“Very fine people on both sides”

One of Donald Trump’s greatest moments came on 15 August 2017, when he was asked for his thoughts on the clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia between Neo-Nazis and normal people. The Donald proceed to stun the world by telling reporters that there were “very fine people on both sides.” The remark stunned the world because this was the leader of the nation that saved the world from the Nazis describing Nazis as very fine people, especially when its questionable if Nazis are people let alone very fine ones.

However, in fairness to Donald Trump, his words were only shocking because of the context in which they were used in. Take out the context and Donald Trump’s words would actually be an ideal of what most civilized societies should be about – very fine people on both sides of any issue. The highlight of what a civilized democracy came int 2008 when John McCain defended and praised his opponent, Barak Obama as a “Decent man, whom I happen to disagree with.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0u3QJrtgEM 

While McCain would lose the election, he has ended up winning in the hearts of people for doing the right things. Instead of trying to divide the nation, he united it and refused to go down the road of playing up to the fears and prejudices of the mob.

Unfortunately, 2008 is something of a memory. From 2016 onwards, the world entered an age of wild populism, which centred on a wonderful concept of blaming your problems on people who cannot fight back. In the words of an American customer at the Bistrot, “There is no neutrality.”

Singapore has seemingly escaped the most extreme forms of populism and in a world where calls for unthinking jingoism have become the norm, Singapore seems like an island of sanity in an insane world.

However, having been around Singapore’s “arty” and “journo” types for a good portion of my functioning life, I would argue that it’s not exactly a case of Singapore avoiding wave of populism that is sweeping the world but more of a case of Singapore’s politicians being more subtle and clever about harnessing the raw emotions of the masses.

The simplest tactic, is to label anyone who publicly questions the established way of doing things as “Anti-Singaporean.” As anyone who works who deals with any form of media will tell you, there is an art form to questioning the system in public without being labeled “Anti-Singaporean” or getting a nasty letter from a politicians solicitors and having your family’s dirty linen rolled in the mud and then washed out in public. The stories of the people who have tried to do it on a regular basis can be found at:

 https://coconuts.co/singapore/features/singaporeans-step-outside-lines-take-center-stage-naysayers-book-club/

In the old days, it was a case of being sued into bankruptcy and facing a number of potential charges on a variety of laws. I’m old enough to remember the General Election of 1997, which was a particularly good one for the ruling party. They managed to reverse a trend of a declining share of the popular vote and won a mere 81 out of 83 seats available in parliament. While a lot of credit was given to generous upgrading programs in the heartland estates, another was to target an unknown politician from the Workers Party called Tang Liang Hong (No relation) by labeling him an “Anti-Christian Chinese Chauvinist.” 

The internet has made things more interesting. Online media sites like the Online Citizen and TRemeritus (as a matter of disclosure, my blog pieces are picked up by TRemeritus) have given a space for alternative voices. However, the ruling party has also found ways to deal with this. Why label anyone “Anti-Singaporean” when you can get someone else to do it for you. It’s especially effective when that person happens to be a Pink Blotchy – the Fawning Follower comes to mind. Unfortunately, Pink Blotchies have a tendency to be listened to, even if they’re speaking gibberish. As a friend of mine noted, otherwise intelligent people actually bought into the arguments of the Fawning Follower on why it was a sign of success to keep dark skinned Asians in cages (ooopps, I mean dormitories) and how the government supported the rule of law by a law on the statute books but not enforcing it.

The Fawning Follower has been a particularly useful pawn in labeling people who disagree with the government as Anti-Singaporean or worse – Traitors. He’s labeled Kristin Han as having “a career in treachery” and his next favourite target is the play write Alfian Sa’at, whom he describes as symbolizing the egotistical rebellion of the no problem generation. 

While Kristin and Alfian have questioned things, neither have done anything that would count as “treachery” by any definition of the word. There is no record of either having said or done anything that called for violence in the streets or for a foreign nation to invade and so on. Neither have been picked up by the Internal Security Department, which would indicate that the government is well aware that the its “critics” are traitors or “anti-Singaporean” or dare I say “rebels” by any definition.

Why do these things when someone else can do them for you? You stay above the fray and the Fawning Follower and his ilk do it for you. So, when the likes of Dr. Tan Meng Wu start talking about how ethnic minorities should be grateful that they can get jobs and send their kids to school, there’s no outrage at the underlying but blatantly racist tones. The trolls have laid the ground work for you and whatever prejudices people might have become justified because, well, a member of the ruling party said so in public and it was OK.

Thankfully there are some signs of progress. I take my hat off to Professor Tommy, one of our most respected diplomats, who has stated that Singapore needs “loving critics.” Professor Koh has argued that as a strong society, Singapore needs to accept a diversity of views. Crushing the views of “loving critics” instead of accommodating them, can be bad.

Mr. Wham spent years campaigning for migrant rights. He was labeled a trouble maker. Well, surprise – surprise, Covid-19 proved Mr. Wham right (1,000 cases a day, contrary to the Following Follower is not success). Had the authorities engaged Mr. Wham earlier, they may have found the problem much earlier and instead of being with the likes of Ukraine on the list of most infected nations, we might be closer to the likes of Hong Kong or Taiwan. 

