PAP and all the good policies

Why was PAP the party and still in power after 46 years? Obviously it has done many things right, not all. The Sinkies are not dead fish that cannot tell the difference between good and bad policies. Let me just name a few without being exhaustive. Among the best known PAP policies must be asset enhancement, high pay for ministers to fight corruption, high public housing prices(oops, affordable), high fees for good value of services, high influx of foreigners for high growth, high population density, high COEs/car prices, high medical fees(this is related to value for money), high CPF savings, high minimum sums, just to name a few.

And the magical thing about all these policies is that they all work excellently. The country has prospered and the happy are rich beyond anyone’s imagination for a piece of rock without natural resources except people talent, local and foreigners.

But why are there so many grievances and growing? I think it is all a matter of perception. The people did not understand how good these policies are to them and how they have benefitted from them. In a way the people are really daft for not knowing what a good life is, 人在福中不知福。

Maybe there is a real reason for the unhappiness, perceived or otherwise. The policies are damn great and damn effective at one time. I think, this is my personal opinion, the reason for things looking bad, is that they forgot to put on the cap. Having fun is ok, but never forget to put the cap on.

Imagine when there is no cap for minister’s salary, by 2030 it could be $30m each. HDB 3rm flat could be $2m each, COEs could be $1m each, population could be 20m and growing, because got no cap, CPF minimum sums could be $2m each, CPF withdrawal date can be eternity(of course I am just exaggerating) and everything will be similarly risen in cost or price. That I think is the problem why the people are starting to fear for the future. But the people definitely cannot see the salary of a cleaner be $10k per month or a fresh graduate getting a starting pay of $30k, an average worker will be paid $50k a month. And of course by then everyone will be dreaming of becoming billionaires. Becoming millionaires is passé, irrelevant. It is all possible when there is no cap. In short, it is all a problem of going ahead to enjoy the good life without a cap.

Don’t you think so? The policies are all working extremely well.

Bedok/Punggol Branch Chairman – Do not harden hearts

The speech by Bedok Reservoir-Punggol Branch Chairman Victor Lye as reported in the media is most interesting. What he said were important. What he did not say were even more enlightening. I will adopt a ‘read between the lines’ approach to understand the gist of his speech.

The title as reported, A need to ensure PAP does not ‘harden hearts’ is as good as confirming that hearts have been hardened. He referred to the Hougang voters as a case in point. How and what did the PAP do to harden the hearts of the Hougang kias is interesting though no one is talking about it. This is the first admission of this fact.

His recommendation to win back Aljunied is to go with the flow, knowing that it is the national desire for alternative voices in Parliament. How is he going to do it? ‘In Aljunied, we must be prepared to argue for policies that are different from the Govt, even if they are somewhat similar to the Oppositions’. This is simply genius. The Aljunied voters will get an opposition in Parliament no matter who they voted. And this opposition will speak against the PAP policies, right or wrong, because the people want an opposition to do just that.

He also addressed the issue of transport and housing which he said was a perception that these policies were aimed at maximising profits. Really, if it is just a perception then it should not be a problem. Just communicate and explain and the perception will change and the problems will go away.

His other recommendation on transport is that Singaporeans should be put ‘at the heart of the policy while achieving operating efficiency’. Read between the lines, Singaporeans were not put at the heart of the policy while achieving operating efficiency. Is that the case?

His concluding statement for winning back Aljunied, ‘we need to make clear that we have candidates with the right party values’. What are these values? I am sure, very sure, that George Yeo had all these values. But he still lost. Now I am not sure who the PAP is going to put up that is better than George Yeo, that have understood PAP values better, to win back Aljunied.

Anyway, it was an amazing speech with a lot of revelations. It is good that the media reported the speech almost in full. Good speech, and good understanding of the problems or perceptions of the problems PAP is facing.

Desmond Kuek, spoke on SMRT issues

It is good that WP has joined in to have a say in the SMRT drivers strike. It also called for fair treatment of workers and decent and living conditions. Apparently no one knew that the PRC workers were having problems in compensation and living in less than decent quarters. The fact that there were admissions to such allegations is proof that things have to be improved. This blind syndrome of seeing but not seeing is becoming a disease affecting Sinkies. It is the consequence of marginable and incremental changes that led to the acceptance of gross indecency without being noticed as the reference point is the last case. It is like earning a million bucks and getting a 5% increment of 50k is nothing without knowing that the starting point was a $50k base salary.

By now it is clear that the main issues to the labour dispute were pay and living conditions. The latter is easier to resolve as workers, especially captains, need to live in conditions befitting of a captain, not a labour camp or abode fit for foreign workers. Good that the SMRT management is looking into the matter now.

