Author: Grievous

Commentary – Opposition “Disarray”

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After having gone around to look for my friends at all the three McDonald’s near Chinatown MRT Station last evening(the result of a horrible 3G network not delivering my Whatsapp messages on time to my friends for them to inform me of their exact location), I was extremely hungry and also seething with anger when I finally arrived around 8pm at the correct McDonald’s restaurant. While I was chewing miserably on my Big Mac, I saw this on the Facebook app on my Xiaomi MI-2 phone:

The Singapore Democratic Party has called for a joint campaign with the Workers’ Party, where both parties field one SDP candidate. If victorious, the SDP candidate will enter Parliament and WP will run Punggol East Town Council.

I was suddenly laughing myself silly. After showing it to my friends, one of them gave this analogy (and I paraphrase):

It is like you have been wooing a girl, and when you are about to succeed some chap came around and say, “Hey, you let me have the girl. Support me while I woo her. If I marry her, I’ll specifically perform one husbandly duty – the sex, and you will bear all the rest of the husbandly responsibilities – like working to support her, love her, raise the children, take care of the in-laws etc. Consider this a combine effort to get ourselves a wife. On bo, BrooooOOOoooo?!”

If I was the Workers’ Party Secretary General, I would be laughing my ass off because this has got to be the dumbest proposal I have heard in my life. It not only insults my intelligence, it is simply political suicide! Just who will be so dumb to put in effort to run the town council for the SDP, and when things go wrong takes the blame for it? The proposal shows that the SDP is incapable of managing and running a town council just like the independent candidates. Running the town council is one of the yardstick in which an Member of Parliament is measured, and also one of the ways an MP can serve the voters who elected him. The SDP has basically told the voters of Punggol East that it is not interested in doing that, and they expect the voters to elect their candidate? Only the so-called “lunatic fringe” could have accepted and backed such an arrangement. This proposal is so outlandish and silly that Chee Soon Juan might as well also suggest to the Reform Party to back down and support the SDP’s so-called “Unity Candidate”, and whoever will be the Reform Party candidate can do the ‘Meet the People’ session and perhaps share half of the MP allowance if the SDP is elected. I wondered whether the SDP might actually get a favorable response, since Kenneth Jeyaratnam Jeyaretnam actually claimed credit for making a similar silly proposal to the WP even before the SDP did!

Someone had even suggested the SDP is determined to contest in Punggol East to block the WP from growing even stronger, because the WP has been growing at the expense of the other opposition parties. Well, that might explain why the SDP and RP are desperate to make a splash, or they risked marginalisation. But in their desperation, their stupidity has caused even the WP to lose credibility because the PAP Internet Brigade [IB] will now have a field day painting the entire opposition with the same brush. If this person’s assertion is true, the fact that the SDP and RP actually turned on the WP when they can’t eke out their own niche shows they are more interested in their own agenda, and not that of Singaporeans. Their attempt to keep all political parties equally matched and feeble will only help the PAP. On the other hand, some middle voters may even decide that it isn’t worth the time to listen to the opposition anymore. If this is some kind of grand melee, the PAP is awarded points for achieving a technical K.O. because the SDP and RP laid down on the canvas merely after the bell rung for Round 1. I am not upset because the SDP and RP (and a whole lot of other people) intends to contest the by-election in Punggol East as that is their right, and also that of any other eligible citizen to do so. But I am clearly upset now because these two opposition parties are insulting my intelligence!

While I am not against the SDP or anyone else contesting in Punggol East, I must point out that the SDP clearly over-estimates itself as it often does. Though that’s not as bad as Kenneth Jeyaratnam Jeyaretnam who clearly over-estimates himself when he offered himself as a candidate for the WP to back. First of all, the SDP says that if the WP would stand behind it, and it will field a candidate that will be able to defeat the PAP. It has got to be dreaming because in the 2011 General Elections, Michael Palmer of the PAP polled 54.54% (16,994 votes) of the votes. That’s not only more than half of the eligible votes polled but more than half of Punggol East’s 33,281 voters. Both opposition candidates polled a collective amount of 45.46% of the votes. The victory margin of the PAP was 9.08% (2830 votes). Assuming the PAP suffered a 10% vote loss from their supporters due to Palmer-Laura Ong affair, at best that would add 1,700 votes to the opposition and make the contest evenly matched when we must also consider that some of the opposition voters might also swing in the PAP’s favor. In comparison, for the WP victory in Aljunied to happen, the PAP suffered almost a 20% vote loss in Aljunied compared to their votes polled in 2006 and that include a reduction in voters in Aljunied as a whole. In other words, the SDP wants us to believe it will not only outperform the opposition showing in the previous contest, it can actually defeat the PAP when there is no conclusive evidence that there will be a definite opposition victory. That’s not forgetting that regardless of the credentials of the SDP candidates, the SDP name has been so poisoned that it actually gives some middle voters pause when making their decision, which might add to the vote loss the opposition is also expected to suffer. Furthermore, if the WP backed another party and not participate, voters who previously voted for the WP in GE2011 may also be pissed about being “abandoned” after they have offered their support just slightly less than 2 years ago. Perhaps the SDP leadership has some crystal ball that we do not know of to be so confident in their assertion.