If there’s anything that we need to move away from in this General Election, it is this automatic, “If you’re not with us, you’re against us” mentality. This isn’t about who wins the most seats but whether we can move away from “Me teacher, you student” (or as my mother says “me right, you wrong) mentality in politics and more towards the politics of “You’re a good man that I happen to disagree with.”  

There is a hope for this. Two of Singapore’s better leaders from different sides of political divide have chosen to step out of the ring in this election. Apparently, both men have stated their respect for each other. Here was the message that our former Prime Minister, Mr. Goh Chok Tong left on his Facebook on veteran opposition leader Low Thia Khiang:

https://mothership.sg/2020/06/goh-chok-tong-low-thia-khiang-retirement/

Mr. Goh was labeled a “seat warmer” for our current Prime Minister. Despite having the pressures of the Old Lee above him and the Current Lee below him, Mr. Goh managed to do a few of his own things (As a long-term resident of Marine Parade, I have Mr. Goh to thank for getting MPs to try and beautify their estates. He was the first one to do so. As a beneficiary of Saudi-Relations and the Indian Business Community, I have to thank Mr. Goh for opening these markets up. – Lee Kuan Yew was quite open in his disdain for India after Indira Gandhi snubbed him). As such, I believe everyone contesting this general election should take note of his words and I think his final gift in politics is showing Singaporeans that it is possible to agree to disagree.  

Lucrative Problems

I got to admit that I love Bollywood and being forced to stay at home and having access to Netflix has allowed me to catch up on a few Bollywood movies. The smattering of Hindi I’ve been able to pick have come from watching Bollywood movies.

Anyway, I watched Aiyaary, where there was a scene about an incident in Kashmir (the long-disputed sore in Indian-Pakistan relations). In this scene, the younger character asks his mentor, “There are intelligent and capable people on both sides. Why is it that we can’t solve the problem?” The reply of the older character replies, “Kashmir is an industry,” and he goes onto explain that too many people on both sides are making money from the problem. He then let’s his protégé understand that, “When you’re making money from a problem, you safeguard the problem instead of solving it.” The dialogue can be found at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-we3SC-NzA

This section of the movie caught my attention because the world is going through a lot of problems. We have a global pandemic, the depletion of natural resources, climate change and now there’s racism in much of the Western world. Old conflicts like Kashmir and the Israel-Palestine issue seem set to get worse.

None of these problems are new. These problems were highlighted in the global media some thirty years ago and if you followed the news in that time, you’d get the impression that these were insolvable problems.

However, if you look at the technological advances that have been made in that period, a sane mind would have to ask, “Why can’t we solve these problems?” Why, for example does South East Asia and the South America get covered in a haze every so often? The annual bout of regional choking haze comes from the burning of forest, which is meant to clear land for cash crops.

When environmentalist complained about the ecological devastation, the standard reply in Southeast Asia (and is now being loudly used by Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro) was that “the poor world needed to feed people,” and the subtext was “even if it pissed off Western environmentalist,” who were merely imperialist trying to keep us poor.” While this might have been the case in the 1960s, why does this have to be the case in 2020? You’d imagine that we’d have found a way to substitute palm oil in certain products or found a way for farmers to clear land that didn’t kill off the rest of us.

Unfortunately, it’s not been in anyone’s (or at least the people who count) interest to find a solution. The plantation owners keep poor people busy and politicians have been convinced that its in their interest to keep the plantation owners happy.

Here in Singapore, there’s the issue of foreign labour, which has become an issue now that Covid-19 has exploded in foreign worker dormitories. Suddenly, Singapore’s media has shifted its focus on the condition of foreign workers and there have been letters galore about the need to rely less on foreign workers.

True to form, the industry has hit back and there have been a number of letters from “industry” groups, which called for any cut to the supply of foreign labour to be “short-sighted” and detrimental to the economy. One of the most prominent forum letters can be found at:

 https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/forum-call-to-cut-number-of-foreign-workers-here-is-short-sighted

The argument against having more foreign workers is unfortunately the same as it is the same argument against any basic improvement to the welfare of foreign workers – namely less foreign workers like better foreign worker welfare will increase the costs for employers who will then have to charge more and make everything more expensive for us, the consumers.

This argument has been used very effectively to dodge solving the actual problem, which is the fact that employing a foreign worker is not actually cheap for employers nor does it give foreign workers the money they thought they’d have but the system benefits a host of other parties like labour suppliers, dormitory operators, labour agents and repatriation companies. Any disruption to the system will inevitably upset a host of other people. Nobody explains the problem better than Alex Au, who works at TWC2, an NGO for migrant workers:

http://twc2.org.sg/2020/05/01/the-dorms-are-not-the-problem/?fbclid=IwAR1nhYuPYZ_hYyigLs3VbUrfO4CLtEXz9XuTbB20EOFyKNU6aOInlRGp5GQ

Crudely put, every foreign worker is a money spinner for a host of parties. The government, despite its generous support for the migrant workers in this pandemic, is in fact one of the guilty culprits. The revenue from the foreign worker levy is a major money spinner (average of $750 per worker per month – the stress of this being an average) for the government. However, in addition to that, there is a quota system, which limits the number of foreign labourers that a company can hire.

