A need for a referendum

Before the plague of 900,000 locusts hit our shores, it is urgent that the people, the stakeholders of this piece of rock, make their stand clear to the servants of the people that they do not want to be swarmed and die of suffocation.

When we were 1m there was fear that we were too small to survive. We survived. When we were 2m, the same fear was repeated. We survived. We survived when we were 3m, 4m, in fact we prospered even with the smaller population. Now at 5.5m, one corner of the truth is that we need more, 6.5m maybe 7.5m or more to continue to grow the GDP. What about economic growth at the expense of quality of life and living conditions?

Is there an option for smaller GDP growth, or GDP growth without the plague of another 900,000 locusts? There must be a way, lower GDP from lower influx of foreigners but maintaining the quality of life. There must be alternative models to development and a better life for the people.

It is time to call for a referendum. The people and the opposition party representatives must take the initiative before everyone has to jump off this piece of rock. This high population policy is like the high cost of living and high housing price policy. They must go together. With a huge population, other plagues will fall in line, concrete jungle, need for jobs, infrastructure, services, energy, water. The nuclear option is a consequence of this high population policy. If population goes up, nuclear option becomes a Hobson’s Choice, or no choice.

The masters must have the final say, not the self serving servants. This is our country, for our children and their children. Why should we allow a few elected politicians to determine the future of our children? The people must tell the govt where it must not go before it is too late. The people must pre empt the influx of another million or more foreigners here. Say no to the ballooning of our population.

Self serving logic

Is there such thing as self serving logic? It is the kind of justification that people used to do silly things that they would not do without having some defensive arguments to justify their actions. An accident victim lying unconscious on the road and his money bag was on his side. The self serving logic would say, take it, if not, someone else would take it.

If we don’t go nuclear, our neighbours will. So the decision to go nuclear is made. QED. We don’t need to pay super talents to make this kind of decision with this kind of logic do we?

In the Singapore context there are plenty of such wonderful logics in use. The people will be corrupt. So how, pay them to prevent them from being corrupt. I also get paid by the way.

The people will squander their CPF savings. For their own good, lets lock it up for as long as possible. The people will all go for C Class hospital wards. So introduce mean testing to prevent such abuses. The higher income will all rush to buy HDB flats. So introduce an income ceiling to keep them away, so that they will go to the private market. Now my private property prices will definitely go up.

Water is a precious item. We must teach the people not to waste water. Charge them a higher fee and higher taxes for consuming too much. Is this self serving logic too?

The daft Singaporeans do not see these as self serving logic. They went along happily for decades. The not so daft Singaporeans remain reticent. But they turned them into party and private jokes among close friends. They are not that daft not to see walla when there is walla. Yes, not all Singaporeans are daft. The betterer dafters will be out there defending the self serving logic with all their might.

A futuristic Stock Exchange

Looking at my crystal ball and from the inputs of what are being implemented in the western model of stock exchanges, I have this vision of what the future stock exchange will be like. As desired, it will be a state of the art computerised system with minimal human beans involved, and superbly efficient.

In short, traders and remisiers can be excused from the system. They will not be able to compete with the machine. What will evolve will be high speed trading by computers and machine. Every big fund will roll out its state of the art computer system to trade for them, programmed by the best programmers applying the most complex algo logic to profit from every trade. To make a winning trade, they only have to beat the rest of the competitors by a micro sec faster or by a bid of 0.1c. That is all it takes. It is not about investing but a battle of machine. No need to bother about fundamentals or real values of the stocks. And all these will be done at extremely high speed by the supercomputers.

The game will be so sophisticated and super fast that no retail investors/traders will be able to play, or to think of making a profit. They will all pack up and call it a day. Trading houses too will not be in business when there are no investors/traders to pay them the commission to cover the operating cost.

Companies and business organisations too will find listing meaningless as the stock prices will hardly move, controlled by machine to minimise risk and making brisk profits in micro seconds and with marginal changes in prices. With the high cost of listing and listing fees, and unable to raise funds in a virtually lifeless market, many will delist from the stock markets.

Then what will the machines be trading? Derivatives, ETFs, CFD, ADRs, covered warrants, or any kind of papers that the funds could generate for the market. There will be virtual stocks created just for trading, with no need for a company and a profit generating business. A typical trading pattern for a penny stock like R2D2 will be: Buy 200m at 1c and Sell 200m at 1.1c. Or the higher value stock like C3PO Bank: Buy 20m at 8.00 and Sell 20m at 8.01.