The only hope for a opposition victory would be opposition voters voting defensively and sensibly so we can see the ‘Anson Spirit’. If the RP thinks this is my endorsement of their bid to contest in Punggol East, I must say whether there is a Jeyaratnam Jeyaretnam in this contest doesn’t matter at all. In fact, the Jeyaratnam Jeyaretnam name would be further sullied if the votes it obtained paled in comparison even to that of Harbans Singh in 1981. I wonder if the old man would be rolling in his grave. Personally, I hope the RP Secretary General would stop invoking the name and memories of his father, because he has drawn down on that account so often that it is now perhaps into overdraft.

It is my wish that the SDP and RP end their childish behavior, and just concentrate on the upcoming campaign. At the very present, they seem to be doing more to destroy their campaign than to win it. If all these talks will win anyone the seat in Punggol East, there is only one party they should be talking to, the PAP. Because whoever who can talk the PAP out of the contest really deserved the seat hands down and the other parties should just abstain.

Regardless whether the opposition gained the seat in Punggol East, it doesn’t really matter because it doesn’t really tip the balance in Parliament in anyway. However, it would have the effect of a mid-term election for the ruling party, because it will be a signal to the PAP whether the people are accepting what it has been doing since GE2011. In any case, the star of some parties will rise higher while some would fall. No matter how the SDP and RP perform in this coming election, they will most likely only sink deeper back into the cesspool they are already in. There might not be any effect for the already dismal Singapore Democratic Alliance [SDA] overall, but many voters do expect the non-WP opposition parties to do what they felt is sensible. Surprisingly, by virtue of doing almost absolutely nothing (except announcing that it would not contest in Punggol East), one party has elevated itself to a position right after the WP – the National Solidarity Party [NSP]. Some might think that the NSP must be regretting its decision not to contest, but by staying clear of the controversy, it would gain some respect for its resolve. By seemingly doing nothing, the NSP has done the most for opposition unity!

Even the Singapore People’s Party [SPP] also somewhat elevated itself up the ranks, though one would say Mrs Chiam maybe no less a maniac than Chee Soon Juan. But Lina Chiam was a nurse, and is Mr Chiam’s wife. In my considered opinion, Lina Chiam is fiercely loyal to her husband and may not necessarily be a power hungry person out to seize power. Whatever she has been doing may simply be a faithful wife doing everything necessary to protect her husband from further harm, considering Mr Chiam’s physical condition after his stroke. I am not surprised if everything she does is what she perceived to be in the best interest of Mr Chiam, considering his experience with the other party he founded – the SDP – and also the SDA. Sadly, Mrs Chiam may not be aware that her actions is doing far more to destroy Mr Chiam’s legacy while she protects him from further harm.

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Commentary – Legality vs Being right

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After I read the 26-paragraph statement from Teo Ho Pin, this immediately came to mind: “If being right is standing on your own two feet, resorting to legality and claiming that everything is procedurally in order and thus being right, would be like crutches to the legless. It is their only way to stay upright. And there’s only one outcome to that, that they will need to expend large amount of energies holding on to those crutches even if they want to go anywhere, or else they will be crawling like worms on the ground.”

I understand describing the PAP this way would be insulting to handicapped people without legs, and I apologise for all the offense I have caused to this courageous and determined group of people because I can’t think of a better analogy as yet. I meant no offense, because their will to live on is admirable and a beacon for able-bodied people who lost hope.

But why did I think of such an analogy? That’s because what Teo Ho Pin wants us to know is that everything is according to procedure and above all, legal. The logic is that as long as everything is prim and proper, then it has to be right. Indeed, Teo Ho Pin wants us to believe that it is right, and everything leading to the decision to do it was logical. But there is a difference between being right, compared to being logical, legal and according to procedure. Even though it may not be illegal because it is all according to procedure and proper reasoning, it still doesn’t make it right. So, I won’t waste time rebutting his entire statement point by point like some have done ever so resolutely, nor will I go again into the matter of alleged conflicted of interests. I am putting all that aside not because they are not important, but I simply prefer not to join everyone else in flogging a dead dog. On top of which, I reject his statement because it doesn’t make any sense. Let me explain why.


