Getting Worked Up Over Numbers

The headlines trumpeted in bold print that a record $29.9 billion in taxes were collected in Year of Assessment 2009/2010. Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore boasted that this was due to the shorter than expected economic downturn and a surprising buoyant property market (no thanks to Mah Bow Tan's personal mission to edge up property prices). Examining the data in the appendix, it appears IRAS collected 0.2 percent more than the $29.8 billion figure in 2009. And the amount of taxes collected the year before in 2008 was $29.1 billion, a difference of 2.3%, representing a ten-fold increase in FY2008/2009. So why all the excitement about this year's takings?

Corporate tax collection was down by about $1 billion, thanks to a tax rate reduction from 18% to 17%. But individual tax-payers paid "an all-time high" of $6.1 billion in income taxes. Here some tax experts say that the record individual income taxes collected was attributable to the addition of more than 81,000 new individual  taxpayers. So is this the heralded justification for jetting in plane loads of foreigners (including the so-called 1,305,000 "transients")?

Look at the numbers in the IRAS Annual Report 2009/2010 again. Residents paid $5.9 billion of individual income taxes, non-residents paid only $0.09 billion. Does it seem like one group is subsidising the other group in terms of housing, transport, education and other social amenities?

Without elaborating on how the process would work, Goh Chok Tong talked of his grand plan to approach the 500,000 PRs to become Singapore citizens, instead of taking up the suggestion of his Marine Parade resident that Employment Pass holders should take up citizenship. And as if to confirm his absolute disconnect with the ground, Goh is considering "a zero vehicular traffic growth" even as foreign talent Khoo Peng Beng (of Pinnacle@Duxton fame) outlined the horror of squeezing 6.5 million people on 710 sq km. Khoo's own words, "when you invent a design for living, you might also be inventing a series of other problems in life." That sums it up, their grand design, our myriad problems.

Political Leader Commenting On Political Leaders

It is open secret that scrunched up pages of The Straits Times make excellent material for cleaning windows. The ink in the newsprint does a better job of wiping glass surfaces than a commercial product like Windex. But for decent reading material, pick up  a copy of Time, Newsweek or the Economist instead.

The September 13 issue of Time has an exclusive essay adapted from Tony Blair's memoir "A Journey". In it the former Prime Minister of Britain reflects on the political leaders he had met, and some he wished he hadn't.  Leaders come in all shapes and sizes, he wrote. "I recall sitting across the table from some leaders, unable to think of anything other than: my God, the poor people of that country. You get the dumb; the cynical; the tedious; the mildly unsuitable; the weird; the products of systems so mad and dysfunctional, you find yourself marveling that the leader is sentient, let alone capable. And frankly some weren't sentient. I remember asking rather unkindly when told of one leader's death, 'How could they tell?' "

Some of the adjectives used might come to mind, when one ponders Goh Chok Tong's recent statement that crowded trains, inadequate car parks and housing shortages are "problems created by our own success". Is he telling us that these products of policy making, like the calibrated intake of foreigners, are typical of the government's benchmark of success? And for which the bureaucrats are awarded performance bonuses? Is the Minister's pay rise also indexed to ballooning HDB prices?  While he's at it, why didn't he include the island wide instances of  flooding? To understand his twisted mind, you have to appreciate that this is the same guy who said in 2006, “Retrenchment is good for Singapore. If there is no retrenchment, then I worry.”

But he's not the only "product of systems so mad and dysfunctional"; just think of the clown who overspent $400 million (probably trying to outdo Mah Bow Tan spending $400,000 to come up with a new name for Marina Bay). Informed by MP Lily Tan that some poor residents couldn't afford 3 full meals a day, Balakrishnan rankled everyone within earshot with, "How much do you want? Do you want three meals in a hawker centre, food court or restaurant?"

When Mr Blair does have negative things to say of people like Gordon Brown, he can be pretty blunt with assessments like, “Political calculation, yes. Political feelings, no. Analytical intelligence, absolutely. Emotional intelligence, zero.” For the Men in White, even analytical intelligence is now suspect.

Preparing For The Finals

In June, the Sunday Times reported that Saw Phaik Hwa, the highest-grossing chief executive that public transport operator SMRT Corp has ever employed, dismissed complaints of overcrowded trains by claiming that “people can board the trains — it is whether they choose to.” That gutsy statement give credence to the net story in circulation that she had originally resigned from DFS to return home to Malaysia, but was persuaded to stay and take on the MRT job by Daughter-In-Law herself. Even Transport Minister Raymond Lim lacks the cojones to be that affront.

With the commuters' threshhold of pain reaching breaking point, it was no surprise that LTA suddenly discovered that 22 new trains could be added to the woefully inadequate train system. Just like that, no mention of fare hikes required, no threat of GST increase hinted. Yesterday, LTA laid out an impressive four-stage process to ease overcrowding on trains. They even confirmed the bottleneck problem at Jurong East, where an approaching train has to wait for the preceding one to leave before it can pull in. That's a design problem any commuter can recognise, DFS salesgirls excepted.

And only days earlier, HDB announced an unprecedented surge in supply of new housing board flats. On Monday, HDB said 16,000 new flats will be up for grabs this year, and up to 22,000 next. It will also release more land for 8,000 executive condomiums (EC) and 7,000 Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS) housing projects. Considering that the HDB had been studiously keeping its annual building rate under 6,000 units per year, this has to be the boom of a boom-and-bust cycle, or is it vice-versa? In an interview on “Talking Point” on March 14, Mah Bow Tan had said, “We make sure we don’t overbuild because once you overbuild, you’ll make flat prices in future go down, and that’s not what we want." The Minister is not one who feels abashed about his priority of profit over the social obligation of providing shelter from the elements. So why the big U-turn?