And the industry will be so efficient that the management of a stock market would need not more than 20 staff. And the fund managers too will be operating with a handful of staff manning computers and machines. The whole industry could comprise of less than 100 expert financial professionals.

The broking houses will be a thing of the past, so are remisiers and traders and real stocks. It will be a real virtual world of stock trading, with stocks from non existent companies and machine trading for non existent traders and investors.

And the stock exchanges can churn in several trillions of trades daily from the handful of big operators and their machines. The stock market and exchanges of today will only be remembered and taught in schools as part of the syllabus in the subject called History.

The $24m race is on

If not for the silly exclusion clause that disqualified the majority of the population, I will also throw in my hat for the race. This clause must be deleted in time to come as it is the most discriminating clause against all citizens in the name of justice and equality. Reminds me of the Animal Farm where some are more equal than others. Who is to say who is more equal and has more right to be qualified as candidate for the Presidency except the people?

For the time being, only a select group of people who are rich and powerful are eligible to contest for this position. If not I would like to suggest that the Presidency be rotated on a monthly basis with each candidate selected from a pool of qualified senior citizens, excluding the unreasonable clause of being in high offices and running an organization of $100m. This will provide 12 high paying jobs of $400k per monthly term a year, or 72 happy presidents every 6 years.

The daft citizens will have to contend with the few candidates available today. Just be wise in casting the vote. Like Lim Boon Heng said, some are too close to political parties and may not be suitable. I fully agree with this kind of concern. The people must be guarded against incestuous relationship, and the elected President must be one that is not related to any political party.

Let’s hope there will be enough of neutral and decently qualified candidate to choose from. For those who are eligible under the present restrictive clause, they must know that there are very few around, they must stand up to contest as a service to the people and country. The people are hungry for an alternative choice.

Bikers

Two bikers riding side by side, a guy and his girl. More pics in Art of RAR Gallery on top right.

I did not ask for it

Hypothetically, or just my imagination, when the huge increments and pay were thrown at the lap of the President, could his eyes pop out and follow by a grumble, ‘Why so much? I didn’t ask for it.’ Nathan is a simple man, nothing ostentatious in his lifestyle, and probably very happy with his banana leaf fish head curry. He has never been seen as someone who would flaunt his wealth, spending wildly. Neither is his wife. Both very decent people living quite a simple lifestyle.

The millions of dollars thrown at him would probably go into his bank accounts and never see daylight. I am being presumptious of course. My point is that we are paying too much for a non executive president. We are not living in a kingdom where blue blooded aliens must be kept to live very well from the taxes paid by the people.

Also, whoever is elected to this high office, he is likely to be a man that is held in high esteem by the people, and unlikely to be corrupted. So no need to pay him an out of this world salary to keep his fingers away from the coffer. Anyway, his position is unlikely to get him too close to where the money is kept. The idea of paying an officer a lot of money to keep him from becoming corrupt is demeaning to such an office. For all its honour and dignity, this concept must be taken out of the equation when the good office of the Presidency is concerned.

Paying people to prevent them from corruption should be kept at those levels where people are likely to do so. I still got this funny feeling that the whole reasoning is foul, at least I can smell that something is not right.

I hope the Salary Review Committee will take the Presidency out of the package and deal with it separately, away from the stigma and idea of corruption. The thought of a president that is incorruptible may be a bit idealistic. But the safeguard is the office of CPIB, watching everyone to keep them honest.

A decade of failed public housing policies

With only a couple of weeks in office, Koh Boon Wan has virtually overturned many of the old housing policies of his predecessor and frantically trying to make up for lost time to make good what had went wrong drastically. Would the changes in housing policies be good enough evidence of the mismanagement of public housing or just a change of policies and nothing more? The decade of under building of public flats and the influx of foreigners have caught many first time buyers of HDB flats sleeping. Many did not really understand what was happening and were caught napping through no fault of theirs. As a consequence, many ended up buying excessively priced flats or missed the boat altogether. Many too have to put off plans for marriage, for starting a family, while some were forced to buy resale flats at higher prices or private properties at even higher prices. The net result is that many young people have to pay overpriced properties and cleaning up their savings. Those that missed the boat are just as bad as the little savings they stinged to save can never make up for the runaway prices. Could the victims of the decade of misguided public housing policies find recourse or reprieve in some way with new policies that will recognize their plight? Many have been forced out of the market for not being able to buy a HDB flat when their incomes were within the HDB ceiling. Is it their fault? Would there be an amnesty of sort to let these victims of past policies back into the public housing system? Or would it be a case of just too bad, caught by wrong policies at the wrong time? Or would some wise guy quip, ‘It happened, let’s move on? How flexible and people centric will the new regime be to the victims of flawed policies?

