Written by Ng E-Jay
12 April 2008
Icebergs partially float on water with the top part jutting out of the water’s surface because ice is around 9% less dense than water. Some icebergs are huge, and only a small fraction of their total volume is visible above water. The rest is submerged beneath the water’s surface, its true destructive force on vessels and ships hidden from plain sight.
This is precisely the situation confronting Singapore. While the government tries to attract an increasing number of foreigners to Singapore, little do the outsiders know that Singapore is on a collision course with a political iceberg whose tip is visible but its enormity is obscured beneath an ocean of propaganda.
Singapore’s productivity has fallen in recent years, and the government has tried to make up for declining birth rates and the brain drain by importing a huge number of foreigners. The growth in Singapore’s GDP has been due to the expansion of the population by foreign talent import rather than through real gains in competitiveness and productivity.
The government has turned our nation into a mere hotel where visitors can come in, milk our jobs, and then move on to greener pastures whenever they decide to. Singapore is no longer a nation for Singaporeans. Singapore males still have to serve National Service, but in return they face hardship and even discrimination at work due to their NS liabilities. Foreigners on the other hand enjoy most of the privileges afforded to citizens, but none of the associated liabilities.
The indiscriminate import of foreign workers has depressed real wages in Singapore for the lower income class, and wages as a whole have not kept pace with inflation. Till today, there is no minimum wage, and cleaners are still earning little more than three to four hundred dollars per month, same as what they earned a decade ago. Octagenerians are seen making their rounds at coffeeshops and hawker centres collecting drink cans or wiping tables. Escalating costs of living due to government policies like the GST hike have only made matters worse.
The PAP government likes to portray Singapore to the world as a shining example of a nation under good governance, with prosperity for all. In reality, only the ruling clique is benefiting from Singapore’s economic growth, with GLCs deeply entrenched in all parts of the economy and minister’s salaries pegged to the highest private sector wages.
Working class Singaporeans are being squeezed till the point of suffocation by rising HDB property prices because HDB flats are only granted a market subsidy rather than a cash subsidy. This is a prime example of the government’s blatant neglect of its own people and profiteering from the most basic survival needs of its own citizens.
As a direct result of Singaporeans’ putting in a large portion of their CPF savings towards their home, many do not have enough to retire on, and the government has to invent schemes like CPF Life in a frail attempt to plug the holes of this sinking retirement ship.
Even in policies like CPF Life, the government carefully designs it to ensure that it will profit from the scheme over the long run no matter how life expectancies or return on investments change. The risks arising from mortality changes or changes in investment gains are entirely borne by Singaporeans, who ultimately still have to depend solely on each other rather than on the government for their retirement funding. That is how callous and mercenary the government has become.
The PAP government however continually uses its own state-sponsored media to obscure these facts with a steady stream of propaganda that has become a mighty ocean of hogwash.
It is high time for activists and politicians to unite and expose the full extent of this political iceberg that if left unchecked will ultimately sink the great ship of our nation’s destiny.