Oscar Worthy Material

Ben Affleck's "Argo" is definitely more dramatic and entertaining than CIA operative Tony Mendez's true account in his book "The Master of Disguise", one good reason why it beat "Lincoln" as Best Picture in the Oscar Awards.

The movie "Lincoln" centers on President Abraham Lincoln's efforts to obtain passage for the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which would formally abolish slavery in the country.

When Confederate envoys sailed to meet with Lincoln to negotiate a peace that leaves slavery intact, he instructs them to be kept out of Washington as the amendment approaches a vote on the House floor. At the critical moment, a rumor circulates that there are Confederate representatives in Washington ready to discuss peace, prompting both Democrats and conservative Republicans to advocate postponing the vote on the amendment.

Lincoln explicitly denied that such envoys are in or will be in the city. His note as read out to the House: "So far as I know, there are no peace commissioners in the city." Technically it was a truthful statement, since he had ordered them to be kept away, and the vote proceeds, narrowly passing by a margin of two votes. What Lincoln did was an impeachable offence.

Maybe it was just typical Hollywood to juice up the truth, but it reminds one of the wayang at play in Chan Sek Keong's infamous ruling of 1997. Specifically, about Goh Chok Tong and his lawless lot not breaching any election law by being inside the Cheng San polling station but not within 200 meters of it. As they say, truth is stranger than fiction.

The latest blockbuster in town is about AIM not bidding for the PAP town council IT tender. Chairman Chandra Das says his $2 company is not participating because "AIM had helped prepared the tender documents." Why would an on-going commercial entity intentionally write a document that will exclude it from a bona fide business opportunity? If Ben Affleck makes a movie out of this escapade, you bet he will win that Best Director award. No artistic licence required, the intrigue is all for real.

Lessons From Dubai

To further curb hiring of unskilled foreigners, the $650 levy for every worker beyond the approved number for a building project has been upped to $950. Has Armageddon been averted? Or are the pruning measures too late in the implementation?

In "Dubai, The Story of the World's Fastest City" author Jim Krane writes that 95% of Dubaians are foreigners, and there were only about 100,000 citizens among the city's 2 million inhabitants in 2009. But swarming immigration extends beyond Dubai, and has left Emrati citizens a minority in every one of the United Arab Emirates' seven emirates (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman,Umm Al-Quwain, Fujairah and Ras Al-Khaimah). The million or so UAE citizens make up about 15% of the country's total population of around 6 million. In the UAE, citizenship is guarded "like a vault of nuclear fuel rods". Residents who never took nationality after 1971 have no citizenship at all. That's one way to maintain the nationality core.

When the Sharjah Radio host Mohammed Khalaf dedicated a week of his daily talk show on the touchy subject in May 2008, the responses echo the sentiments of our own citizenry.  Khalaf started by asking his guest, UAE university professor Ebtisam al-Kitbi, whether she thought Emratis might disappear:
"It is reality. Today we face an invasion of millions of people coming to us from abroad to stay. They have no intention of leaving this country. As  result, our existence is threatened."

Al-Kitbi dismissed callers who suggested she was exaggerating:
"Today the locals can't find plots of land to build their houses, while you are selling entire areas to foreigners. The person responsible for this should be punished. No matter how high-ranking they are, these people should be punished."

Another guest, president of the Arab Family Organisation Jamal al-Bah, "totally agreed":
"We have too many foreigners competing with us for work, education, even marriage. Our girls are finding it difficult to get married because of the expatriate girls. We are like a ship lost at sea. ...We need to do something before it's too late."

Khalaf took a call from an agitated Emrati man. "You are pouring salt into our wounds.  You're making us cry. I am telling you that if this situation does not change, I will leave the country in the next three years and I vow never to return." The caller starts weeping and hangs up. (page 260)

Powerful stuff.  If our mainstream media were not so thoroughly emasculated, that would be the true tone of the national conversation.

The Appeasement Budget

It's no fun being Finance Minister when the Budget is being presented. Rich or poor, everybody has a gripe to justify taking pot shots at Tharman Shanmugaratnam.

The folks who gathered at Hong Lim Park made their views felt about the foreign hordes, but the businessmen will be casting the first stones. Overall, foreign workers now account for nearly 34 per cent of Singapore's total workforce. The cold turkey treatment will be rolled out to trim this presence.

In the construction and process sector, levies will be raised by $150 between July 2013 and July 2015. A higher levy of $300 will be imposed on workers hired outside a firm's Man-Year Entitlement (MYE). For the services sector, the overall Dependency Ratio Ceiling (DRC - maximum permitted ratio of foreign workers to the total workforce that a company is allowed to hire) will be cut from 45 per cent to 40 per cent.

For the lot whose salaries were depressed by them, the government will co-fund 40 per cent of wage increases for Singaporean workers earning up to a gross monthly wage of $4,000. To soothe the companies' ire, cash bonuses of up to $15,000 are available for investment in productivity. But the rich bosses will have more to moan about the higher property taxes and ARF hikes for their super duper cars.