The official reason for the levy and quota is that it reduces the price differential between foreign labour and local Singaporean labour. The reality is that it has created a very lucrative niche called Labour Supply. The basics are simple – hire a labourer on the cheap and then “rent” them out to other companies that need labour but don’t have the quota. As one former accountant for a labour supplier says, “The worker works the overtime while the labour supplier pockets the overtime pay.”

Other laws get exploited too. There is a lucrative niche for lawyers working on workman 

compensation. All you need is to find a worker involved in a workman compensation claim. You pay for the housing, flight ticket and perhaps give him a bit of pocket money and once he’s gone back, collect the workman compensation, which is inevitably higher than what you paid.

The answer to our foreign labour problems is simple. You just need to reduce the people in between the labourer and the employer. If you reduce the army of middlemen, the employers can get cheaper labour and the workers can get more money. The key parties would benefit. However, the middlemen form an industry in themselves.

I look at the situation with maids as an example. At one time, a maid in Hong Kong earnt up to $700 a month because there wasn’t a powerful middleman. In Singapore a maid would costs an employer around $700 a month but the maid would only get $400 if she was lucky. The difference between the Hong Kong and Singapore scenario is the fact that there is a levy to be paid in Singapore.

I’ve never argued against the need for middlemen. Agents and even labour suppliers have a role to facilitate the relationship between employer and employee. Dormitory owners also serve a purpose in housing workers. Nobody is saying that these businesses should not be allowed to make a profit.

What is being argued here is that the system needs to be changed so that the most important players (namely the employer and employee) get a fairer deal. The system as it is, remains a problem. It’s a choice between increased costs for employers and basic welfare for workers (which is defined as livable wages and accommodation that does not make people sick.)

Entrepreneurial thinking is needed to restructure the system and the sooner the government bites the bullet and goes through the pain (including losing the addiction to easy levy money), the better it will be for all of us.

Your Rich – We Have to Give You More

I’ve been spending a little less time on the blog and focusing more of my time on writing for the mainstream media in recent days. A part of shifting focus has been work-related. The other has been the fact that there are issues that need to be raised in a place where there’s going to be wide discussion.

The most prominent issue that has caught my attention and the attention of many in Singapore is the issue of foreign worker dormitories. The reason for this is simple, these are the places where the explosion in Covid-19 cases have been found and the government has decided to throw a lifeline to the dormitory operators by offering to foot the bill for the increased operational costs that the dormitory operators will have to face. More details on that story can be found at:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/government-to-absorb-additional-operational-costs-for-dormitory-operators-during-circuit

While the stay-at-home orders and lockdowns on the dormitories has undoubtedly raised operational costs for the dormitory owners, one has to ask why the government has decided to step in as their proverbial sugar daddy. This is especially in a situation where the dormitory owners are in no danger of going bankrupt.

As matter of principle, I’m against subsidies from the government, whether its to individuals or corporations. Having grown up in the West, I saw how noble intentions ruined. Welfare, which was meant to help the poor ended up destroying the incentive to work. “Free” healthcare was often abused (think of the 18 months it takes to get an appointment with an orthodontist in the NHS) and then, there’s the well subsidized business of farming, which became very lucrative for farmers who realized that farming was not about crops or livestock but filling out forms.

I get why some subsidies exists. On a personal level, there are people who are basket cases that you can’t leave to rot (think of the problems they’ll cause as they rot). I think of Flesh Ball and her various men as an example. When it comes to businesses, there are times when a subsidy is necessary, especially when it involves bringing something to market that will have eventual social benefits. Renewable energies for example, were highly subsidized because they were expensive. However, those subsidies have paid off in that the cost of producing renewables are now competitive and it has provided the world with energy sources that don’t damage the environment.

Then there are exceptional circumstances where subsidies to businesses help provide social collapse. Subsidies to businesses in the current shut down of the global economy have helped keep people who might otherwise be unemployed in a job. The alternative is mass long-term unemployment, which in turn would mean social unrest.

So, the question is, does the dormitory operations industry justify giving a subsidy? I believe that the obvious answer is no.

Firstly, there is no benefit to the tax payer in doing so. Unlike renewable energy companies, they are producing anything that would add value to either people or the planet in the long run. They are merely putting people into a certain space and charging a fee for it.

