None Are So Blind As Those Who Do Not See

"I wander around the city and wonder where the poor people are," observed Paul Vocker, former chairman of the US Federal Reserve and economic adviser to President Obama, when he was in Singapore to speak at the NUS Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

In Tokyo, the down and out surface in subway stations after the last commuter has departed, and volunteer workers distribute food packets discretely at the doorstep of their cardboard shelters for the night. Come dawn, just before the morning stampede of the office crowd, they neatly pack away their worldly belongings and vanish for the day.

In Singapore the vagrants are swept up by welfare officers driving around Singapore's housing estates, beaches and streets. According to a report in January 2010, there were about 280 patrols last year, up from 160 in 2007. Those picked up from void decks and beaches last year included 17 families, up from just 4 in 2007. Of the total of 253 people nabbed by officers from the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) last year, up from 123 in 2007, 85 per cent were Singaporeans.

Most are dumped at government-run homes for destitutes such as Pelangi Village in Buangkok Green where they get free food, clothes and shelter, but face curbs on their freedom. Think Changi Prison without the criminal tag. About 260 other people, including 43 families, end up in two temporary shelters for the homeless run by New Hope Community Services, a voluntary welfare organisation (VWO). A third shelter, operated by Lakeside Family Service Centre, was set up early this year and is currently housing 12 families.

Some shelter residents were forced to sell their homes because of hard times, they lost their jobs and could not keep up with mortgage payments. About 60 flats are voluntarily surrendered to the HDB every month. "The number of HDB-related cases I see rose significantly after flat prices started to rise," said MP Charles Chong. They have Mah to thank for that.

The shelters house the homeless for only 3 months. After release, about 40 per cent go to live with friends or relatives and about 30 per cent rent a flat from the HDB. The rest probably go back to the streets, to be picked up again, and continue the circle of life for the poor and desperate in Singapore. How could Volcker have missed out on all the action in town? Next time, he should ask MP Lily Neo to show him how the residents in her Jalan Besar ward put up with less than 2 full meals a day.

Workfare Betterer Than Minimum Wage, Really?

At the 31st PAP party conference on Sunday, PM Lee said that "Actually, we have something better than minimum wage, we have Workfare." Actually, hor, it depends on how you define "better".

Started in 2006, the Workfare scheme gives cash and CPF monies to Singaporeans aged 35 and above who earn up to $1,700 monthly - it is a shocking testament that 30 percent of wage earners are subsisting on this amount or less.

Lee used the example of a 65-year old earning $1,000 a month (65, and still has to work to stay alive) who will get the maximum payout of $2,800 a year, of which $800 will be in cash and $2,000 goes into the CPF account. Translated in real world terms, it means only cash of $66.66 a month ($2.19 a day) extra is available for food, transportation and utilities bills. The substantial bulk of the Workfare handout is locked up in CPF, to be used as the "nest egg" for retirement at, presumably 85, as government guided trends go. Far from lying idle, truth be told, quite a bit of the funds have already been burnt in toxic investments by the financial wizards at GIC and the like.

The creation of the Workfare initiative in Singapore is claimed by some to be inspired by the US Bill of welfare reforms designed to encourage economic self-sufficiency. Apparently it was the system developed by the state of Wisconsin that served as a model for Singapore because of its numerous successes in reducing the number of recipients on welfare. There's a key difference of course, Singapore does not have a welfare system to begin with. If you still have a pair of working legs or hands, you can wipe tables or clean toilets up to the ripe old age of 90, for all they care. If you are handicapped, physically or mentally challenged, you don't get to receive the largesse of $2.19 a day at all. Which is hardly enough anyway for three meals a day, at hawker center, food court or restaurant.

Brains Without Balls

Johanna Wokalek stars in "Pope Joan", a movie about an Englishwoman who purportedly disguised herself as a man and rose to become the only female pontiff in history. The Roman Catholic Church is not amused, and maintains she was a mythical figure used by the early Protestant Church to discredit and embarrass Rome.

In the well-documented 1413 heresy trial of Jan Hus, this statement of his was not challenged: "Many times have the Popes fallen into sin and error, for instance when Joan was elected Pope, who was a woman." And there is circumstantial evidence difficult to explain if there was never a female Pope, the so-called chaise percée or Porphyry Chair owned by the Vatican Museum, which has been part of the medieval papal consecration ceremony for almost 600 years. Each newly elected Pope after Joan had to sit on the sella stercoraria (literally, "dung seat"), a special marble chair with a hole in the middle to facilitate examination by physicians to ensure that he was truly a man. Afterward the examiner would solemnly inform the gathered people, "Mas nobis nominus est" -- "Our nominee is a man." Only then was the Pope handed the keys of St. Peter.