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Teo Ho Pin may imagine his statement to be perfect, but there is a chink in that armor and I had to point it out. First of all, the closing date of the tender is 14th July 2010. But according to Teo Ho Pin’s statement, AIM only submitted its bid on the 20th July 2010. Why is the bid even accepted 6 days after the tender has closed? A few of my friends who do sales told me that this doesn’t make sense because they often had to rush down to submit bids before the closing date. At times, even when the office may close at 5pm, the bidding would have ended at 4pm because the officer in charge of the tender process has collected the documents and he has the discretion to reject further bids even though the day is not yet out. The question here is, was there a hitherto unknown new tender called after the end date on 14th July which allowed AIM to submit this bid? Had Teo Ho Pin missed out this important detail in his long winded statement? (This had been the kind of effort I expected of Teo Ho Pin when he was asked whether someone has received a 8-month bonus in the Northwest Community Development Council back in March 2009. Instead, all he said was he had no knowledge of the staff’s salary details, and that it may not be unwarranted and was all according to National Wage Council Guidelines. That response clearly paled in comparison to what he has done here. Perhaps, these self-styled “elites” will only start putting in an effort to do what is necessary when backed into a corner.)

Anyway it was reported on The New Paper that Mr Oliver Tian, the Chief Executive of Hutcabb Consulting, one of the companies which collected the tender document said, “It was very hard to make a decision based on what was provided. After paying more than $200, we simply got a thin stack of documents and the town councils were unable to provide us with more information.”

This give us the perception that none of the other 4 companies were actually given sufficient information to be able to put in a bid. So, as part of my wish to understand and accept that everything is according to procedure (and thus legal), the anomalies above has poked an even bigger hole in Teo Ho Pin’s statement. Will Teo Ho Pin please further elaborate on all these matters so we can be clear once and for all? How about revealing the tender documents so we can see for ourselves?

I was also told that it is very commonly done for entities that wishes to be asset light to do a ‘sell and lease back’ – for e.g. a company selling all the desktops and servers to a system integrator and then leasing them – but doing so with a $2-company is completely unheard of. It further boggles the mind when AIM is not even listed on common directories like the Yellow Pages and the Green Book, and it’s physical address is that of the PAP Community Fund cum PAP HQ. It also has no company website, and thus it begs the question on how it satisfy the eligibility criteria as an ‘experienced and reputable company with relevant track record’ as stated on the advertisement (see inset above). Teo Ho Pin said nothing about AIM’s capabilities nor its relevant experience but instead talked about how AIM’s offer of $140,000 for the software “earned” 14 town councils just a meager amount of $8000 nett, and also its affiliation to the PAP. It would require a lot of faith – the religious kind – to accept that such a secretive and virtually unknown $2-company had met the requirements of the tender on “its own merits”. That’s about as good as I telling you that my favorite plumber can perform an operation on your mother.

“Last night, Mr Chandra Das declined to give details of AIM’s track record and business dealings…” – Straits Times, 3 Jan 2013.

To make matters worse, Chandra Das, an ex-PAP MP, was reluctant to give any details on AIM’s track record and business dealings. That in itself is strange since many IT companies would be happy to reveal such information which often projects confidence and competence, while their success with other customers would serve as case studies for consideration. Coupled with Teo Ho Pin’s assertions that AIM is backed by the PAP and will thus honor its commitments, business might actually come rolling into AIM and it might actually turn into another success story like NTUC Fairprice supermarkets.

But without AIM’s portfolio to back up, it doesn’t matter at all Teo Ho Pin tells us that the AIM transaction had served public interest. This did nothing at all to assert AIM had the merits in the first place even though it may vindicate the decision to approve AIM’s bid. Teo Ho Pin may assert that there is no basis to suggest that the AIM transaction disadvantaged residents of Town Councils, but he could perhaps only speak for the PAP ones. There is no denying that Aljunied-Hougang Town Council [AHTC] was subjected to terms and conditions negotiated not by it’s current management but the PAP one, and the outcome of that certainly created a mess for AHTC. To put things back into proper perspective, I am not making any allegations that AIM – fully owned by the PAP – has not acted in good faith, or that it is motivated by political agenda in how it subsequently handled its business relationship with AHTC. I am simply pointing out that this is the general perception and so far all these statements and clarifications etc has not changed that perception a single bit. Hopefully, Singaporeans are still entitled to think, and feel a certain way about certain matters.