Secondly, the dormitory operators are not in any danger of going bankrupt and throwing people out of work. While a breakdown of their number of employees is not available, a look at Centurion Corporation’s website would indicate that they are still hiring.

https://www.centurioncorp.com.sg/career-opportunities/

As mentioned in two letters to the Straits Times (including one by me), the dormitory owners are exceptionally profitable. Details can be found at:

https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/why-foot-the-bill-for-dorm-operators-that-have-profited-for-years; and

https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/forum-let-dormitory-operators-face-the-music-themselves

Numbers quoted in both letters were taken from Centurion Corporation’s financial website at (Being a listed company, Centurion Corporation has to publish its financial results):

https://centurion.listedcompany.com/financials.html

The letter by Mr. Cheng Shoong Tat got the board of the Centurion Corporation to scramble and they had to issue a “clarification” as to what their $103.78 million profit on revenue of $133.353 million meant. They’ve made a point that of that $103,78 million profit that they made includes a “one-time” net fair valuation gain of $66.3 million on investment properties and assets held for sale. The clarification also makes the point the worker dormitory business is just 65percent of their total. More details can be found at:

https://centurion.listedcompany.com/newsroom/20200518_205520_OU8_AKSMHTJUI645S6UQ.1.pdf

What does this mean in layman terms? Is the company saying that the $66 million in “fair-valuation” gains merely an accounting treatment rather than actual cash?

Even if you take the “clarification” at face value, Centurion’s profits are exceedingly healthy by any standards. If you take out the “one-time” net fair-valuation gain, the profits before tax would be $44.735 million (Gross Profit less expenses), which would mean profit margins of 33 percent (still very healthy by any standard) and if you less income tax, there’s still $37.522 million, which means a margin of 28 percent. Furthermore, the “one-time” net valuation gain is also in the financial results for 2018, which would suggest that the one-time gains are fairly consistent.

All these factors should not distract from the fact that Centurion Corporation is sitting on a cash pile of some $48 million (cash at bank).

Nobody is saying that Centurion Corporation and its brethren are not allowed to make profits. What is questioned is why the tax payer has to subsidise them when there is a situation where they are likely to make less. The point about going into business is that you take the risk and rewards accordingly. When times are good, you are entitled to your profits but when times are harsh, you take the losses. Other businesses have also taken hits. SIA, for example has had to lay off staff because the global airline industry has been badly hit. However, SIA provides jobs for many Singaporeans and actively promotes Singapore, something which the dormitory owners do not.

The most crucial point to the case against footing the bill is that many of the costs that are now being imposed on the dormitory owners are now being forced to take on, were costs that should have been factored in when the Foreign Employers Dormitories Act (“FEDA”) came into force in January 2016. This act essentially sets certain standards in the industry of providing accommodation for foreign workers and the fact that the government introduced this act would indicate that the government realized that it needed to have some oversight on the industry. More can be found at:

https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/FEDA2015

This leads to the fact that half of all dormitory owner’s flout licensing requirements on a yearly basis as the Minister of Manpower admitted to parliament:

https://www.straitstimes.com/politics/majority-of-dorm-operators-flout-licensing-conditions-each-year-says-josephine-teo

So, the question remains, why should the tax payer bail out a highly profitable and cash rich industry from failing to fulfill its legal obligations? What hold does this industry have over the tax payer that it can demand a right to be subsidized to correct its own failings. When was it my obligation as a tax payer to fund an industry’s right to make healthy profits.

The Fawning Follower Strikes Again

You have to hand it to the Singapore system for creating its defenders from the most unlikely of places. The system has turned children of dissidents into its spokespeople (think of Janil Puthucheary, son of Dominic) and it has foreigners from the advanced countries lecturing the locals about how good they have it (I think of the number of times I’ve been told by Europeans to be grateful for what I have in Singapore).

Generally speaking, I don’t disagree with those who sing our praises. The facilities in Singapore are pretty darn good and as I’ll never tire of saying, as a father of a young girl, I’m thankful for the safety of this little Red Dot. We are in so many ways what a society should be – rich, clean and green.

Having said all of that, we are by no means a perfect society and as citizens or even residents, we have an obligation to point out the flaws of the society that we live in. Call it a process of giving feedback to the people that we pay to keep the show going. As Singapore’s government is inclined to see its self as a business, the analogy of the unhappy customers being the greatest source of learning is the most apt analogy that should be used when it comes to the government’s critics. It’s bad enough when the government which prides itself in being like a business behaves in an arrogant fashion towards its intelligent critics, it is even worse when you get foreigners justifying what is a fault.

The Fawning Follower who calls himself a Critical Spectator, has struck again. This time, he’s taken issue with Kirsten Han, a freelance journalist, who has had some articles published by the Washington Post, criticizing the government’s handling of Covid-19 outbreaks in the dormitories that house workers. The Fawning Follower has gone as far as to describe “Betrayal” as theme of Ms. Han’s career. The Fawning Follower’s Facebook posting can be found at:

https://www.facebook.com/CriticalSpectator/posts/2826267214147654?__tn__=K-R

As a matter of full disclosure, Ms. Han and I are related. She’s a second cousin once removed. However, this is a distant relationship and I wasn’t aware of it until my mother pointed it out to me. Ms. Han and I have met once and we don’t interact on Facebook or any social media.