An unbelievable world record!

Other being a PAP MP, he(Yeo Guat Kwang holds) has an amazing 64 other positions !!! http://www.parliament.gov.sg/mp/yeo-guat-kwang?viewcv=Yeo%20Guat%20Kwang 1) Member, Government Parliamentary Committee on Manpower 2) Member, Government Parliamentary Committee on Community Development, Youth & Sports 3) Member, GPC for Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts 4) Vice Chairman, Aljunied Town Council 5) Alignment Director, NTUC Quality Worklife & All Nationalities 6) Acting Advisor to Taxi Operators’ Association 7) President of Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) Vice-Chairman, North East Community Development Council 9) Member, Board of Directors of PUB Board 10) Advisor to the Singapore Table Tennis Association 11) Advisor to the Singapore WeiQi Association 12) Advisor to the Ren Ci Hospital 13) Advisor to the Bright Vision Hospital 14) Advisor to Artistes & Performers’ Association 15) Advisor to Restaurants Association of Singapore 16) Executive Secretary, Singapore Chinese Teachers’ Unions 17) Director, Financial Industry Disputes Resolution Centre (FIDReC) 1 Advisor, Federation of Merchants’ Associations, Singapore 19) Executive Secretary, Amalgamated Union of Statutory Board Employees 20) Member, Workplace Health and Safety Council 21) Co-Chairman, National Tripartite Committee on Workplace Health 22) Co-Chairman, Customer Centric Initiatives 23) Co-Chairman, NTUC-SNEF Migrant Workers’ Forum 24) Member, Aids Business Alliance 25) Member, Mental Health Alliance 26) Member, Centre for Service Excellence and Leadership Governing Council 27) Member, SPRING Standards Council 2 Patron to Pets Enterprises & Traders Association (PETAS) 29) PAP Community Foundation HQ Executive Committee 30) Member, Committee to Promote Chinese Language Learning (CPCLL) 31) Member, Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) 32) Member, AVA Human Resource Committee 33) Member, WSH Council Finance Committee 34) Member, Tripartite Committee on Employability of Older Workers 35) Member, Tripartite Committee on Portable Medical Benefits 36) Member, Tripartite Committee on Flexible Work Arrangement 37) Member, Quality Service Advisory Council 3 Member, Institute for Service Excellence @ SMU (ISES) Governing Council 39) Member, Motor Industry Disputes Resolution Centre Pte Ltd Board of Governors 40) Member, Retail Price Watch Group 41) Member,Tobacco Licensing Consultative Panel 42) Member, Ngee Ann Kongsi Council 43) Advisor, Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore Staff Union (IRASSU) 44) Advisor & Trustee, NatSteel Employees Union (NEU) 45) Business Advisor, NTUC LearningHub Pte Ltd 46) Advisor, Yeo Clan General Association 47) Advisor, Singapore Taoist Federation 4 Advisor, Fo Guang Shan (Singapore) 49) Advisor, Mun San Fook Tuck Chee 50) Advisor, Society of Sheng Hong Welfare Services 51) Advisor, Sian Chay Medical Institution 52) Advisor, Society of Tourist Guides (Singapore) 53) Advisor, Singapore Furniture Association 54) Advisor, Eggs’ Import/Export Trading Association (Singapore) 55) Advisor, Federation of Merchants’ Singapore 56) Advisor, JCI Senators Club of Singapore 57) Advisory Board Member, Singapore-China Association for Advancement of Science & Technology 5 Patron. Buddist Fellowship 59) Independent Director, Grandwork Interior Pte Ltd 60) Independent Director, Japan Foods Holding Ltd 61) Independent Director, Koyo International Ltd 62) Independent Director, United Envirotech Ltd 63) Independent Director, Asia Water Technology Ltd 64) Independent Director, HLH Group Ltd The above is copied from Thoughts of a Singapore Statistician. This is the kind of overworked super talents that Singaporeans can be very proud of. As an average individual, I would forget at least 80 per cent of the names of the organizations in the above list. It is a marvel to even remember them, let alone trying to perform all the duties associated with them. But I am just an average bean. The uncomfortable or unfair part is that for a miserable $15k per month, this super talent is made to shoulder such an unenviable number of important positions and responsibilities. I really feel sorry for him. I doubt he even has time to eat or sleep if he is to do his duties, just to attend meetings alone. But when I look at how well he looks, I think he is coping very well. And he is not alone. I believe all his peers are also shouldering a fuller list of appointments, maybe more. So Singaporeans should not begrudge these great talents and the money paid to them. They deserve every penny they received. In fact they should be paid more. I will die trying to do more than 3 jobs. Singapore is indeed blessed with such super human beans, rightly described as more than mortals.

