‘We need a new govt’

This one not I say one. I received so many of such comments from all over. Some said this has been said many times and many years ago but nothing happened. To me this is surprising, not because it is being said but why it needs to be said. The people are all for the govt, behind the govt. Look at the result in the last GE and also the by election, all for the PAP. Then why is there this kind of talk about changing the govt, about the need for a new govt?

Didn’t the Singaporeans know that they have the best govt in the world, the most talented of talents in the govt, the most selfless, self sacrificing people working and serving them and everyday thinking of how to help them to improve their lives even if Singaporeans did not ask for it? Not only that, these are the most clever men and women that money can buy, most honest too and definitely incorruptible. Where else can one find such a fine collection of men and women who risk their lives, sacrificing the quality of life of their families just to serve the people for a few million dollars when they could make many more millions in the private sector?

After deep thoughts I finally concluded that the problem is that the daft sinkies are unable to appreciate what the govt is doing for them and did not know their blessings. The daft sinkies cannot comprehend what is good and an incorruptible govt made up of very clever men and women and very honest too. Maybe the daft sinkies are looking for less clever men and women, or not so honest men and women so that they don’t have to pay so much for the quality. Not too clever men would not think of being paid in the millions.

A good example of how honest and clever the men and women in the govt is the way they are telling the people about the need to increase water charges. They said the price of water has not been increased for the last 17 years which is a fact. No bluff one. Ok they did not say the cost of water from Malaysia did not increase for the last 50 years but the people did not ask so cannot blame them. Then again, the cost of water has risen with the growing population and the 13 or so reservoirs would not be enough. To keep up with a growing population, maybe 6.9m or 10m, more desalination plants must be built. And this is not only fact but innovation or a forward looking strategy for survival. A govt of not so clever men and women would not know how to solve the problem of shortage of water for a big population.

Oh, the people also did not ask how many kinds of taxes have been added to the water bills though the price has remained unchanged. What are the taxes? Water borne fees, water conservation fees and GST. How much would these add up to the cost of water or price of water? Water borne fee is 28% for households and 48% for business use, water conservation tax is 30% and there is a 7% GST. How much would these add up to?

Someone has worked this out and I reproduced the numbers. I am not sure of its accuracy but it would give a good idea of how much the total price of water the people would have to pay despite no increase in price in the last 17 years. Assuming all these taxes are not there, the price of water would remain the same for the last 17 years, if one is paying $50 then, one would still be paying $50 now.

The picture is different if the taxes are added. The example worked out is as below.  Assuming a $50 water usage bill. Add 28% for water borne fee or +$14, and another 30% for water conservation tax ie +$15 and another 7% or $3.50 for GST, the total bill will become $82.50. What so much? Tiok or not? No increase in water charges for 17 years but the amount to be paid is $82.50 instead of $50?  I think my computation is not very right. Someone please correct for me.

Now the numbers given to me on the 30% increase by Heng Swee Kiat are like this.

$50 plus 30% will be $50 + $15=$65. Add 28%($18.20) water borne fee, add 30%($19.50) for water conservation, the total bill will become $102.70. Now add 7% for GST or another $7.19, the grand total for a $50 bill today will become $109.89. And this is for household consumption. For commercial use, the water borne fee is 48% instead of 28%. How many percent more is that?

The important thing is that the govt is telling the truth. No one is telling lies. The only lie would be the numbers given to me if they are proven untruth or incorrect.

Now back to the call for a new govt. Yes, perhaps a new govt that is not too clever would be good for Singapore. They would not know how to increase water bills without increasing the price of water for 17 years. They would also not dare to ask to be paid in the millions and pretend that they are also very clever. Not so clever govt also has its own blessings I supposed.

Come to think of it this is quite a logical deduction and a good call for a new govt, one that is not too clever.

What do you think?

PS. The above discourse did not take into consideration the increase in SC&C and electricity charges. Now you know how important it is to be earning million dollar salaries, can twiddle thumbs and talk cock when such increases are no more than spare change. Don’t have to worry about got increase or no increase in water charges.

Contact Singapore closing down on April 1

Contact Singapore, Singapore’s on line portal to attract overseas Singaporeans to return home will be closing down on April 1 claiming that it has succeeded in its mission. The statestimesreview has another take, that is if closing down due to its failure to attract Singaporeans home. Which is the truth?

This is Contact Singapore’s mission posted in the statestimesreview, “When the Contact Singapore alliance was formed in 2008, we wanted to make Singapore a place where global talent would call home, from which they could flourish and contribute. Nine years on, we think Contact Singapore has succeeded in its mission.”

I think by reading the above mission statement, Contact Singapore has indeed succeeded in its mission ‘to make Singapore a place where global talent would call home.’ The mission statement is not about attracting overseas Singaporeans to come home but about global talent to make Singapore home. And if you look around Singapore, when more than half of the population is foreigners, new citizens, PRs and EP holders, indeed Contact Singapore has succeeded in what it set out to do.

The notion that it is set up to attract Singaporeans home is not the primary mission. If that is the case, it would be said so specifically. What it said is global talent, not overseas Singaporean talent.

I am sure many overseas Singaporeans would want to come home, after all Singapore is home, where they grew up and all the memories, friends and relatives are. Why would they choose to stay overseas and not wanting to return home? Is it that the good jobs are given to foreigners and Singaporeans were sidelined in favour of foreigners? Looking at the tertiary institutions and many GLCs this is apparently so. When talented Singaporeans find themselves bypassed for top jobs, even terminated or not offered these positions, why should they stay at home?  If Contact Singapore is really serious in attracting overseas Singaporeans home, just offer them equivalent jobs that have been given to foreigners with dubious track records and there would be many willing to come home.