Having disclosed that, I believe that the Fawning Follower is barking up the wrong tree when he calls Ms. Han is traitor to her country, ideals and the poor and underprivileged she claims to support. If you read through his post, you’ll find that his main beef with Ms. Han is the fact that her operation “New Naratiff” is based in Malaysia. The Fawning Follower takes issue with the fact that while Ms. Han has published articles that have been critical of Singapore’s handling of migrant labourers but not doing the same with Malaysia.

As he did in his previous post on the “Workers Dormitories being a Sign of Success,” the Fawning Follower fails to get the point. Just because everyone else behaves in a certain manner or in a worse manner, it does not make a certain action right. Then there’s the issue of where the focal point is.

Sure, Malaysia’s treatment of migrant labour may be worse than Singapore. Migrant labourers in the Arabian Gulf are known to be treated badly as was voiced many times in Qatar’s efforts to hosts the World Cup. However, just because Malaysia and Qatar (and the rest of Arabia) may treat their migrant workers worse that we do, it does not justify how we treat ours.

Then there’s the point that the place where covid-19 is blooming is in Singapore and the focus on how migrant workers are treated is thus far on Singapore and as anyone who has dealt with migrant workers, you’d know that they’re not exactly getting the best deal.

Sure, Singapore’s government has been generous in its support for the migrant workers. However, when you consider the amount of money that the government makes in terms of the levy, the government has a moral obligation to ensure the basic well being of the workers.

The Fawning Follower clearly does not understand the basics of how a society functions and by extension he does Singapore, particularly the government no favours. Instead of rushing the bash the “critics” he should consider being a “Critical Spectator” and watching out for the government he claims to admire.

Let’s Use Our Brains

One of the reactions to my post “NO NEED TO SAY SORRY –JUST DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT, was from a friend of mine who asked me what I thought would happen to the Singapore economy if:

1.      What will happen to the Singapore economy if we reduce migrant workers to 10 percent of the current; and

2.      If migrant workers accommodation is regulated to no more than four per room, air conditioned with proper private cooking and sanitary area and the quantum reduced to 50 percent of current. What will be the impact?

The answer to both his questions is painfully obvious, namely the economy would take a hit and Singaporeans who are currently feeling the pinch would be asked to take a lot more pain. At the most basic, the mom and pop section of the retail industry would take a hit with less consumers. As at December 2019, Singapore’s population of foreign workers in the constructionsites numbered at around 293,300 and cutting that number would reduce thepotential consumers for basic retailers considerably.

Secondly, the industries that rely on a steady supply ofcheap manpower would suffer. Construction, which accounts for three-point sevenpercent of GDP would take a hit as would manufacturing, which makes up about 20.9percent of GDP and transportation and storage (six-point seven percent of GDP).If you added the accommodation and food services industry, which would add afurther two-point one percent of GPD to the picture. The industries that dependof cheap labour account for nearly a third of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP)and it goes without saying that cutting down or raising the costs of “cheap”manpower will have an effect on the economy.

As such, one might be inclined to argue that we should not push up the costs of employing foreign labour as it would hurt the economy. As a fawning follower disguised as a “Critical Spectator” pointed out – Singapore has benefited from a supply of “cheap” labour and the economies of India, Bangladesh and the Philippines have benefited from the remittances sent back by domestic workers and construction workers working in Singapore, the Arabian Gulf and other parts of the world.

However, if you look at our recent growth figures, you’d realise that they’re not what they used to be. Even before Covid-19 struck economies around the world, Singapore already experiencing slower economic growth and as someone who worked in the insolvency business for half a decade, most of the industries that have been hurt are the industries that depend on “cheap” labour. 

Singapore’s economy needs to restructure and while nobody denies that tourism, food services and manufacturing are important to an economy, shouldn’t we focus less on industries that require vast numbers of manpower and more on the quality of manpower.

While Singapore has generally done a good job on the economic front, the shine of our so called “stellar” record is starting to wear thin. The strategies that worked so well in the 1960s are not working in the 2020s and unfortunately, the government seems to view moving away from old strategies as a sin against a moral code rather than a matter of practical survival. Heavy industry and construction worked in the 1960s. We merely had to provide the multinationals with secure environment and a compliant workforce and price ourselves just bellow the Westerners and Japanese. This helped create mass employment and helped rise prosperity.

However, Singapore can no longer depend on heavy industry based on price. China, India and  the rest of Asia will always be able to do things more cheaply. If anything, China, which epitomizes heavy manufacturing, was even before the trade war with the US moving away from heavy industries. Today’s Chinese business heroes are people like Jack Ma of Alibaba and Ma Huateng of Tencent who built their fortunes in high end technology – the industries that require a certain level of brains. If a Communist country known for its ability to repress can produce people who build fortunes in brain industries, why can’t Singapore?

We need to look at “brain industries,” as the way of the future. Our advantage lies not in being cheap but in being good. We always talk about how good our universities are, so why can’t we use them to spur high technology industries? We have the legal infrastructure to encourage innovation.A Singaporean has just been chosen to head World Intellectual Property Organization(I am not related to Daren Tang), which should be a testament to the quality of our intellectual property infrastructure.

