Tag: WP Manifesto 2011

Random Discourse – Workers’ Party Manifesto on Public Housing

Leave a comment

Finally browsed through Chapter 8 – the Public Housing portion – of the Workers’ Party’s [WP] 33-page manifesto. While I had to admit that the WP meant well by suggesting that the housing prices be pegged to median incomes, as a current lessee owner of a HDB flat with a vested interest in the continual appreciation of its value, I am duly concerned with the impact of such a move on the value of my flat.

That has really nothing to do with Mah Bow Tan’s fear mongering, because my common sense tells me that if their plan goes through it is almost certain that there will be some depreciation in the value of resale flats. After all, wouldn’t there be a reduction in demand for resale flats as first time applicants (except for those who are desperate enough to pay a high premium for a resale) would be enticed to purchase only new flats instead? Or perhaps the WP is betting on the fact that since Permanent Residents [PRs] can only get a resale, they would be the ones keeping the prices stable? But wouldn’t that drive PRs to private properties?

How is the WP going to assure those who have currently overpaid for their flats and still servicing their loans to accept such an arrangement? Even while the impact maybe very little to me since I bought mine more than 10 years ago (though I am still servicing my loans), I am quite sure many of us will like to know how much this move would really cost current property owners. The WP must do more by give voters the specifics so they can understand that this bitter pill they have to swallow is all for the long term well being of future generations of Singaporeans. Otherwise it would be be difficult for some voters to support this plan. Basically, we need to know whether the potential financial losses we will suffer will just be biting this bullet for the short term [一时的痛] or whether it would become a never ending pain on our chest [在我们胸口永远的痛]. To put it in an analogy, some people maybe able to accept getting slashed and bleeding for a short while, but it will require far more convincing to have people accept the need to amputate an arm or a leg even if they are told their lives depend on it. If WP wants to tell me that neither a slashing or an amputation is going to happen, convince me! I am all ears.

~ * ~

Next, let me move on to the convoluted rubbish that Mah Bow Tan has been spewing lately. If he stopped after talking about the prospective losses that current home owners may suffer, that would have been good enough since that would have divided the electorate. People with vested interest would have jumped out to condemn the WP and the damage would have been done. But he went rambling on to the point that it is now becoming ludicrous. At times, there is seriously no need to exaggerate but of course the People’s Action Party’s [PAP] modus operandi is to make it sound so bad that we all get confused.

The vitriol and diatribe against the WP’s housing proposal in specific exceeds everything else that the government has thrown at the opposition. Has the WP’s proposal seriously harmed some ‘core interest’ some where? If it is true, I am not sure nor convinced that these ‘core interest’ are in the best interest of Singapore or Singaporeans.

From what I have gathered, Mah has called the WP’s housing proposal as ‘irresponsible’ and he suggested that for the WP to be able to pay for it, the WP would either have to cut spending in education, health care or defence. He said if the WP isn’t doing any of that, it would then have to raise taxes or dip into the reserves. He even suggest that the WP has an insidious, sinister and ulterior motive here by ‘reminding’ us that the WP had opposed the Elected President [EP] scheme and that so-called Chief Valuer which determined the price of the land is under the EP’s office.

He might as well have suggested that we should not think of the WP logo as a hammer, but that of a big bad wolf in Little Red Riding Hood *HoOOOoOOOOwl*. In spite of my exceptionally low opinion of Mah, I gave what he said some thought over the past few days, and these are some of the things I have thought about…

First of all, the government has given out 3.2 billion in a so-called ‘Growth and Share’ package, put S$4 billion that it had drawn earlier for the Resilience Package back into the past reserves and yet spent another 3.4 billion ‘longer term social investments for households’ this year. I am quite sure even though this maybe a one time windfall, is the government telling us that in other years, it doesn’t have any money which can be used to finance what the WP is proposing? If Mah is going to complain that by doing so it means the government would have no money for these packages and social investments, I wondered whether he has considered that when the people no longer need to slave their ass off paying for their pathetic little HDB flat, they would not only have more savings in their CPF, but also disposable income (because rentals will fall and thus slow down the increase in cost of living). Once that happens, it would have negated the need for one times hand-outs, or even Eldercare fund and Medifund top-ups. In short, it may probably be a zero sum game…

Secondly, Mah even gone so far to suggest that the WP’s plan is as good as raiding the national reserves. I sincerely wondered how is he going to substantiate any of that, since no one even know the exact details of the arcane mathematical formula (allegedly based on market conditions and valuation principles) used by this Chief Valuer to determine the value of the land in the first place. Mah would have us believe the land is really worth so much simply because he said so! That’s not mentioning that from what Mah had said it gives me the perception that the reserves is like some vampiric machine sucking our life blood into a nutrient pool. We are told that this nutrient pool is kept for the good of us just in case of hungry days. But many a time even during those days we are told to look at it to satiate our hunger – much like Cao Cao has told his troops to quench their thirst by looking up at the plums [望梅止渴]. Sincerely, if he wants to talk about raiding the reserves, talk about the million of dollars he is receiving every year. Last I checked, the ratio of their pay to Singapore’s GDP per person is *gasp* above 40. I take that to mean that if monthly median income is measely $2,500, the minister would be earning at least $100,000.

