07
May
Final thoughts on General Elections 2011
Since the post-independence days, the PAP government has led Singapore through its growing years, seeing the country not just through our industrialisation, and also our subsequent climb through the economic value chain. In the 80s and 90s, the same PAP government identified the services and tourism as a potential growth area for the economy, and sought to attract MNCs to set-up regional HQs in Singapore. In the late 1990s, the economic planners identified the Internet as a disruptive force in the status quo: The connectivity offered is simply too irresistible. It marked the start of cheap, outsourcing capability for companies, and enabling corporations to widen their outreach globally — in what we know as “globalisation”.
Throughout it all, the PAP government has been instrumental in attracting economic growth to our country, and the subsequent rise in the standard of living is something that no critic of the party can readily ignore. In the mid 2000s, the Goh Chok Tong administration decided that Singapore was lacking sufficient local human capital to continue attracting foreign companies to set up bases in Singapore. The rise of China and India has led to the birth of a vastly cheap, and talented labour force in those countries. It was too hard for companies motivated by the pursuit of low-cost margins and high profits to resist. The outsourcing began, and much of the work that used to be done in Singapore started to be outsourced to other countries.
To deal with this disruptive force, the PAP administration decided to compete on the basis of low-cost, rapidly absorbing foreigners into Singapore, probably in the hope that the domain knowledge held by these professionals would rub off and be propagated locally. This policy is quite obvious in our local sports scene. Table-tennis, badminton national teams comprise of foreign nationals imported to play for Singapore. It is an uncomfortable thought for many Singaporeans to deal with: don’t we have local talents? Why are we inviting foreigners to play under our banner, when we can nurture our own players?
In terms of attracting companies to stay in Singapore, I would argue that pursuing a low-cost objective, as what our current rate of intake foreigners suggests, is unsustainable in the long run. Let’s face it: the trend of outsourcing services is set to continue for the forseeable future, with the improved education standards in growing economies, we would still be losing out in terms of competitiveness. In addition, the risk of depressing wages creates a huge disparity in the country across income classes. We can still achieve relatively modest growth numbers, but the inflationary pressure of such high growth, yet low salaries is something that is not beneficial to Singaporeans. Furthermore, much of the GDP growth we have achieved through this low-cost objective has increased the spending power of the wealthiest segments of the country, but also resulted in much of the country lagging in economic progress.
Of course, this is not an easy problem to solve. However, the least I would want is a government that is emphatic to the difficult living conditions for the poorest segments of the population. It is at this that most PAP politicians have trouble with. While GDP is an important measure on the impact that government policies have helped to grow the economy, the policy of tying ministerial salaries to GDP growth causes politicians to lose sight of the people that growing the economy is supposed to do. I appreciate the need to keep key politicians honest and uncorrupt, but the same high salaries does make it tough for the same politicians to empathise with the disadvantaged in Singapore.
I am talking about the destitute segment of the population: the group of people who cannot work or earn insufficient salaries to support themselves and their families. Anecdotal evidence from Parliament sessions recorded of skirmishes between the PAP’s Dr Lily Neo, and the Minister for Community, Youth and Sports (Dr Vivian Balakrishnan) bear this out. Despite the good Dr Neo’s efforts to raise government assistance to this group, Dr Vivian has resisted raising the assistance sum for the destitute. With a Parliament dominated by PAP MPs, and the Party Whip system (where MPs from the party must vote according to the party line, in spite of their own beliefs), there is insufficient consideration or representation of the needy in Singapore.
Furthermore, the lack of transparency and accountability by the PAP ministers is something undesirable in the long run. IDA’s $388 million “honest mistake” and the recent floods have been testimonial to the abuse of the blank cheque given by the electorate. We have also seen how the PAP has utilised withholding HDB upgrading as a whip to punish citizens whom vote for the Opposition, in blindness to the fact that citizens in Opposition wards still pay the same taxes, and do the same National Service as with wards that vote for the PAP.
And this is precisely why, we need an institutionalised Opposition in Parliament, to hold the PAP Cabinet accountable for their policies, and to ensure fair play.
I do recognise that the Opposition has insufficient manpower and resources to form the government, and much of their manifestos lie in social policies, with SDP candidate Tan See Jay’s economic plan being the first to address economic worries. However, I believe that PAP, for all its economic savvy, is insufficiently representative of Singaporeans. By voting the Opposition into Parliament, I wish to see a robust competition of ideas and policies. I’m sufficiently satisfied that most Opposition parties understand this view. Worker’s Party has declared that they believe that PAP should continue to be at the wheel, with an Opposition to keep the Cabinet accountable.
What’s more, with PAP’s continued monopoly on policy-making, there is no way for us to know if there is a better alternative policy out there. Even the PAP ministers themselves have recognised that competition is good. I don’t see how politics should be any different from the many other areas that PAP has espoused this ethos for.