Even if there is any blogger who wanted to help the PAP change that perception, they have nothing solid to stand on. It would be entirely foolhardy for anyone to even try to write what Grace Fu wrote in a recent Facebook status – that focusing on AIM was irrelevant, and suggest that this is nothing more than politicking by the Workers’ Party to divert attention from the alleged mismanagement of its own town council. Has none of the PAP grassroots even informed her that the Town Council Management Report is perceived as nothing more than an attempt to make the Workers’ Party look bad? Assuming that perception is true, then it has badly backfired. It makes us wonder how someone like Grace Fu, who is purported to be some of the most elite people in this country, had her head in the fog and apparently does not understand the crux of the matter. I guess, it’s really hard to be politically sensitive when one is high up in the ivory tower. Above which, why is the minister herself speaking up for AIM? If AIM has been such a reputable and experienced company that we are made to believe, why can’t it speak for itself? I have to say, AIM would have been quite an inspiration to budding entrepreneurs, had AIM not been affiliated with the PAP. Where else can we find $2-company which can win tenders, and even have ministers defend it and 14 clients at one go?!

It has been about 3 weeks after this matter come to light, and there has been nothing concrete enough to fight the perception of this being nothing more than a lame and underhanded attempt to fix the Workers’ Party. In fact, I am getting really confused on where to draw the line between the PAP, the PAP Town Councils and AIM, even though they have different names, and are different legal entities. Teo Ho Pin maybe able to show everything to be legal and procedurally correct, but that will never made it right. Just like the Mas Selamat issue, the PAP may think it can talk its way out, but this matter will not come to a happy conclusion until someone takes the fall. Perhaps there is only one option left for Teo Ho Pin, that is to do what is proper and resign as co-ordinating chairman and even as Member of Parliament. That might actually act like a salve for public anger over this matter and do his party some good even though no one could really say this is his fault.

But if he wants to stay put and hope we forget this whole AIM matter like a bad fart, he might want to remember Mr Wong Kan Seng and the case of Mas Selamat’s escape. Singaporeans didn’t really forget that one even though few people seems to be still talking about it after some time.

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Random Discourse – Town Councils & Action Information Management

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” For procurements where only a single bid is received, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) will require officers responsible to provide additional justifications to the approving authority within each agency.

The officers must set out why they consider the single bid competitive or reflective of market prices, before a decision is made to award such a contract. “

– Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam (in Parliament), 13 Aug 2012

Some time in June this year, it was revealed that the National Parks Board [NParks] placed a tender for 26 Brompton foldable bicycles which cost a total of S$57,200. The cost of each bicycle (S$2,200) naturally upset many, who felt that they are too expensive and a waste of public funds. The Ministry of National Development [MND] subsequently conducted a probe and in the end an officer from NParks was suspended from duty. An internal audit also uncovered some discrepancies which suggested “the possibility of bias in the procurement”, although the discrepancies were inconclusive by themselves. I won’t go into too much details over this matter, since my objective of bringing up this matter was to serve as a reminder that the government went on to tighten rules on its tender processes and Deputy Prime Minister [DPM] Tharman Shanmugaratnam spoke in Parliament on this matter. I would like to draw your attention in particular to what the DPM said about single bids in a public tender (see inset).

The reason I brought this up is because the so-called co-ordinating chairman of the 14 PAP town councils finally crawled out of his hole to answer to the matter about a contract between the town councils and a company (owned by Peoples’ Action Party [PAP] members) over the sale and leaseback of computer systems. Teo reviewed that there was an advertisement placed on the Straits Times on June 30th 2011, and subsequently five companies collected the tender documents, the only bidder was the PAP-owned Action Information Management [AIM].

To avoid accusations of nitpicking, I would let the matter of whether that one single advertisement for just one day would have garnered enough attention pass. However, even though town councils aren’t under the purview of the Ministry of Finance, what the DPM said about single bids makes a lot of sense. As such, can Teo actually find out and tell us why in the absence of competition was the tender awarded to AIM? How exactly did whoever made the decision to award the contract, consider AIM’s single bid competitive or reflective of market prices? How can we be assured that there has been no “possibility of bias” in the decision? I am sure even if it meant each of us paid only 5-cents into the development of this software, everyone still have a right to know. I would expect Teo Ho Pin to answer these regardless whether he is involved in the decision making to award this contract or not. Teo Ho Pin certainly has a responsibility to clear all the doubts since it was his own party who demands that everything be above board and white-than-white. He should answer all these questions to the people’s satisfaction and not dodge them!