Even if I were to believe him, wouldn’t that mean to say that there is no way we can ever determine just how much national reserves there is in the first place since land prices can fluctuate. So how does he know whether the reserves are getting raided in the first place when the land’s value isn’t already fixed? In fact, at one point of time I thought we had a ‘perpetually growing’ national reserves since land prices can only go up as population growth and economic demands increase. I laughed that silly thought off as quickly as I thought of it.

Thirdly, I suddenly remembered when ex-President Ong Teng Cheong (the only President not given a state funeral) asked to be given the the details of how much reserves there is, he was rebuffed and told that it will take 52 man-years to do so. Now I understand why no one can do that for the ex-President. In fact, I even believe whoever told the ex-President that it can be done in 52 man-years must be frakking joking. After all, when the value of all the unsold land is yet to be determined, just who the hell can work out just how much reserves is really there to tell the President? Perhaps we should ask President Nathan if it bothers him that actually there is no way to know whether the reserves has grown or shrunk. In other words, just what exactly is the point of having an EP at all?

Either way, I wouldn’t go into talking about how little was paid out to obtain the land in the first place. Neither would I even go into explaining that this so-called subsidy is really nothing more than a discount (and thus the losses the HDB suffered is not real but hypothetical). But I would like to remind Mr Mah a simple fact – there is no use telling those who can’t even afford a HDB flat in the first place that its value would always be increasing in the years to come. Please wake up to the reality that some young people are already asking, “What exactly is the point for me to work so hard, and yet that house seem so distant and out of reach?” The Singapore Dream is dead! One can even tell some of these young people are angry, and all this talk about ‘asset enhancement’ is more akin to asking man adrift in the open sea to drink sea water to quench his thirst.

Really, stop treating us like idiots. Is there a predicament here preventing the government from being more transparent on how the land slated for building HDB flats is priced? If not, I am forced to believe that the government simply hold the people it claimed to serve in contempt. I am also forced to believe that the public housing scheme is nothing more than an scheme to siphon off our hard earned money into the national reserves for the GIC and Temasek Holdings unaccountable investments.

Recommended Reads:
InsanePoly: Vote for Change

Random Discourse – Workers’ Party Manifesto on Public Transport

Leave a comment

I couldn’t find time to write lately, not because I am busy but rather due to my bad time management. Fortunately I didn’t manage my time so badly that I had to skip the “BBC Bloggers evening” (held at Pierside, One Fullerton) organised by Dunbar-Jones & Associates on April 19th. The primary objective of this event was of to introduce the Asia Business Index which BBC had put up. There were 9 others bloggers (such as Mr. Tan Kin Lian, Donaldson Tan from New Asia Republic and friend Darryl Kang) invited to meet with Jeremy Hillman and Francesca Unsworth of BBC in an exchange of insights and perspectives about Singapore and region.

The 9 other bloggers invited are definitely better known in blogosphere or social media where I am a nobody. I rarely get more than 500 hits a day and that only a good day after I get listed on Singapore Daily! Thus, I am actually surprised that I was even invited at all. I am greatly humbled after the free and cordial exchange of views with many of those present. Of course the bulk of the things discussed surround the upcoming General Elections since Parliament was dissolved that same day. A few of the bloggers present have given me many new perspectives of certain matters (such as certain opposition figures) and they made a big impact on some of my views. Some even gave me suggestions on how I can further improve my blog.

The views shared at the event inspired me to write this post even though I have yet to read up the manifesto or the election promises of various political parties. Fact is, I haven’t been actively catching up with the news lately – thousands of news articles in my RSS had remained unread. Even so, I noticed that the Workers’ Party [WP] is on the receiving end of bulk of the flak from the ruling party – in particular over the housing policy. In my opinion, the WP gave as good as it took, if not better. Combined with the shabby performance of cabinet ministers like Lim Swee Say on Mediacorp Channel 8, along with the fielding of new candidates like Tin Pei Ling and ex-Chief of Army Ah Beng Chan Chun Sing, much of the ruling party’s aura of invincibility has been diminished, if not shattered.