Our population is educated and the infrastructure is there. Today’s technology means that we don’t need to rely on industries based on large numbers of cheap labour. There is no excuse as to why we cannot have a “brain” economy.

We need to go through the pain and restructure away from 1960s thinking. Let’s understand that our real assets are brains and the ability to attract brains. Singapore needs a brain economy for the 2020s and not a 1960s heavy labour economy.    

What is the problem exactly?

The Singapore Government, which was praised as the gold standard in managing the coronavirus has been struggling to show that it has grip on things. The dramatic spike in cases of coronavirus has come from the one area that was simply ignored – in the areas that were housing Singapore’s vast number of foreign workers.

In fairness to the Singapore Government, it has scrambled to take care of this sudden nightmare, offering to house and feed the workers. Unfortunately, this has placed the government in the cross hairs of two conflicting groups. The first group is the group that thinks the government is doing too much for the foreign workers and pampering them. The other thinks that the government is making a royal hash of things. This conflict is best exemplified by the recent outcry over the provision of meals to the workers, which can be found at:

http://theindependent.sg/photos-of-govt-provided-meals-for-foreign-workers-thrown-in-trash-explained/

The outcry over meals provided to the foreign workers has gotten the Minister of State for National Development and Manpower, Mr. Zaqy Mohammad (as a matter of full disclosure, I know Mr. Zaqy on a personal basis and once organized a training session for his grassroots leaders), trying to explain the logistical issues in providing food for over 200,000 workers. The story can be found at:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/dorm-meals-are-getting-better-zaqy

Reading these stories makes me ask, “What exactly is the problem that we have when it comes to dealing with dark skinned people from poor countries?” Singapore is a wonderfully efficient and comfortable society in so many ways. I remember a young Englishman who is married to one of my favourite reporters from the BBC Asian Business report, telling me that his life is actually pretty good. He pointed out that Singapore, while small, is in the centre of so many things and unlike England, you actually start dealing with things at a national and international level as opposed to having to go through counties and so on.

Unfortunately, its very different when you it comes to dealing with the guys working at the bottom of the proverbial heap. This isn’t the first time when our society has had problems coping with the idea that people from third world countries doing menial jobs are entitled to the same things like food and rest like the rest of us.

Think of the time when the government had to step and mandate that domestic workers get one day a week off all the way back in 2012:

https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/work-permit-for-foreign-domestic-worker/employers-guide/rest-days-and-well-being

Apparently, giving a maid a day off was a challenge for some people, who reasoned that if they allowed their maids to have a day off, they would end up in “bad company:”

http://twc2.org.sg/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Madetowork-Dayoff-Report-2011.pdf

Now that the maids have a day off, the visible sight of maids and dare I say, construction workers “chilling out” in public places like parks offends the sensibilities of our local population:

https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2155193/singapore-domestic-helpers-day-park-rankles-some-residents-who-complain

The most prominent example of how the sight of poor people having a good time offending our local population came from my favorite young pork guzzling on a Ramdan day Muslim Politician from Pasir Ris GRC, who once exclaimed, “The workers are terrible, they have sex with maids.” I had to explain to him that workers and maids had urges too and just as nobody complained about his sex life, there was no reason why he should complain about the sex lives of workers and maids. I’m glad to report that a spell at university in Australia has helped him understand the human perspective and the fact that idea that workers in menial jobs are also humans is not a leftist conspiracy.

Seriously, why is it so difficult for us to understand that construction workers and maids are human beings too and worthy of basics like having a day out to chill and being fed a decent meal after a hard day of work? It’s that simple. I cannot stress enough times that nobody is asking for “special treatment.” Let’s note that with the exception of the 201s strike by bus drivers from China (which was a justified protest against race based pay), none of our foreign workers have actively protested and demanded higher wages (though they have protested not being paid for work done, which, contrary to what a few members of our local population may think – is not a strange thing to protest.)

If we can get around the idea that people from third world countries are as human as we are, we may solve a lot more issues. If for example, we understood that cramming a group of grown men into a small room, after working 12 to 15 hours a day in the hot sun paying $10 per person per day for the bed space was not an acceptable way of housing people, we wouldn’t to quarantine them and have the logistical issue of feeding them.

Again, nobody is asking to be pampered. Nobody is asking for extra comforts. They are just asking for some basic rest and nourishing meal after a hard day of work. Letting them have these simple things in our self-interest as it allows them to work more energetically and productively for us.

The Fawning Follower.

One of the most prominent moments in Barak Obama’s Presidency was when he suggested that people who felt that people living on low wages didn’t have it that bad was “Try it.” I often think of this phrase whenever I read comments about workers dormitories and how foreign workers should be grateful for their lot in life because it's  apparently much worse elsewhere.

The most recent character who should try it is a character called “Michael Petraeus,” a Polish national who has reinvented himself as a blogger called “Critical Spectator.” Mr. Petraeus like all good foreigners at the “expat” end of the scale is a devoted fan of the Singapore Government and while he is a spectator, he is not critical of the situation in Singapore.

