the flawed manifesto

It's the last day of the various rallies to be held in view of the upcoming GE.  Friend was asking me if I had read the manifesto of "Caltex-Audi"(one of the political party vying for the votes of residents in my GRC ).  I had been reading on the excerpts of their rallies and my conclusion was – crappy.  Googled their manifesto .. and found it flawed, with my limited A-level economics knowledge (but I got an "A"!).  Or perhaps, if you take all things at face-value, they sounded plausible.

Back to the manifesto..

Extracted from their introduction…

"Singapore essentially comprised of Singaporeans. When we speak of the future it is the future of Singaporeans that is of primary concern to us – not the city state, not the infrastructure, and not the systems that make Singapore work. These are important but they exist to serve people, the citizens of Singapore and others who chose to live here or visit us. There is a very real danger that we are building Singapore as an entity, as a showcase of excellence, and forgetting that it is ordinary people that make up Singapore.  Does the average Singaporean care if Singapore wins international acclaim? Has he or she benefited from staging of major events here like the Youth Olympic Games? How has he or she been affected by the influx of foreigners?"

Then again, if you don't promote SG with excellent infrastructure, will the overseas MNC choose SG over say HK as its regional HQ? How can SG remains as an attractive location for foreign investments – which provides job opportunities for us, Singaporeans. Alright, I'm not an average Singaporean. I really appreciate the fact that Changi Airport won numerous accolades.  And I'm proud that SG Flyer is taller than the London Eye. (My opinion – Night View from SG Flyer is better than the London Eye . Love the CDB skyline.)

Back to manifesto. They identified five burning issues with their proposed initiatives. Nice touch. But then if you give some (casual) thought to them, some of the proposed initiatives no doubt will intensify the flame factor of the identified issues.

For example, it was cited "Cost of living is going up while wages of lower & middle income earners stagnate." One of the proposed initiative were: " tie-ups with neighborhood merchants for cost savings through collective bulk purchases of daily necessities."

Question – If you do bulk purchases of daily necessities – it may be cost savings to the residents – how about the neighbourhood merchants? This will strip their profit margins right?

The other initiative to solve this: "financial literacy programmes and consumer advisory services to educate, advise and assist with specific financial issues and problems." – So ambiguous.

And they advocate to " limit inflationary price increases in public services and taxes, GST in particular." – okay, GST reduced, then counter-measure will be increase say – corporate tax? Then companies decided to shift operations out of SG to cut cost – so existing workers face the possibility of being laid off.

 

Burning Issue (B ) – HDB Prices: Prices have skyrocketed and affordability is now a major problem.  It was proposed:-  'Rental leading to ownership' schemes for young couples and other Singaporeans not able to put down the deposit for purchase.   ~ What if they still can't afford to own the HDB flat eventually? Rental flat is still not an asset to your name!

 

Burning Issue (C) – "While worker wages stagnate ministers enjoy massive pay hikes.
Target to reduce Singapore's Gini Coefficient of 0.45 to 0.35 within 10 years, the latter figure being representative of most of the developed countries."

Their initiatives were : (a) Public sector and government-linked organizations (GLCs) to lead the way by substantially raising salary-scales for lower & middle income salaries; and (b) substantially raise pay of 'unattractive' jobs so that Singapore can reduce its dependence on foreign labour for these jobs.

Comment – Which job will you choose - $2,500 as a office administrator or $4,000 as a toilet cleaner/ construction worker. Faced it – the younger generation are pampered lot. How many are actually willing to clean toilet bowls, scrub the basins/ urinals? And do you think the private sector will emulate the salary structure of public sector?

 
Burning Issue (D) Job Security: Severely threatened by foreign influx of both workers and S-Pass holders.
One of the initiatives was "identify long-term unemployed Singaporeans and provide counseling, training and priority job placement."  Thought SG has one of the lowest unemployment rate in world? How many Singaporeans are actually unemployed due to ill-matched job skills – or are they too picky in terms of career choices?

 

Burning Issue (E) Medical Expenses

They unveiled their shadow health plan during a recent rally .

It was proposed to increase healthcare funding and " the funding will be drawn from the reserves and perhaps also taken from the "defence budget". The monies will be spent on building hospitals and increasing hospital beds."

However, it will take time before hospitals can be built and more wards are created. So in the interim, ... proposes to use the void decks in HDB flats as allocated healthcare facilities. Dr Gomez said that was an interim measure while Singaporeans "wait for the hardware".

Dr Gomez said to alleviate stress levels of healthcare professionals,  .... will increase the number of doctors, nurses, and physiotherapists. He said they will also increase the number of public health care administrators."

As far as I can remember, during the recent few visits to hospital to visit friends' new born, at least 20-30% of the nurses were non-local, particularly Filipino. So, with SDP's new plan, does it mean – more foreign talents need to be recruited? Then it will further intensify the existing pressing problems highlighted in their manifesto – job security that is severely threatened by influx of non-SG workers.

That said, I not exactly perfectly pleased with the current situation in my neighbourhood. I'm darned unhappy with the new block that's being erected up next to the empty plot to mine (and will voting for the Caltex-audi halt the construction process or get it demolished? NO.) I dislike the NOSIY PRCs that make their presence felt even in the wee hours of the night when they walked passed my unit. I'm not pleased with the inconsiderate disposal of unwanted furniture that seemed to increase recently – but think that has to do with the civic-mindedness of the residents (but can Caltex-audi change that? I doubt so). I dislike the loitering youths in my void deck area – likely a spillover from the entertainment hub/chalets nearby.

Then again, weigh the above grievances and the proposed initiatives to address the identified "pressing issues", it is not too difficult to decide which box to cross come this Saturday.