How long will the Ponzi Scheme last?

Many have commented that the public housing scheme is another Ponzi Scheme or something similar in nature. In all sense, it will die a naturally death by the time the lease expires in 99 years, all 900,000 of them. On that day, all will be worthless. There seems to be a way out though, to extend the game, by SERS, whereby the HDB will buy back the flats before the lease expires, offer the lessee a new flat of the same market value or slightly more. The lessee will be happy to get a new flat for a smaller fee and a new lease. This option of buying back and offering a new flat can go on and on provided certain conditions are present. Without these conditions, the renewal and new life will still come to an end. The first condition is that the flats to be acquired are low lying, and on the same plot of land a doubling of the units of flats can be built. A 10 storey block can easily go to 20, and 20 to 40. After that it must go to 80 or 100 storeys so that the cost of building the new flats can be paid by new lessees. As the cost of building is going to be much higher, and there is inflation to add on to the cost, it is also assumed that the income of the new lessees will go up proportionally to pay for the much more expensive flats. Or else, the aspiration will be for smaller and smaller units or smaller in size like what is happening now. The third condition is that there must be more and more buyers to buy the new flats. As the formula is based on the doubling of the units, if all the flats are to be rebuilt, it will need a doubling of the population, from 5m to 10m. So the floodgate for foreigners cannot be closed. The fourth condition is that the island will not sink with all the Towers of Babel loading on it. And hopefully, the supporting infrastructure to house the kind of population density can cope with the increase. If all the conditions are met, the Ponzi Scheme can go on and on.

The crime of earning $10k

The arbitrary $10k ceiling for the combined income of young couples is looking like a crime. It has been elevated to a sacred status that it is almost untouchable, like a commandment carved in stone. Young couples who have a combined income of $10k are disqualified from public housing. They are deemed too well paid, and able to pay more for private properties. They should go and buy a smaller but more expensive private property, or go for the big owns and take a bigger loan to service. The value of thrift and savings and financial prudence is thrown to the wind. If after taking a big loan and something untoward happens to their income that is their problem. And the private developers and speculators are all rubbing their hands eagerly waiting for these young couples to commit, after being forced out by the system. They have no choice but to take the plunge. What kind of philosophy is this? Forcing young people to go into big debt because they earn a little more than others? What is $10k anyway? Any decently qualified young couple that failed to get hitch within 3 to 5 years will see their income exceeding this arbitrary ceiling pronounced by god. Is it wise or decent to force young couples, just starting to work and with a full list of commitments ahead of them, to plunge in with a half a million or one million dollar loan? I think it is a crazy idea and very irresponsible. The crap about some of these young couples adding to the queue is another hogwash. Just like the spurious building acitivity today, it is all about building to meet the needs and demands of the people. The crime is for not building, not the young people wanting to join the queue. And not many would join the queue as those with lesser commitments would risk taking a bigger loan for private properties. It is no crime or shame to want to buy a cheaper home and save for tomorrow. The principle of thrift and prudence is age old wisdom. Punishing the young people for your own inept, poor planning and farcical beliefs is shameful. No one must be forced to eat sharksfins and force to pay for it. The $10k ceiling is another mean testing that is wicked to the core, like its parallel in healthcare. It only serves to fatten the pockets of speculators and developers at the expense of the young people. Just go and build the flats that the people need, and stop the silly reasoning. Every able young man must be given a chance to buy his first public housing. This is only equitable, just and fair. They also do their bid to serve the country like everyone else.