To be fair, Singapore stacks up pretty well in most aspects of life. We remain for the most part a 

rich, clean and green city. The government machinery for the most part remains pretty good. Our Prime Minister, for example, gets the world’s most generous political salary but unlike his previous counter part across the causeway, nobody has found a criminal and unaccountable sum of money in his bank account. In this era of Covid 19, we’ve also done a reasonable job. If you look at the statistics, we’ve not done as well as we could have when compared to say Taiwan or New Zealand but it's not the disaster of say, the USA, where there’s a national leader undermining safety measures.  

Mr. Petraeus is also a foreigner, who is getting a good deal from Singapore. It might be natural that he takes the view that he should “educate” the locals and show them that Singapore is not as bad as they think it is and as a “guest,” he might feel that its not his place to be critical.

Having said that, Singapore is not perfect. As PN Balji, former editor of the Today Newspaper used to say, “They’ve got about 75 to 80 percent right but you need to harp on the 20 to 25 percent that isn’t right because it’s the only way they’ll stay on their toes.”

Unfortunately, the one area that most glaring errors in the Singapore system is in the area of dealing with the poor and neglected. Our so called “Asian-Values” society that respects elders, for example,  sees nothing wrong with old folks going through the trash so that they can pick out drinks cans to sell for a few pennies because they need the money.

We are also a society that doesn’t seem to have a problem with “slave labour,” and “race-based” pay scales, particularly when it comes to dealing with people who happen to be darker than a shade of pink. Only the blind would argue otherwise.

Unfortunately, Mr. Petraeus is blind spot to the obvious and this causes him to be anything but a “Critical” spectator. His most recent post was to rush the defense of the workers dormitories after the outbreak of Covid-19 cases. His post can be found at:

https://www.facebook.com/CriticalSpectator/posts/2788391291268580?__tn__=K-R

Mr. Petraeus argues that far from being a failure that the NGO crowd have made them out to be, the dorms are a sign of success. His arguments can be summed up as follows:

 1. Singapore has built cheap and good infrastructure by using cheap labour from elsewhere;
       2. The foreign workers are not complaining because what they get here is better than what they get at home;
       3. Singapore is short of land and the dormitories are the most cost-effective way of housing them; and
       4. This is not exploitation because everyone benefits.

     Mr. Petraeus is correct. The dorms are a sign of success. If you are an owner of a dormitory for example, you are bound to be very successful

Take a look at the Centurion Corporation, which owns and runs the Westlite Toh Guan, the dormitory that has become one of the main covid-19 clusters. In the year ending 31 December 2019, Centurion Corporation had revenue of SG$ 133,353,000 and after-tax profits of SG$103,788,000. The joint non-executive chairmen of the board, Mr. Han Seng Juan and Mr. David Loh Kim Kang from Potong Pasir CCC are appreciated by their shareholders.

Mr. Petraeus is also right in as much as the workers generally don’t complain about their lot because they are earning more than what they could earn back home and from what I could see of Westlite Toh Guan from the outside, it does not look unpleasant.

As to how much we’ve benefited in terms of cheap and affordable infrastructure, it’s a question of debate. What is certain is that the trade in labourers has built a few fortunes. In addition to helping the construction companies earn good money from cheaper labour, there is an industry called labour supply. In July 2019, one of the largest labour suppliers in Singapore sold his company for 40 odd million Singapore dollars.

Mr. Petraeus also uses another defense of the system, which is – migrant labourers are always at the bottom of the social heap wherever you go.  

https://www.facebook.com/CriticalSpectator/posts/2792915094149533?__tn__=K-R

However, what Mr. Petraeus seems to forget is that just because a situation exists everywhere in the world or the fact that people don’t complain about it doesn’t make it right.

Everyone knows that the foreign workers are where they are because they want to earn money to help families get out of poverty. They’re willing to work longer hours and for less money than the locals. Nothing wrong with that. However, the real beneficiaries of this business are not the workers themselves but a host of intermediaries like labour suppliers, agents and incidentally, in the case of Singapore, the government, which collects a levy on every foreign worker (which ranges from $600 to $900 per person per month).

While Mr. Petraeus’s point that Singapore benefits from cheap labour might be up for debate, the government definitely benefits from it in the form of the levy. If you take the low-end figure of $600 per person and the fact that there are 284,300 construction workers as at June 2019, that amounts to some S$170,580,000 a month in revenue from the workers levy alone.

While the intention of the levy is supposed to be to reduce the cost differential between the foreign labourer and a local Singaporean, the result is that its encouraged employers to look for further cost savings elsewhere, particularly from the workers.

Some locals have complained that the Singapore government is “wasting” resources on the labourers and that we’re doing more for them than their own governments. However, let’s look at the other side of the equation. The mere presence of the labourers is contributing to the government’s coffers in return for no benefit at all. Call what the government is doing for the labourers a form of investment to ensure the system can sustain itself rather than benevolence. Whatever benefits the government gets from contractors using cheap labour, the one that is clearly measurable is the returns from the levy.