Frankly, I would have expected no contracts to be award to a single bid after merely one tender exercise. Even my employer would have asked for 3-bids to ensure that it got the best pricing for some items it is purchasing, even when some of them don’t even cost more than a few hundred dollars. That’s not forgetting that the National Environment Agency [NEA] will only award a stall with only a single bid after two tender exercises. Why is a tender for such contracts involving large sums of money not subjected to the same stringent requirements?

That aside, AIM was said to have offered to buy the software for S$140,000 and manage the system at a monthly fee of S$785 per town council, for an initial term ending on Oct 31, 2011. No one could have miss the blatantly obvious fact that 14 PAP town councils would have paid AIM S$131,800 (S$785 per month per town council) within a year. In short, AIM practically got the Town Council’s software for a song (if not for free) because it would have technically recovered 94% of its cost in a year. For a $2-company which we know very little about – for e.g. the number of staff and the terms of the software maintenance contract, this is ‘arguably be the best business tender deal of the century’ as Mr Leong Tze Hian mentioned in his post. Perhaps even Temasek Holdings should learn a thing or two from AIM to not only stop its recent bleeding, and make even better returns than the average of 17% a year.

Jokes aside, I doubt it was that lucrative. And that brings up another question. As an IT person, I am not interested in whether AIM disputed (or refuted) Aljunied-Hougang Town Council’s [AHTC] claims that it had to fight for a service extension to continue using the existing town council management system. What I am more interested is the details on how a relatively unknown $2-company like AIM service the contract it has gotten from the town councils. The company seems rather secretive too, because even a search in Yellow Pages website turned up nothing and on the Green Book website I gave up after 10 pages of search results.

It was said that this company didn’t even have its own office and shared the address with a whole lot of others. Assuming that it is all legitimate and not just a shell-company, where does AIM station all its staff? How much manpower does it actually employed? Just for this contract alone, is there any real people actually dedicated to software patching, to deal with bugs in the system, and also to update it? How often is any form of servicing done? In fact, I am even more curious knowing that the town councils maintained the hardware which would suggest either another company or the town councils’ own in-house IT does backups and ensure operational continuity. I know how often infrastructure (be it networks, servers or even desktop support) clashes with developers, programmers and application support. As such, where is the line drawn here? If the case is whereby the infrastructure side took on much of the support burden of this management system, then it would suggest that AIM got a fat contract without needing to do much.

I can think of a few other possibly more capable local SMEs besides AIM, because it appears to be a practically unknown company. The main stream media such as the Straits Times should have done more to inform us about this company by now. Unfortunately, it never seem to have the journalistic instinct to follow up on a lead to keep its readers informed but often spend more time beating up on alternative media…

Short Takes (Dec 10th ~ Dec 15th, 2012)

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It has been a rather exciting week, and in fact, an exciting December when it is usually a quiet month because most people are away on vacation and pretty much nothing happens. So here’s a (not so) short take on what’s transpired in the last few days.

Let me be clear. The purpose of fare increases is not to boost the short term profits of PTOs. It is also not just to improve salaries of bus drivers but to improve service to commuters while keeping public transport operations commercially viable. This is why we must work with the PTOs to ensure that when granted any fare increase, they would re-invest part of this revenue to improve the PT system to benefit commuters. This can be in “hardware”, like more buses and trains and upgrading the signalling systems. It can be in “software”, like better terms and salaries for staff. That includes bus drivers and train operators, as well as the maintenance and service personnel who work tirelessly day and night to deliver a safe and reliable public transport service.

– Lui Tuck Yew on Facebook, 13 Dec 2012

~ * ~

“The costs of improving the reliability of the train network will not be passed on to commuters, Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew promised yesterday, as he addressed MPs’ concerns over this issue.”

– Lui Tuck Yewk, 11 Jul 2012

Transport Fares – Revisited

Lui Tuck Yew should simply just shut up and sit down. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to insist that commuters should face endless fare increments when the Public Transport Operators [PTO] have already received S$1.1 billion (that’s S$1,100,000,000 for those who loved to see the zeros) in handouts, have been making healthy profits all these years with not only no visible improvements so far but having suffered several moderate to major breakdowns over the past few years. All the more so, when he insists on that in the wake of the SMRT’s own failure to handle its own human resource problems.

There is no such thing as the costs being is paid for by the commuters, taxpayers in the form of government subsidies or PTOs. The government likes to make everything look like a 3-party relationship to portray the image of perfection when none of that really ever exists. Be it commuters or taxpayers, they are still the people. In other words it’s either paid by the PTO or the people. When the people has paid so much and has always been paying either in the form of the Bus Services Enhancement Program [BSEP] and never ending fare increments, it is high time for the operators to take up some of that slack!