The housing mess or housing achievement?

25,000 BTO flats will be built this year. And now Boon Wan is saying tens of thousands of rental flats are needed and building of rental flats must also be ramped up. Are these happy problems or manifestation of infested problems in public housing that are surfacing today? With 25,000 being built and the demand is still growing, and a shortfall of tens of thousands of rental flats! What’s happening? Didn’t MND know the problem or they did know the problem but not building because the policy maker decided otherwise? Or is it that the information on supply and demand was misleading that led to the current mess? MND data quoted in today’s ST said that there were 3,700 and 2,300 rental flat applicants for year 2008 and 2009 respectively. If these were the data that MND was working on, not more than 5,000 rental flats need to be built. How could the numbers balloon to tens of thousands of flats needed as mentioned by Boon Wan? Whatever, policy failure or information failure, something is wrong with the housing needs of the people. They can’t say they did not know or did not see it coming. Boon Wan is only in the job for a couple of weeks and he is in a big hurry to clear the mess. The media also reported some views that the ramping up of rental flats would have little impact on the price of private properties. Could this kind of thinking be the main determinant in the supply of public housing, both rental and purchase? There must be many big speculators out there hoarding 10 or 20 units of properties each and fearing that the prices will fall. So are the property developers, all fearing that their profits will fall. It is thus important that the supply of public housing be carefully managed to ensure that the speculators and property developers are happily sitting on huge profits. Yep, must not remove the $8k/$10k ceiling so that these young people have no choice but to support the private property market and help the speculators and developers to make handsome profits. Tell them there are cheap loans, low interest rates, just borrow, half a million, one million, just borrow, no problem. Hope the ramping up of BTO flats will not affect the price of private properties, or else speculators, big investors and developers will be hurt.

Boiling the daft brains

After a long period of gradual abuses, the human beans would have adjusted and adapted to a higher level of pain and absurdity. Subsequently any lowering of suffering would be greeted with relief and gratitude. The high housing price is a living example that the people are getting used to it and paying a little less is cause for celebration. The people are now jubilant over the announcement by Boon Wan of the release of more public housing and a change in policy to build in advance of demand instead of waiting for demand to build up. Great man, compassionate man, with people centric policies, compare to his predecessor. Now this is a caring govt for the people and will look after the needs of the people. They have forgotten how they have ended in the shit hole in the first place. The history of lack of housing in the founding years need not be retold. The story of govt building public housing for the people, where people can go and choose their flats like choosing to buy a car or private properties must be repeated to remind the beans that it should be that way. But after getting used to waiting for 4 or 5 years, the beans are so happy if they can get it in 3. Now they will go down on their knees if they can get it in 2 years. Even the expectation for 5 rm, executive or private properties is forgotten. They no longer aspire for them and are contented with a 4 rm public flats for young professionals. Boiling daft brains are not much different from boiling frogs. The daft Singaporeans deserved to be treated that way, easily conned, easily appeased, easily contented, in their unthinking way. They will take it lying down when told to plan their marriages 4 or 5 years in advance or they will have to suffer the brilliant BTO housing policy. It is their fault for not planning ahead. Dumbos.

Michael - King of Pops

This is what Master Nature painted of Michael. And Master Nature says, beneath the cosmetics, he is Afro American. More pics at Art of RAR Gallery at top right.