Those who have been sleeping in class or skipping tutorials for quite a spell recognise the infuse of cold sweat when final exams are round the corner. But he big boys have more to lose than an "O" or "A" level certificate. Besides the million dollar paycheck, at stake is the round the clock Gurkha sentinel, use of the VVIP lounge at Changi airport and rapturous adulation of a sychophantic grassroots following. Just ask Yeo Cheow Tong or any ex-minister who had to adjust from life at Mount Olympus. Greek mythology has it that the Gods feed on the prayers of men for their immortality. Take that away, and watch the titans fall.

Prophets In Our Midst

Warren Fernandez was News Editor of The Straits Times when he penned "Thinking Allowed?", a compilation of his columns written over the years. Fernandez also served on several public committees like Remaking Singapore Committee, Singapore 21 Commitee and Cost Review Committee.

His essay dated 20 July 2002 recalled that in 1996, the Cost Review Committee (CRC), of which he was a member, pointed in its report to trends which
"raised serious questions for Singaporeans to ponder: Just what was the role of the government in providiing public housing? Was the Housing Board in danger of being moved, by rising public expectations, beyond its intended role?"

The man at the helm of the CRC, we are told, was Lim Boon Heng, Minister of State Without Portfolio. Even Lim had wondered aloud if Singaporeans were not over-investing in housing, incurring huge interest payments to service the mortgage obligations, at the expense of financial needs for the retirement years.

Actually the nightmare scenario was highlighted earlier in the report of the Howe Yoon Chong Committee On The Aged in 1984. Confronted by public uproar, the government of the day dropped it's recommendations. Then Second Deputy Prime Minister S Rajaratnam lamented, "It would be easier for the present government to ignore this problem and keep you living in a fool's paradise. But it would be cowardly for the government to do this because the prices of our cowardice will have to be paid for by Singaporeans now under 40 and the succeeding waiting in the wings to be born." Prophetic words indeed.

Well, it looks like the cowardly option was chosen and Singaporeans were seduced by "asset enchancement" and other political ploys along the way. The day of reckoning has come, and that nest egg is as good as Humpty Dumpty after the fall. And judging by the reactions to latest measures to "stabilise the booming property market", both speculators and genuine upgraders are being burned (metaphorically! metaphorically!) by half baked policy making.

Fernandez's concluding entry (page 249) for his 2004 book is aptly entitled, "Is Singapore Finished?" He wrote, "When politicians, who once pledged 'more good years', start telling voters that perhaps they might be better off chasing other, non-material, dreams, you know that times must really be tough." Jeez, this guy is downright prophetic, and how did he know the national day theme for 2010 is about dreams?

Read Their Lips

"With this latest release, many Singaporeans would say, 'I told you so', since we've been seeing crowded trains and higher property prices." (Singapore Management University lecturer Eugene Tan, ST 1 Sep 2010).

Last Sunday Prime Minister Lee told the nation, there's an "important distinction between foreign workers and immigrants (PRs and citizens) - foreign workers are transients." That's the lie right there. Okay, maybe we should cut him some slack, someone from ICA lied to him, and he simply repeated the falsehood without an appreciation of the details. After all, this is the same smuck who doesn't know mee siam is not served with cockles.

Any kid in primary school, and he does not have to be from the gifted stream, can tell you that foreigners physically displace Singaporeans from living spaces, MRT seats, job vacancies and limited places in schools, polytechnics and universities. And the foreigner can be staying in Singapore from 1 to 15 years. Heck, there are foreigners who have been squatting for 20 years or more, never taking up PR or citizenship, and for those who left the United Kingdom, could even be drawing a pension from Her Majesty's service.

The 1 out of 3 strange faces you see everyday? It's not in your worst nightmare, or the layers of dreams in the film "Inception", it's the cruel reality of today's Singapore.

Lee praised to the skies the "foreign talents" who were credited with the Pinnacle@Duxton, a classic ostentatious monolith of what affordable public housing should not be. At least Lim Kim San understood that the poor needed a basic roof over their heads, a step up from what the man he came across in Chinatown had, who was sharing a pair of pants with his room mate. Once upon a time, there was the HDB flat for the economically challenged, and there was the private sector housing for the privileged. HUDC was there to bridge the gap for those in the sandwiched class of the middle income, especially dinks (double income no kids). A young couple, collecting their first paycheck, after piously repaying their parents for the CPF that went into their university fees, hardly needs the rude shock of an installment schedule for a 30 year mortage. Hardly the incentive to contemplate starting a family of their own. Think kindergarten fees, private tution and the astronomical sums required for their own kid's tertiary education. No wonder the birthrate is stagnating.

All the new measures to "reduce speculation and short-term investment" simply confirm that the humble HDB flat is no longer the accommodation of necessity for the masses, but another poker chip in the casino of Singapore Inc. Entry fee is substantially higher than $100, it's two full years of national service, currently valued at $9K. In case you have any doubt about National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan's sincerity to solve the long term housing problems, read his lips: "If you ask me whether it has got anything to do with the elections, the answer is yes. Everything has to do with the elections."