As for the compensation, it is not as simple as it looks like. Compensation has to take into account a whole lot of factors, qualification, experience, seniority, performance, allowances, benefits etc etc. And in this case there is another factor of nationality. It is frequently heard that Sinkies are paid much more than foreigners. This could be true and could be a myth. Sinkies too expect to be better rewarded as citizens of the country while foreigners, in this case, even deferred to the privileges of citizens. Only those foolish foreigners working here would think that they should be treated and paid equally as citizens, or even better, as they are here to help the citizens and to provide jobs for the citizens. Where did they get this crazy idea from?

From the numbers available in the papers, it seems that the PRC drivers were paid just as much as the Malaysian drivers but in different combinations. If this is so, then it is a failure on the management to explain the whole compensation package to the PRC drivers. Think communication. They could even offer them the choice of a Malaysian driver’s pay package without the allowances for accommodation and transportation. Are there other benefits that were provided and not computed or explained that were fair or unfair?

There is one very important factor that no one wants to look at and think that if not spoken, it is not there. This reminds me of the Ostrich School of Thought. Many of these workers secured the jobs after paying a hand or a leg to the employment agencies and needed an equitable income to repay the money often paid using borrowings. How would this play up in their minds as to how much they are getting on the job and the debt incurred? This cannot be dismissed off as a non issue. It is a very serious issue that would affect the job performance and mental stress of the drivers. Any driver that thinks he is getting a raw deal will not be giving his best and would end up as a potential problem to the company and even a danger to his passengers and anyone on the road. Management may ignore this, but it is part of the driver’s computation for a decent return for his labour.

There are also obvious differences in terms of employments between permanent employees and contract workers and cannot be simply used to exaggerate the difference as discrimination. The bottom line is that the total package must be equitable and fair to all parties but not necessarily the same. There are elements of just compensation for the job and fringe benefits due to other considerations, like seniority and performance and even cost of living.

In the case of cost of living, paying Sinkies a few dollars more is not positive discrimination as the cost of living is much higher than foreigners. Paying the Sinkies the same as foreigners is really underpaying Sinkies and that is perhaps the main reason why Sinkies are shunning from lower paying jobs. It needs a lot of money to live and survive in this first world city. There are family and social commitments and high cost of everything to pay for.

So, is the compensation package for the PRC drivers really lesser than those of Malaysian drivers and are there genuine and valid justifications for the difference that can be explained to the PRC drivers? If the package is fair, it is then only a matter of being transparent and making the PRC drivers see the fairness of the scheme. Short changing or exploitation of workers, local or foreign, can only work for a while. The truth would soon bear its weight on the culprits of bad HR practices. But don’t always blame the HR practitioners. Often it is top management decision and they were just carrying out the policies from the top. HR professionals should have the gumption to take on management for a fair deal before negotiating with the worker. In reality many would not be able to risk walking out on a job when there is a big mortgage to pay and a family to feed. Management decision is final.

Dumb and daft workers, ignorant and illiterate workers that would blindly accept unfair practices are a thing of the past. But can the management see it, with their super talented team? The reigning philosophy of the day is that workers must be cheaper, better and faster while top management must be paid millions and millions more. Desmond Kuek has been quoted to say this, ‘There are clearly managerial, structural, cultural and systemic issues that need addressing.’ From my experience, management tends to take HR issues for granted and often think they could get away until it is too late. And HR will become the sacrificial lamb.

Picasso and Mother Nature: A piece of rar art

This is a colourful piece of contemporary art painted by Mother Nature.

When ‘resident’ is becoming a hideous word

A front page article in the ST today has a heading ‘Singapore residents’ employment rate up’. The article went on to provide figures on the employment rate of residents in various age group and how many oldies and housewives are returning to the job market. I combed through the article and found two words missing, as if it was a deliberate effort not to have them mentioned. Not a word was mentioned of Singaporeans and citizens. What does this mean or what implications are there when it is all about residents and not citizens or Singaporeans? After all the hue and cry over PRs being treated like citizens or getting better privileges than citizens, many new policies were churned out to differentiate the differences between being citizens and non citizens. The citizens were angry that they were taken for granted, like step children and being ill treated. Some of the measures have placated the emotional strain and the lesser economic and social opportunities caused by the presence of residents or primarily PRs.

From the content of the article written and the primacy of the term residents, what is the message? Is this a country where residents and citizens are indistinguishable, to be treated in the same light again? Why is there no mention of the word citizens in the whole article? Is there something about citizens that is unmentionable or unpleasant to be mentioned? Or is it that the people must not know the difference between citizens and residents, that statistics may tell the truth of a picture that the citizens may not be happy about?

The refrain from providing statistics about the welfare and well being of citizens, and the lumping of everything under the cover of ‘residents’ is screaming out loud a message louder than intended. By not saying it has the reverse effect of saying too much. There must be a difference between citizens and residents and in favour of citizens, not the other way. Check out the statistics dished out and figure out why citizens or Singaporeans were never identified separately. A country is primarily for its citizens and not residents only.