The irrelevance of KPIs

Amid the hoohaas for change and the thrills of a Ministers’ Salary Review Committee, many well meaning experts have offered their views and suggestions on how to assess the performance of ministers and the appropriate rewards due to them. KPIs have been booted around as the panacea of all the ills that have surfaced. KPIs are widely used as a HR tool and also seen as a better and more objective tool for performance appraisal. It also has many drawbacks and easily misused by management to serve the wrong objectives with very adverse consequences for the organisation. The recent political developments have provided many interesting aspects on the misuse or misinterpretation of KPIs as a management tool. Kan Seng was promoted to Coordinating Minister earlier, Mah Bow Tan openly announced how great and successful were his housing policies and programmes. He would probably write a memoir on his great contributions to public housing and expecting the people to thank him profusely. These incidents were evidence that they were doing well, or their superior must be telling them so, for a job well done. How well they have done, in the eyes of their superior, using whatever KPIs, can easily be deduced by the amount of performance bonuses and growth bonuses they received over the years. Check it out. From their confidence and the high positions they held in cabinet, there were no doubts that their performances were rated very highly. What about the people’s assessment of their performances? Though the people did not have access to their KPIs, from the reactions and feedback in the media, it is quite clear that both must be ranked at the bottom of the people’s assessment. Here lies the first fault, what their superior think is good may not be good to the people. Both the ministers and their superior could be congratulating themselves for achieving all the goals in their KPIs. But to the people these are not the goals that are good for the people. So we have conflicting expectations and KPIs to start with. How then could KPIs be used to be both relevant to the superior of the ministers and the expectation of the people, if the KPIs are in conflict? Who then shall set the KPIs, the superior, the ministers or the people? If only the three can agree on the same set of KPIs, perhaps that will be a good reason to use KPIs to appraise ministers for their performance. It is a non starter in the first place.

The perpetual strawman for whacking

‘Only US can balance China’, why not ‘Only China can balance the US?’ Why is it necessary to keep the Americans interested in the Western Pacific to balance the influence of China and not keeping the Chinese interested to balance the influence of America? The inherent biased of a WOG or a western biased viewpoint of international balance of power is obvious. China is the perpetual strawman for whacking. ‘You can take Japan, Korea, Asean, and even include Taiwan and India, but you cannot balance China. It is too big. Only with the US and its superior technology can you balance China.’ Why not, ‘You can take Japan, Korea, Asean, and even include Taiwan and India, but you cannot balance the US. It is too big. Only with China and its superior technology can you balance the US?’ This western view has always placed China as the rogue nation, or the nation that is dangerous and all out to bully the smaller nations. In reality, the rogue nation is always the US. Look at the wars and the bullying of smaller nations across the world map. Who is bullying the smaller countries? But if one eats too many hamburgers and potatoes, one’s is gonna look at China like a potato or a hamburger, or think like a potato or hamburger.

Who shall decide who can be President?

Tan Cheng Bock is thinking of standing for the elected Presidency and has to meet the eligibility criteria of the PEC. The criteria include the following to ensure candidates are people of integrity, good character and reputation: 1. At least 45 years 2. Held key appointments such as minister, chief justice, speaker or permanent secretary for not less than 3 years, or been chairman or chief executive of a statutory board. 3. Or similar or equivalent positions in the private sector. The above criteria mean that one must be some big shot or else not good enough even if one is a person of integrity, good character and reputation. A school teacher, school principal, a GP, an accountant, a lawyer, a successful insurance or housing agent, a good social worker, an academic etc etc, will not be considered as good enough. Why? MP also cannot? Not perm sec also cannot? The criteria are actually PAP’s criteria. Do the people have any say in them? Who should decide the eligibility criteria for an elected President, the people or a political party that is in power?