I will leave the matter of housing to a latter post since that is a more complicated issue, and also because I need to cool off as I personally considered the People’s Action Party [PAP] to have betrayed Singaporeans as far as the promise to provide affordable housing is concerned. I am sick of the lame excuses Mah Bow Tan is giving to justify a policy that enslaves the people and siphon off our money into a national reserves for the unaccountable investment purposes of the GIC and Temasek Holdings.

From what I have read, the WP has allegedly proposed to nationalise the public transport companies in their manifesto. Libertarians and free market supporters will definitely cry foul over the WP’s suggestion. However, I am not here to defend the merit (or the lack of) in WP’s proposal on public transport, though I certainly object to (if not reject) what Lim Hwee Hua said when she dismissed the idea. Let me paraphrase what the minister had said: “to nationalise public transport, it would be ‘a step backwards’ in the level of services commuters currently enjoy. Nationalisation of public transport in many other countries had led to inefficiency”

First of all, there is no direct competition between these so-called ‘private’ public transport companies. It is a known fact that any bus service that runs along MRT lines are removed and neither SBS Transit or SMRT has any bus services competing with each other directly along the same routes. We even read very often on the news that services are planned in such a way to ‘compliment’ one another. While all of these sounds good on paper, no one had considered that the impact of service disruption to the SMRT and the lack of alternative is in itself a form of inefficiency. For e.g. the recent East-West line breakdown for 2 hours about 2 week ago, and a possible attempted suicide last Friday near midnight at Sembawang MRT station has caused a major disruption to the lives of many people. Whenever something like this happened, commuters scrambled to catch taxis or find a bus service that would put them in the general direction of their destination – often at great loss of time and costs – because the transport planners considered it ‘inefficient’ to have ‘duplicating’ services.

The bus service itself isn’t any better. Anyone who has taken some of the bus services like SBS 2, SBS 32, SBS 51, TIBS 61, TIBS 67, SBS 154, SBS 174 or SBS 196 from end to end would wonder whether an inmate of the Institute of Mental Health [IMH] planned the roundabout route which can take one up to two hours to travel from end to end. If it puzzles anyone why I would be complaining about a 2-hour bus trip, that because that’s the same amount of time I took to travel from Hsinchu City to Taipei City when I was in Taiwan in 1993. My rough estimate is that Hsinchu to Taipei would be the equivalent from Singapore to Muar (or less). Now consider the fact that Singapore itself is probably not very much bigger than Greater Taipei. The only bright spot about these long bus rides is that at the end of the day, one might actually discover roads or streets in Singapore that he wouldn’t discover otherwise. Is Lim Hwee Hua telling us that this is actually *gasp* efficient?! I wouldn’t want to start ranting about taxis, since I have ranted enough about it before. (See: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6])

Thus the truth is this: the local public transport companies have a de-facto monopoly and we certainly don’t have much choice nor say about it. With the MRT being the main mode of transport for the majority, the government wants us to believe that it is very well run and a superb world class transport system. Much has been reported about the international acclaim given to our public transport, but does it really matter when everyone you talked to feels otherwise? On the social media front, one only need to include the hashtag #smrtruinslives in Twitter to get a daily feel on how the very people who used it felt. I personal wondered whether a google search with the keywords “Singapore MRT sucks” might turn up even more horror stories.

Beside that, it is public knowledge that the largest shareholder of SMRT is Temasek Holdings (around 54 ~ 55%) while the Singapore Labour Foundation – a stat board under the Ministry of Manpower – is ComfortDelgro’s single largest shareholder (12.2% stake). That simply means, despite the facade of private-owned transport companies, it is actually some what state-owned. In short, we are thus provided a system that has the worst aspects of both nationalised and privatised public transport company. It is a state-owned monopoly where we can do shit about, combined with state-owned companies pretending to be private companies which primary objective is to create value for shareholders (i.e. be profitable). As such, the public transport companies can almost raise fares annually citing an increase in operating costs (rubber stamped by the so-called “Public Transport Council” [PTC]), without any tangible improvement in serivces they provide at all. It begs the question, would the WP’s offer be any worse or inefficient at all compared to what we are really having now? The WP’s proposal is certainly not something Lim Hwee Hua can dismiss with a few words or the wave of Harry Potter’s magic wand.

The fact that we have complained, ranted and whined over this so often in the past few years showed us that the PAP has failed in providing a solution. All the PAP is capable of, is raise fares – i.e. throw money out of our pockets – at the problem even when it has been ineffective. At most, such measures worked only for a few weeks before everything returns to ‘normalcy’. But before that, the main stream media would have overwhelmed us with glaring reports of the purported ‘effectiveness’ and ‘success’ of these harebrained measures.

I must say I have enough of this bullshit, and I am open to any ideas – even radical ones such as those of the WP – other than the ineffective PAP ones which not only failed to solved the problem, but had in fact worsen the situation by increasing the burden of our wallets.