world leaders like Tony Blairs and Clinton at various forums.
As stated in my post, we are a young democracy which has not yet matured and experienced the substantive goodness of true democracy. For over 40 years our democracy is merely a facade to legitimise the self-centred agendas of the power that be that happened to take control of the machinery of democracy to serve their own purposes.
Our democratic institutions the judiciary and legislative are no longer functional and are being compromised being usurped totally by the self-serving power that be. MPs and judiciary alike are merely playing second fiddles to the executive and over time with the accumulation of power come self-interests and abuses of power as seen in NKF, Shin Corp and persecutions of citizens with defamation suits for participating in the political process.
It is so ridiculous that Westminster democracy is used as a facade to allow power that be to use it to serve their own private gains. Even the one-man-one-vote election process has been tampered to become a block representation with candidates being prevented to stand for election unless he is able to find similarly minded candidates to join in the group representation constituencies.
Citizens however are growing restless and listless with such hypocrisy as days go by. Every slightest mistakes made by our so-called world's best ministers paid millions become targets of mass unhappiness. No one can blame the citizens for being uncooperative and critical of the government especially over the non-stop taxing and holding back spending of taxing with all kinds of schemes to hoard monies for government's own surpluses which at the end at lost in billions all over the world on dubious projects for their own glory and self-praise.
However the citizens are getting more educated and many are working in various parts of the world due to sluggist domestic sector of the economy. The citizens with greater education, travels and overseas exposures and living experiences can now see all the flaws of our present political system and it is a matter of time they will rise up en mass to demand change.
Although our leaders now claim success for economic rebound the current rosy GDP and property market recovery is merely a blip due to world recovery while the basic problems remain. The economy is hollow without remaking or restructuring of the desired value-adding upgrading and technology driven start-ups needed to catch up with rising China, India and Korea etc.
Because of failures in economic restructuring talked about for years government has basically been unable to turn around its own domestic sector. The blunt of such failure fall heavily on the new graduates with those reaching 40s unable to find jobs. Many are resorting to migration because of our own sluggist domestic economy.
Such failure has forced the government to open the employment doors to all kinds of foreigners to come in to take citizens' jobs in order to rescue the falling economy.
Under such circumstance, citizens will have to think for themselves and safeguard their own future. There is no reason why they cannot also invite capable foreigners like the Rudd, Howard, Clinton, Blair to come in to take over our leaders' jobs which in any case are over-paid and badly performed.
Everything is so fake. For real progress of our little red dot citizens now have to bear the responsibilities to look after their own interest to prevent any more such hypocrisy seen in the daily press and media. Everything being put up in parliament is only for show to cover up real problems. It is appeasement exercise now because of too many unhappiness with rising costs due to fundamental flaws in policies etc.
Just look at the way Minister Ng Eng Hen is still despite all the unhappiness of the citizens trying again and again to justify his open-door employment policies without consideration for the citizens' interests and needs. There will be no change and everything being done will be for show and appeasement with no real change.
Citizens will have to work very hard to get together through forums and discussions to cause change by staying cohesive and united. Only then will the government be willing to make amends and change.
You have my consent to post this at our forums where it matters.
Singapore needs change, I hope someone can form a strong party and take over from the PAP.
I am getting very impatient with the same old drivel from the PAP.
Singapore needs change.