Can the minister really tell us that the operators have not been commercially viable in view of their ever increasing profits? Don’t tell me that the cost to operate or fuel prices whatever have gone up 30% while fares did not catch up as much. It is clear in spite of that PTOs are clearly not only capable in managing those costs, but even turn a profit. Can the minister really say service have improved after the previous fare increments? If service has really improved at all, why had it turned into a hot issue during the 2011 General Elections and as a result the BSEP has to be introduced? As for reinvesting part of their profits, the question would be why haven’t they done so after the previous fare increments? Why did the PRC drivers go on strike if the terms and salaries for staff have been constantly improving? It would appear to me that this matter didn’t just boil over in a short period, but that the grievances of those drivers haven’t been addressed for a long time.

What exactly happened to all those profits accumulated in the past? Since Lui actually mentioned signalling systems, the fact of the matter is, SMRT has mentioned that this was why train frequencies cannot be increased even before the major breakdown in December 2011. What the hell took the SMRT so long to decide to upgrade it? By the way, isn’t upgrading the signalling systems part of improving the reliability of the train network? If so, did the minister forget that he said a few months ago that it will not be passed to commuters? Or did we again misunderstand the minister as we all too often misunderstood his other colleagues as well?

Seriously, the Prime Minister should consider sending some of these ministers to communication skills classes. Alternatively, try to explain and talk about things in a way that even a Primary 5 student can understand. That way it leaves no room for misunderstanding.

~ * ~

Equal remuneration for all in the same jobs?

Can you imagine that this Lim Swee Say person is actually ministerial material and considered to the some of the most capable people in this country? The way he put it is wrong in at least two levels. First of all, going by his logic any employer can now “justifiably” pay a single, unmarried Singaporean whose parents have passed away less than his peers because he has no family to support. Next, since there is currently no minimum wage implemented in Singapore, it further allows employers to discriminate against a person from Bangladesh (for example) by paying him even less for a road sweeping or dish collector job compared to the most down and out of luck Singaporean who is already paid dirt for that job. (Note: I am not trying to advocate for minimum wages here.)

In the wake of the illegal strike last month by some SMRT bus drivers from China, calls have emerged for equal remuneration for all in the same jobs, but National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) chief Lim Swee Say said that this is “not the way to go”, calling the issue a “complicated” and “sensitive” one.

Equal remuneration will “disadvantage” local workers and their families as they have to bear the cost of living here, while the bulk of the money foreign workers earned here is sent back to their home countries, said Mr Lim at a media conference to address migrant workers issues yesterday.

So what is the context and basis behind the call for “equal remuneration for all in the same jobs” [Chinese: 同工同酬]?

It arose because of the recent PRC drivers’ strike, but it is obvious no one is actually asking for a pay increment for every single foreign worker to bring their pay on par with Singaporeans unless he is utterly insane. All the more improbable that many Singaporeans would give a damn about foreign workers since they were recently often accused of xenophobia. Anyway, it has always been clear to any sane and logical person that it is stupid and unfair to insist on absolute “equal pay” for every job, in particular jobs such as research, programming, performers etc. It is also illogical to insist on paying the same for jobs where efficiency is concerned, not to mention that there is a difference in each person’s capabilities and experience. I believe nobody would require any further elaboration here.

Back to the matter of the mainland China [PRC] drivers. When one look beyond their personal resentment against the so-called ‘Ah Tiongs’ (a less than flattering local term for the PRC Chinese), we would understand that part of their grievances was that they were discriminated against in terms of remuneration simply because of nationality. The question here is, since everyone is driving the same bus along the same routes with the same basic skills, why then are PRC drivers paid the least?

So let us consider whether there are any merits of the PRC drivers’ perception of pay discrimination. In my opinion, it is not entirely true because we understood that Singaporean and Malaysian drivers often come with their own value add by default. That comes either in the form of familiarity with the local traffic rules and regulations, or having a language advantage in certain cases. Above which, we also understand that the PRC drivers were given lodging benefits whereby Singaporean or Malaysian drivers would have to fend for themselves in that aspect. But no one can deny that the living conditions of the lodgings provided for the PRC drivers have much room for improvements, as even Singapore’s lapdog media and SMRT’s top management admitted as much. However, it is hard to argue that the recent pay increment was not unfair, if not discriminative when it was given out to increase the pay of drivers overall to attract more new blood to take up the job, and also to discourage existing drivers from quitting. Individual performance or merits was never part of the consideration here.

