The main and longest feature in Singapore’s portion of cyberspace
is focused on one single issue – namely the issue that foreigners, specifically
those from India have been unfairly allowed into to Singapore to rob our local
population blind. The grouses on the net comes can be summed up as “This
government cares about everyone except the local Singaporean.” If you explore
enough websites in Singapore, you will inevitably run into someone with some
horror story about this or that company discriminating against nice hard-working
Singaporeans in favour of nasty, cheating foreigners from what Donald Trump
would call “Shitholes.” The question that people inevitably ask is why is the
Singapore government creating an economy that in turn creates jobs from people
from everywhere else, except Singapore. The pressure has reached a stage where there
is an equal amount of gibberish being sprouted about the importance of building
a “Singapore-Core” in the economy.
I’ve described this as gibberish because, well, if you look
at Singapore’s political system, you can’t accuse the government of not
creating jobs for Singaporeans. The structure of our governmental system would
indicate that Singapore has created a number of high paying and highly secure
jobs, which can only be filled by Singaporeans.
However, given that I work in corporate restructuring and
insolvency, the question that I would ask is whether these jobs are actually
producing any value for the Singapore Inc as a whole and whether these jobs
could be, well for want of a better term – better utilized. Let’s remember the basics
– Singapore is a tiny island, or a small red dot.
Let’s start at the top. We have a Head of State, who functions
pretty much like a combination between the English Monarch and the House of
Lords in as much as the President is primarily ceremonial but does have the
reserve power to say no to the government, should the government choose to tap
on the reserves. Our President was paid in excess of S$4,000,000 a year until 2011,
when the public felt that there was no reason for a ceremonial figurehead to
earn more than the “Chief Executive” or the “Prime Minister.” The salary of the
President was slashed by three quarters, which is still a fairly respectable
million plus a year and the question remains, what do we get for a million
dollars?
Well, the president does wave on National Day and once in a
while they do host a dinner or so for a visiting dignitary. Former President SR
Nathan, did spend a good deal of time trying to organize charity events.
However, that’s pretty much it. Can anyone think of a President who used their time
in office to create nation wide projects? Mr. Nathan was criticized in some
quarters for being a laky of the government. However, in fairness, he did
initiate the President’s Star Charity, which raised money for charitable organizations. As a prominent member of our local Indian business
community (one of the few local Indians to have made it to a regional role in a
multinational) said, “At least we knew we had a president.”
Then there is the management committee or the cabinet. Where
we have a grand total of some 30 over appointment holders. To set this into
context, we have a similar amount of people in the cabinet as some of our
larger Asian neighbours, or should I say countries that are faced with issues
like poverty and social unrest. By way of a quick comparison, Singapore
(population of 5 million and few problems) than Japan (population of 120 plus
million and nasty neighbours with nukes) and slightly less than India
(population over a billion and an equal amount of problems). The links of the respective
cabinets can be found at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Council_of_Ministers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinet_of_Singapore
Furthermore, if you look at the Singapore cabinet list, you’ll
notice a few interesting facts. We have two senior ministers. The post of
senior minister was used to give Lee Kuan Yew a consultancy gig. The post was
later abolished in 2011. So, why do we need to revive the post and give it to
our two former deputy prime ministers? If memory serves me correctly, the
senior minister was the second highest paid person after the Prime Minister.
Then there is the fact that our Ministries have one minister,
a second minister (ministry of finance has two), and a minister of state
(several grades) and senior parliamentary secretary. Let’s not forget Singapore
is a small island with limited resources, so it’s not unfair question to ask
why our ministries need so many appointment holders.
One might argue that there are a number of names that appear
more than once. Josephine Teo is both Minister of Manpower and Second Minister at
the Home Affairs Ministry. Mr. K Shanmugam is most famously in the “non-conflict”
position of both Minister of Home Affairs and Law. The valid question here is,
are they getting more than one salary per ministry or if they are only getting
one salary, how do they divide their time between ministries (At a million
dollars a year, exclusivity is a fair demand).
Let’s not forget that Singapore’s ministers are the world’s
best paid. The lowest paid one gets a million a year. A cabinet of 30 plus
ministers is 30 million a year.
Then if you go down the food chain, you’ll come to the
interesting fact that Singapore has five mayors, each one earning around $600,000
per person per year. Mayors in the Singapore context run Community Development
Councils (CDCs), which is a collection of several constituencies. Mayors are
supposed to run social programs on the ground.
I stress the point that Singapore is a tiny place. We are
like the “City-States” in Ancient Greece and our geographical size (or lack of)
means that the most appropriate comparisons are not with countries but with
cities, and even then, we’re still pretty small. Our Prime Minister’s job is
not like his global counterparts, it’s more like the mayor of other big cities.
Think of London, for example, as a separate from the rest of the UK. Sadiq Khan
would then be called “Prime Minister” instead of Mayor.
Yet, the City of Singapore has five mayors and the question
that should be asked is “Why?” What value do our mayors bring to the table. Are
they doing something beyond the scope of ordinary members of parliament?
Covid-19 has screwed up the global economy. Companies round
the world are downsizing to save costs. Given
that Singapore’s leadership likes to compare itself with the best of
enterprises, isn’t it time we started looking at slimming down unnecessary layers
of bureaucracy? Unless that is of course, this would ruin the chances of
certain Singaporeans to stay in high paying and highly secured jobs.
No comments
Post a Comment