Today the ruling party will be huddling together to elect a new Central Executive Committee, using a secretive process styled after the way the Vatican selects a new pope. In 1988, Wong Kan Seng revealed that there were more than 1,000 PAP cadres (the register of cadres is kept confidential). To become a cadre, a party member has to be first nominated by the MP in his or her branch. Cadre members have the right to attend party conferences and to vote for and to be elected to the CEC, the fount of political power and privilege.

Since the whole shebang is so top secret, nobody really knows what goes on behind the closed doors. George Yeo likes to repeat what his brother Jim once told him, that to succeed in life, one needs the 3 B’s. What are the 3 B’s? They are Brains, Balls and Breaks. "Brains without balls doesn’t get you very far," says the Foreign Minister. Makes you wonder if they have their own version of the "sella stercoraria." After all, what self respecting Singaporean wants to be led by an Ah Kua?

When Less Is More

In announcing the greatest bonus payout for the 74,000 civil servants since 1994 (2.5 months plus 1 minimum next year), the Government took pains to highlight that pay adjustments due since last year for ministers and top civil servants will be put on hold again. Before you shed a tear for your altruistic MP, take a look at the chart.

Except for local manufacturing and MNC, all the professionals' median salaries included in the private sector benchmark scheme, some say scam, used to compute ministers' pay have headed south - which makes the "Local Manufacturer" with a double digit net positive jump a suspect statistic. Remember MM Lee's comment about the "pipe dream" that local companies can compete with successful ones in other parts of the world? MNC's, as is well known, always have had out of this world expatriate packages and "hardship allowance" tweaks. If ministerial salaries are indeed indexed against the declining trend, shouldn't they be pointing in the same direction? Since we are told the "planned adjustment" for the ministers have been deferred for the third time, it's a no brainer to conclude that they have been grossly over compensated for the past 3 years and maybe more. For those lower ranked civil servants swooning over their bumper bonus and $300 one-time pay off, read on.

Despite the big sacrifice of foregoing salary adjustment, ministers at the entry level grade of MR4 will take home $1.58 million this year, up from last year's $1.49 million - that's $90,000 extra. Administrative officers at the entry level Superscale Grade of SR9 will get $365,000, up from $338,000 - that's $27,000 extra. Kinda makes the 300 bucks look puny, doesn't it? Note also they quote only the "entry level" numbers, meaning the actual average hike for the top dogs will definitely be more than enough for a pastry cooking lesson in France. Makes you wonder how Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, minister in charge of the civil service paychecks (including his own), will account for the extraneous compensation outlay - classify them as "Other Costs" as inspired by Balakrishnan's creative YOG accounting?

A number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have already told the press that they won't be able to match the Government's generosity for its own rank and file. The Chairman of wallpaper supplier Goodrich Global, not feeling particularly good or rich this year, said he will probably pay his 150 employees a maximum of 2 months bonus. Deputy secretary-general of NTUC Halimah Jacob said workers are paid less during bad times but are rewarded fairly during good times. Fat cats with recession proof payola packages excepted.

About That Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card

Britain's Foreign Office Minister Jeremy Browne must be a very powerful man. All he had to do was "express dismay" after author Alan Shadrake was sentenced by a Singapore court on 16 November to 6 weeks in prison and fined S$20,000 for expressing his personal views on the legal system. “I look forward to constructive discussions when I visit Singapore next month, which I hope will serve to strengthen further the level of engagement and cooperation between our countries,” was his carefully phrased challenge to his diplomatic counterpart to recognise the right to freedom of expression as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Buried somewhere in the diplomatic jargon must be a coded message that caused the foreign affairs ministry and/or judicial officials to soil their underwear. In an unprecedented move, the Attorney General’s Office made an extraordinary application for the court on 23 Nov, to remind Mr Alan Shadrake of his right to seek leave of court if he wants to "exit the jurisdiction". According to Shadrake’s lawyer M Ravi, normally it is the prerogative of defence counsel to explore this escape route for a defendant not domicile in Singapore, and the AG to gleefully and vehemently contest it. Most don't even bother, given the slim chance of success in the kind of judicial system documented in Shadrake's book. Just ask Swiss national Oliver Fricker.

The turn around couldn't be more dramatic. In passing sentence, Justice Loh had pointed out that the law was not concerned with the sensitivities of the judge ”but whether there was risk in public confidence of the independence of the courts being undermined". He even castigated Shadrake’s apology as “nothing more that a tactical ploy in court to obtain a reduced sentence while mounting a different stance elsewhere.” And there was the veiled threat of being investigated by the police for criminal defamation; for which his passport is being held by the police.

Shadrake wrote in his book that the German government applied maximum pressure on Singapore to save Julia Bohl from the gallows, through the clever ploy of issuing a revised laboratory report that said only 281 of the 687 grams of cannabis found in her possession were pure stuff. The 15 grams of heroin that Amara Tochi from Nigeria was hanged for did not benefit from similar laboratory analysis. If Britain is exerting pressure through Browne, public confidence of the independence of the courts will no doubt be undermined. And additional fresh material will be provided for Shadrake's new book.