Political appointments are not employments

There are so many views and suggestions on how the Ministerial Salary Review shall be conducted. From a human resource point of view, I think it is necessary to revisit the fundamentals. What is a minister or an MP? With that understanding, we may then approach the design of its compensation in a way that is appropriate to the nature of the position. A minister is not a job like any job, but a political appointment. Just like MPs, they are all elected representatives of the people but holding a higher office for a duration of 5 years. Period. It does not have an unending tenure of service. The fact that some of our ministers have been serving for decades is a peculiarity that may not happen in the future. Even if it does, each period of appointment is a new term of service, unrelated. Why are people talking about annual appraisal, salary increment, bonuses, pension etc etc that are part and parcel of an employee of an organization? What do these terms have to do with a political appointment with a short mandate from the people? A Prime Minister may want to appraise the performance of his ministers and reshuffle his cabinet as he deems fit. That is his prerogative. Is he also thinking of the annual appraisal of an employee which ends with a salary increment or performance bonus? Who is the employer and who is paying for the increment? If the employer is the ruling party, and the money is from the ruling party, by all means, do whatever they like. The employer of the politicians is the people, who voted them for a fixed term of 5 years. They will then have to seek the people’s mandate for another 5 year term. The people/employer will then decide if they want to give them another 5 years. It is like a contract for service with fixed terms. With this kind of contract, the remuneration for the ministers and all politicians shall be a fixed sum for the duration of the mandate. The issue of annual increment does not come into play. It is a package deal for 5 years. Bonus and pension too have no place in such political appointments. If there is any reward for politicians who have served for an exceptional long period of time, this may be provided as a form of one time gratuity to the deserving politician on a separate basis. The same could also apply to the head of govt or head of state as exceptions to the rule. It shall not be an across the board provision for every political office holder as if they are employees. The other important issue is who shall decide how much to pay the politicians? Obviously it is not right for them to approve their own pay cheque. A neutral Salary Review Commission can be appointed as what is already done. The approval shall come from the people through a referendum, something similar to shareholders approving the remunerations of the Board of Directors in an AGM. At most, this may be held once every 5 years or over a longer period if the economic condition or inflation has not deflated the value to of the compensation package to make it meaningless or unattractive. No political party must get away with the impression that once they are elected, the Treasury is their piggy bank and they can create as many appointments as they like to reward their members. Politicians going into politics, to be elected by the people are there to serve the people. They do not join politics as an employment with a career path and a life long pay package. If the current thinking is to go by, the govt will have to set up a human resource ministry to administer performance appraisal on the politicians, including the Prime Minister. Staff performance will become another job specifications for the Prime Minister and Ministers, and of course a salary scale, including a scale for the MPs, and all the terms of conditions of employment. After so many years of one party rule, the people have been distracted to think that ministerial appointments and political appointments are jobs, a career with career path and salary scale. Every year the incumbents can look forward to promotions, career advancement, annual increments and bonuses and pensions. Grandfather’s company? If the political climate is changed and after every election there is a change of govt, all the suggestions for performance appraisal, salaries, bonuses etc etc will become obsolete, irrelevant even if provided for. Please don’t get confuse. A politician and political appointment is not a job. Let the people decide how much they should be remunerated as a package for a fixed term of appointment. Nothing more, nothing less. If they want more, seek another mandate from the people and approval from the people. The current govt has been entrenched for too long to forget that they are not employees of the state like the civil servants. There is no contract of service and no terms of employment. KPIs are being booted by everyone as if it is the main factor to determine how much must a politician be rewarded. It is superfluous actually. The KPI, if useful, is to let the people judge the performance of the politician and whether to re elect him in the next election. It must not be an instrument to reward him with more bonuses or pay increases. The performance of a politician is not for the PM to tell but the people to decide. I hope the Review Committee will approach its task from the point of a 5 year mandate and not a life long employment. They must erase the current thinking that the package comes with all the perks and terms of an employee.

Alice in Water Wonderland

Alice in Water Wonderland. A masterpiece by Nature using Koi as painting material. More pics at Art of RAR Gallery on top right of page.

Daft Singaporeans are so easy to con

The COE is too expensive at $100k. Please make it cheaper. The seller says ok, I will sell it to you for $20k but for two years only. The daft Singaporeans will be so happy to grab it straight away. Woah so cheap, only $20k instead of $100k. This is the mentality of Singaporeans today. Despite the higher level of education, their ability to think clearly is still missing. What is the difference between buying a HDB that costs $400k with a 99 year lease and a $100k flat with only a 25 year lease? Oh yes, it is cheaper, can pay up the loan in 10 years instead of 30 years. Very affordable! This is the kind of suggestions that one forumer wrote in the ST today to bring down HDB price, to make it more affordable. He forgot about why the HDB price is so high in the first place, and whether it is justifiable. I am going to set up a car showroom to sell cars in pieces. The daft Singaporeans can buy the cars very cheap, but in pieces. They can buy two wheels or four wheels first. When they have more money, they can then buy the doors, the seats, and later the engine. And they will be so happy, running around screaming cheap, cheap, very affordable. Singaporeans are daft and for good reasons. Please, bring in more foreign talents to help these daft people. I feel like crying for Singapore.

Notable quote by Lim Wee Kiat

"If the annual salary of the Minister of Information, Communication and Arts is only $500,000, it may pose some problems when he discuss policies with media CEOs who earn millions of dollars because they need not listen to the minister's ideas and proposals, hence a reasonable payout will help to maintain a bit of dignity." - Dr Lim Wee Kiat, PAP MP for Nee Soon GRC, 24 May 2011 in Lianhe Wanbao PS. Lucky has posted an article on this. I just borrow the quote which says a lot about the mindset of our leaders.