Thus, the call for “equal pay” for PRC drivers is a more of call for pay equality in essence. In any case, the entry level pay should be the same though an individual may be paid more based on his value add and experience at the employer’s discretion. Increments should then be based on an individual’s capabilities and performance, regardless whether the drivers are contracted or otherwise employed, and not their nationality. Simply put, those who are reckless and drive dangerously, will get less increments or even terminated while those who are commended or praised by commuters will get more.

It seems the NTUC deliberately translated the Chinese words “同工同酬” literally into “equal remuneration for same jobs” and created a straw man argument, because Lim Swee Say said the same thing about pay equality (picture on right) which I just explained above. As far as I am concerned the NTUC’s response serves only one purpose: To turn public opinion against this call for pay equality in spite of its original good intentions! Then again it’s not unexpected considering my long standing opinion of our so-called trade unions.

~ * ~

Michael Palmer’s indiscretion & “Identifying” Laura Ong

Why am I not surprised that it is Lim Swee Say again in this dastardly deed? I can hardly agree with the reasons given in this case. It is like someone saying, “Since you will get shot sooner or later, let me give you a hand by pushing you out into the line of fire.”. That’s exactly how I felt about this so-called explanation. Thus, The word that should be used here is not ‘identify’, but expose.

The People’s Association (PA) deputy chairman Lim Swee Say said on Friday that the organisation deliberated at length on whether to identify Ms Laura Ong as the woman involved in the Michael Palmer affair but ultimately felt they could not keep it under wraps.

He said that although they did not want to “add to her pain” by identifying her, they recognised that the case had attracted much public attention.

I have often asked to see some gender equality in cases like these – for the woman to be named and shamed because all too often the men take the fall. But in this case I actually felt sorry for Laura Ong even though I might have called her a slut, a hussy or any horrible words I can think of a woman like her. Sadly, she alone took the fall this time, while the press sang the praises of “Saint Michael von Palmer”.

As far as I am concerned, exposing Laura Ong was a calculated move. It was clearly done to divert public attention onto the poor woman and her life while the PAP does damage control, or hope that the people will forget after reading the juicy details of her life. The press should have some decency and end their intrusion into her private life. She may have been in the wrong but enough is enough. Why the difference in handling the matter when the “limelight” is often in the past shone on the men to make them look like cads, if not monsters?

Frankly, I had originally considered it commendable for Palmer to come clean and resign even when a friend pointed out that he only did so after his “love emails and SMSes” were leaked to the press. This friend has a point since it is not unreasonable to believe that this affair might have continued had that not happened. Had the matter gone to public first, Palmer’s handling of the matter and the PAP’s reaction may not have been so well organised. We only need to compare the press’ handling of this case with that of Yaw Shin Leong to see the drastic difference, and remember how they dogged the Workers’ Party back then.

Laura Ong has been shamed enough already. We do not need to know all those other juicy details about her family, her life and her other indiscretions which I will not repeat here. There are bigger issues such as the relationship between the PAP and the People’s Association [PA] mentioned in this article. Michael Palmer is no more “honorable” than Yaw Shin Leong, or Ng Boon Gay. Both have betrayed the trust of their wives. It is utterly shameful for the press to singing praises to the PAP for its handling of this matter in light of what has been done to Laura Ong.

Random Discourse – Bus Fares and Driver Wages

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This was the headline on Friday’s Straits Times. Sometimes, it really makes me wonder who our elected government really stands for. Seriously, Tuck Yew should be giving the transport operators a dressing down, and his first concern should be demanding them to get their act together. Has the minister forgot that in less than a year, SMRT has gotten itself onto the headlines for all the wrong reasons – 2 major breakdowns of the North-South Line (15th & 17th December 2011), 1 moderate breakdown of the Circle Line (25th October 2012), and also the honor of getting embroiled in Singapore’s first strike in 25 years? All of these have caused commuters great pains but instead of addressing it, Mr Lui spent no time in giving the transport operators the green light to file for fare increments! Indeed, while the transport operators may have any reservations about possible backlash from the public if they filed for a fare increment, it is clear they are now free to do so.

The first thing that came to my mind was, why is the public transport operators’ profitability Mr Lui’s primarily concern when he made no apologies to commuters for the impact on them caused by this so-called “illegal strike”? Why is it that commuters are warned that they should be expected to foot the bill for what clearly is a failure of SMRT – a private company – in containing a internal human resource issue? Would it be too much for me to ask all of ours ministers to officially declare whether they own any shares in any of the transport operators, and those who do should never be appointed to the transport minsitry since there is an obvious conflict of interest here?