Mr. Petraeus also forgets that the government has admitted that standards for worker accommodation are also not what they should be. Minister for Manpower, Ms. Josephine Teo has said that standards need to be raised and it is clear that current conditions of accommodation are not healthy. While the recent outbreaks of covid-19 have attracted media attention because of their sheer number, this is not the first-time workers have died in Singapore because of an outbreak of disease in their accommodation.

It must be nice for Mr. Petraeus has so much faith in the Singapore government. However, blind faith is not healthy for any organization including the Singapore government. It’s the likes of Mr. Petraeus’s efforts to defend glaring flaws that leads to complacency, which leads to something like the case that we currently have

Perhaps the solution for Mr. Petraeus to celebrate the success that our dorm represent, would be for him to try living in one of them. Perhaps he really would be a “Critical Spectator” rather than a “Fawning Follower.”

Our Oooppps Moment

Singapore has just won something it doesn’t want to win. It has become the country in Southeast Asia with the greatest number of Covid-19 cases thanks to a record spike of 1,426 cases on 20 April 2020. Singapore had been lauded as a model of how to manage the pandemic. The government implemented contact tracing policies and somehow, our numbers remained relatively low without a full lockdown. Then things changed. In the last two weeks, we’ve seen our numbers jump. From two-digit daily increases, we started seeing daily increases of three digits on a daily basis.

What happened? How did Singapore’s thus far “Gold Standard” management suddenly collapse? For me, I don’t think it’s a case of the Singapore government’s lack of capability in crisis management. Rather, it’s a case of the neglected part of Singapore coming to bite us back.

If you look at the dramatic rise in the number of infected cases, you will note that its primarily from the foreign worker population who are concentrated in foreign worker dormitories. As mentioned in a previous posting, these workers are primarily from South Asia, working in labour intensive industries and for the most part live in a different, more brutal reality from the rest of us. A second cousin once removed said it best in an article in the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/16/singapores-new-covid-19-cases-reveal-countrys-two-very-different-realities/

Whatever is said of how the government has managed the pandemic, I’m inclined to agree with Professor Donald Low of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who argued that the one area in which the government should be blamed in the area of foreign worker management. Professor Low’s analysis of the government’s handling of the pandemic can be found at:

http://www.academia.sg/academic-views/coronavirus-right-lessons/

Professor Low rightly distinguishes between “known Unknowns” and “Unknown Known.” Everything about the virus was based on “known unknowns,” in as much decisions were based on available information at the time and the decision makers had to do with what they had.

The issue of foreign worker dormitories is however, is a “unknown known.” This is an old issue and NGO’s such as TWC2 have raised this issue before in the public domain. This is not the first time that foreign workers have died from diseases due to unhygienic living conditions as a 2012 article from the Straits Times reveals:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/rat-borne-disease-suspected-in-foreign-workers-death

The system as they say, is stacked against the foreign worker and employers do have the right to view foreign workers as an exploitable asset. Getting medical leave, for example, can be perilous for the worker’s economic well being as the list from TWC2’s website points out:

http://twc2.org.sg/2019/09/15/survey-of-doctors-reveals-barriers-to-healthcare-for-migrant-workers/

There is no possible way that the government could not have been aware of this potential time bomb. One can only attribute the lack of serious action in this area to “self-interest.” These workers are the ones who keep strategic industries like ship building and construction running. Hence, the government has not been willing to “raise costs” for employers.

The more worrying trend, is that the population, particularly among the older Chinese are inclined to think of our dark-skinned workers (the proverbial “darkies”) as dispensable too. The Chinese daily, Lianhe Zaobao published a forum letter from a reader that blamed the migrant workers for the current situation:

https://mothership.sg/2020/04/migrant-workers-zaobao-letter/

While Singaporeans have come out, calling out this writer for obvious racist attitudes, the frightening thing is that plenty of people seemed to agree. The following article from Rice Media provides some valuable insight into what the letter reveals about society:

https://www.ricemedia.co/current-affairs-commentary-zabao-forum-letter-singapore-echo-chambers/

The Law Minister, Mr. K Shanmugam has gone public to decry the underlying racist attitudes, but as welcome as having a high-profile minister cone out to state the obvious, this sounds like rushing into the ICU for a problem that was diagnosed a decade ago.

Singapore’s mortality rate from the virus remains relatively low. While the government has done a relatively competent job, in as much as it has taken care of the population that votes. However, it has completely disregarded a segment of the population which does not have a voice.

A government that is renowned for having superb foresight has been caught by a glaring blind spot. This is an organization that holds a lot of power. It could have tried to listen to the voiceless. As a society we need to understand that treating people like humans is in our self-interest.

Too much energy is focused on international window dressing. In the early days of this pandemic, our ministers became prone to comparing our well-disciplined machinery to the “idiots” in Hong Kong, which up to that point was racked with street protests. Just as Singapore recorded its first four digit increase in cases; Hong Kong recorded its first day without a new case. As Professor Donald Low argued, humility and humanity should be the lessons we learn from this virus.