The poor guys, as usual, are offered crumbs to soothe their pains. Another one time GST voucher to offset the on going regressive tax. The Government is planning to rake in $9.3 billion in 2013, more than the $8.8 billion collected in GST last year. Lower than corporate taxes ($12.9 bn), but more then personal income taxes ($7.6 bn). Retired, no fixed income? You die, your problem. The Government line, "a greater sense of security in their retirement years", is just another cruel joke.

Oh, Tharman said he personally topped up the Medifund capital sum by $1 billion. Thanks to Health Minister Gan Kim Yong's candour, we now know only the interest earned from this will be available for disbursement. The rest is reserved for god knows what.

But you can bet the $12.3 bn earmarked for Defence will be fully expended. We are not talking about free netbooks or iPads for NSmen during BMT, those folks are eyeing top of the range military toys like the controversial F-35 fighter jet (currently grounded after an engine crack was found). For all the talk about strengthening the Singapore core, Education is allotted only $11.6 bn, second largest slice of the $53.4 bn Budget 2013 pie. The three school-level initiatives (Early Childhood Development Agency, Opportunity Fund, Edusave Endowment Fund top up) will cost an additional S$120 million a year. The price tag of one F-35 is estimated at US$160 million.

Vaunted as "A Budget for Quality Growth", one suspects only the unhappiness index will be growing. Watch out for a reprise of Goh Chok Tong's "net happiness" argument.

Peace Of Mind

Vowing that no Singaporeans will be denied health care because they cannot afford it, Health Minister Gan Kim Yong claims the Government will ensure there is enough money to help the needy, especially the elderly. The devil, as usual, is in the details.

Gan revealed that the Medifund's capital sum now stands at a humongous $3 billion. The actual money paid out for health care, he explained, is the income from the interest earned on this capital sum. Since we are not told how the interest is generated, it is quite safe to assume some "investment experts" are using the capital sum for monopoly money.

Medifund received $82.4 million in the last financial year, in all likelihood earned largely from taxes contributed by you and me. We are told $90.8 million was given out to patients in health care institutions, due to the 519,380 applications approved by the health authorities. We are not told how many applicants were rejected, and told to get out of their elite, uncaring faces. The really big question is why $3 billion less $90.8 million is kept aside from people who need it most. That's not all. For past two decades, Medifund has always has kept aside more money than the amount it has disbursed to health bodies - collect more, give less. Before a general election, all surplus creamed off is added to the accumulating capital sum, locked away and well beyond touch of the needy folk.

Medifund was supposed to be a financial safety net to help Singaporeans in genuine need. In theory, those who still face difficulties with hospital expenses, even after Government subsidies, Medisave and MediShield, can approach a medical social worker to help them apply for Medifund. In practice, the procedure can be quite daunting. Take Medisave for an example.

An elderly relative recently asked for assistance to apply for use of his Medisave for his monthly check up and medication at an IMH clinic. Thanks to the language barrier, the dialect speaking senior had postponed the hassle of the request for several years. The retiree had been paying for the medicals out of cash, which was swiftly depleted thanks to rising cost of living and the regressive GST. Surprised it wasn't done earlier, the doctor we presented the case to gave her approval without hesitation, as it was well within guidelines.

The next surprise was at the payment counter, when he was asked which "package" to opt for. For instance, to use Medisave for payments totalling up to $400 a year, he has to first pay out-of-pocket $101 (so-called "Package Value" $501). No ready cash, no access to Medisave. We dipped into our wallets and helped him out. After all, he was there because his cash reserve was low in the first place.

Meanwhile somebody is sitting pretty on $3 billion of cash reserves. Gan said, "We will continue to do more to provide the elderly with added peace of mind when it comes to health-care services". We weren't feeling too peaceful when leaving the clinic, our brains racked with all the permutations that the needy and elderly have been, and continue to be, short changed.

Quickie Solutions

It has to be the answer to the AIMgate nightmare.

The government tender which closes on March 4, inviting applicants to install a "fully operational integrated town council management system with operation support and maintenance", will effectively replace the shady Action Information Management (AIM) deal. All questions about Chandra Das' $2 company and how much money was actually spent on the software development will be swept under the carpet, now the subject will be deemed water under the bridge. The Ministry of National Development (MND) team probably won't have to complete the full review ordered by Lee Hsien Loong. How can one review something that no longer exists?

More important, co-ordinating chairman of the 14 PAP-run town councils Teo Ho Pin will be off the hook. The danger of another by-election has been obviated. Brilliant!

To make sure the package is water-tight, as confirmed by Teo, AIM prepared the actual tender specifications.  They must have learned from the NParks exercise that the correctly worded  documentation will ensure the desired product will be delivered. Teo would not reveal how many interested parties picked up the tender documents, and whether AIM will be audacious enough to repeat another dubious undertaking.

The other quickie solution to another nightmare was Li Ye Ming's resignation of his vice chairman post at the Singapore Federation of Chinese Clan Associations. Federation chairman Tan Thian Poh should be relieved, but strangely, he said the research and publications committee is "looking into Li's resignation". Don't look too hard, or you might stumble across his online promise to "raise an army to flatten Singapore".

That kind of vitriolic borders on the seditious, a thousand times worse than inciting xenophobia. Li is now free to disappear into the anonymous swell of the fifth column, only to surface at strategic moments of the National Conversation. 

PM Lee pointed him out as an "old migrant"