Did Mr Lui forget that the government recently gave the two operators a massive subsidy of $1.1 billion through the Bus Services Enhancement Fund [BSEF] to procure of 550 buses? I recalled that the it was explained that the S$1.1 billion will also cover the operating costs of those vehicles over 10 years which I understood to include salaries for drivers. Did the government fail to budget for it properly just like the Youth Olympics and is now scrambling to plug the hole?

“But if we cannot raise bus fares, how will that impact your fellow workers? I am sure you will understand that it is not fair if they cannot get wage increases.”

– Lim Boon heng, July 2011

As far as I am concerned, the matter of wages is covered by the BSEF and that matter shouldn’t even be brought up for a really long time. And that’s not all, when the fares were revised not long after the May elections last year, the ex-PAP Chairman also said that the fare increments were meant to increase the wages of transport workers. But what about the rest of us? Who speaks out for our pay increment? I remembered this because when I did a search on Google, I was reminded that I wrote about it here. In other words, Singaporeans have already paid twice ostensibly to make the lives of bus drivers better. How many more times are we expected to pay for this? Mr Lui may have a short memory, and perhaps all of us would too if we made as much as him. To say that we are being fleeced is only being polite, because another f-word would have been more suitable.

Mr Cedric Foo, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport, said the pay hike ‘makes sense’ as the two companies are competing for the same talent pool.

When asked if the pay rise would mean increased fares, he said: “I don’t think there’s a direct correlation between drivers’ wages and bus fares.”

Even more interesting is that Cedric Foo has said that there is no direct link between drivers’ wages and bus fares. So at least for me, the well being of the transport workers is nothing more than a mere excuse. The truth is that fare increments are always justifiable because it keeps the transport operators profitable. And that’s not enough, their profits must increase every year. For e.g. SMRT’s profits increased from $89.5 million in FY2004 to $161 million in FY2011. This is an increase of 80% over 7 years, or an increase of 8.7% per annum. A friend said that investors will be footing the bill if commuters won’t. In my opinion investors can also invest elsewhere if they think the transport operators are not paying attractive enough dividends. After all, SMRT allegedly told some of its mainland Chinese [PRC] drivers they can go to SBS if they are unhappy with their pay. Anyway, SMRT and SBS Transit turned a profit of $119.9 million and $36.7 million respectively in the last financial year, I would find it hard to accept that the majority (the commuters) is expected to foot the bill so a minority (the shareholders / investors) can continue to make money. All the more so because nothing seems to be improving in spite of these obscene profits!

As the Workers’ Party has said, “Commuters should not be expected to pay higher fares, especially when service standards remain unsatisfactory, as they have been since the last fare hike.”. WP is being kind, because all of our MRT lines have suffered breakdowns within the past 18 months and that’s not only unsatisfactory but completely unacceptable! For the record, SBS Transits’ North-East Line (NEL) also suffered a major breakdown in March this year – exactly 4 months after SMRT’s first major breakdown. That must have been to SMRT’s relief had it not gone “one-up” against SBS Transit with a second breakdown of the Circle Line [CCL] about 2 months ago. (The first occurred back in 20th September 2011 – more than a year ago – due to “a faulty cable and tunnel leakage”.) For an almost brand new line, the CCL’s breakdown is simply unacceptable! That’s not forgetting the huge costs involved in replacing those cables and I ain’t surprised that commuters will be footing that bill as well!

The government said that is has “zero tolerance” for strikes. Yet, it is interesting that the government demonstrates great forbearance to all these failures, and even bend backwards to ensure the operators’ profitability. How about showing some “zero tolerance” for the breakdowns, and the deplorable service standards for a change? Surely, some problems in the SMRT did not just happen overnight. Shouldn’t we look into why a brand new line like the CCL is plagued by cable and leakage problems, when large parts of the old East-West and North-South lines are above ground and exposed to the elements? Wouldn’t investigations into the SMRT for possible criminal negligence and bringing those responsible to task be necessarily?

Frankly, the government should work on giving more concessions instead of raising fares. For e.g. The height limit for children getting free rides should be raised to 1.2m since children get better nutrition and grow tall faster these days. Polytechnic students should be given concession similar to their A level peers. The concessions senior citizens should also be increased even though they already enjoyed a concessionary rate for the full day. This is what the government should be doing for the people instead of worrying itself sick in ensuring the transport operators’ profitability.

Unfortunately, there’s a greater chance of the present government doing the right thing when I sleep earlier. But unfortunately, I would have to stay asleep.

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