Has Singapore done something wrong to drive Singaporeans away from home? Or Singapore is encouraging Singaporeans to work overseas so that it can replace them with funny FTs to work in Singapore? Which is which?  No one would want to leave the comfort of home behind, to uproot and work overseas unless the offer is so attractive or they are being forced out by the deplorable employment scene at home where foreigners became the first choice to Singaporeans.

What is or was Contact Singapore’s real mission? Did it succeed or did it fail?

Totalitarian mindset in Sin City

Below are extracts from an article in the TRE questioning why students must give all their prizes and trophies won to their schools.

'What’s this new ruling about the Singapore Sports School indicating that any prizes, be it monetary or products, that the students of the school win while representing the school must be given to the school instead? Previously, the student-athletes get to keep their winnings as long as these prizes were not clearly awarded to the school....

Students should not be forced to channel back whatever they have won to the school. Let them enjoy the fruits of their labour. For the school, isn’t seeing your students winning things under your umbrella enough, rather then go after their prize winnings also? By Prem Shankar'

A professional athlete or sportsman would have to share his prizes and monetary awards to his coaches and the organisation that was paying for his training and expenses. That is fair. Why should a school be demanding that students representing the schools must give them their winnings, trophies and monetary awards? What have the schools contributed to the sportsmen and athletes success? Other than allowing them to compete in the name of the school, what financial and non financial contribution and assistance did the school provide to the sportsmen and athletes?

Do the schools know how much the sportsmen and athletes have contributed to their own success in terms of time, expenses in food, supplements, nutrition, medical bills and pain? Many sportsmen and athletes paid a heavy price, financially and the time spent in their sports, many suffered injuries, poor academic results for spending time training and the discipline regime, forgoing other activities and commitments.

The big question what have the schools contributed to the success of the sportsmen and athletes and how much did they contribute financially, not counting physical, emotional and other sacrifices that the sportsmen and athletes have to put in, to demand the sportsmen and athletes to give them all their winnings, awards, trophies and monetary gains? Is it fair?

The MOE has any instruction or policies on this matter? Their diam diam stance towards this matter is as good as agreeing to what the schools are saying. Smell of a totalitarian state.

What do you think? Another syokan incident in the making? Are the schools bullying and taking advantage of their hapless students that got no one to turn to short of offending the school authority?

I hope this thing is not true. Please correct me if I am mistaken.

Najib behaving like Aquino

The assassination of Kim Jong Nam in KLIA is turning out to be another big farce and Najib is looking like another Aquino in the making while Malaysia is looking like South Korea during the sinking of a South Korean warship Choenan.

The Kim Jong Nam case should be a criminal case where a person was killed in Malaysian soil and the Malaysian authority should go through the due process of their law to investigate the case, try to apprehend the culprits. The body after autopsy should be returned to the next of kin or the country claiming it. This is the first time that I have heard of the demand for the victim's DNA as precondition for the release of the body. What if no DNA is produced, is Malaysia going to set up a cold store to keep all the dead bodies of foreigners? What is so difficult to return the body to the next of kin, or is the Malaysian authority having doubt of the dead person's identity? What is Malaysia hoping to gain or what game is Malaysia playing by making it so difficult to return a dead body after autopsy has been done?

Now this has been turned into a political row between Malaysia and North Korea, from friends to foes so unnecessarily. What is Malaysia up to? Is Malaysia acting under instruction from some outside parties to make things difficult to the North Koreans? If so, how is it going to benefit Malaysia except to be seen as another puppet of some outside powers?

The way the Malaysians went about arresting so many Koreans is not funny. Imagine the resources put in to cover this case involving a foreigner that has nothing to do with Malaysia other than a crime being committed in Malaysian soil? Even those not North Koreans arrested, an Indonesia and a Vietnamese seemed so questionable. Ok, the Indonesian has admitted that she was part of the team that attacked Kim Jong Nam. What about the Vietnamese woman? She did not look a bit like the woman in white T with the LOL logo on it. It is so obvious that they were completely two different people. Today's paper reported that a photo of the Vietnamese woman was posted in her blog with the LOL Tshirt. Is this an after thought that the two women did not look alike so need further proof to convince the public that they were the same person?

And the story of how Kim was killed kept flipflopping, from injected by needle to splashing water on him and then a video clip of a woman covering Kim's face from behind with a towel. Or the latest, they wiped his face with their hands covered with poison. What is the truth?

And so many cctv clips were shown on the news. Accepted that some were old clips of Kim. But the few that were supposed to be of Kim Jong Nam during the incident showed him wearing dark blue jacket and then light blue jacket. And there were reports claiming that the video showed him stumbled to the check in counter and some said he walked calmly to the check in counter after the incident.

Finally the Malaysian authority admitted that they did not know the cause of his death. The poison theory is yet to be confirmed as no known poison was detected. Malaysia also refused to have a joint investigation or let the North Koreans in to at least witness how they investigated the case, just like the case of Choenan.

Just like the Choenan case, all the fingers were pointing at the North Koreans as the culprits with evidence as well. In the Choenan case the South Koreans even fabricated parts with writings from the North Koreans only to be proven false and the case was dropped and closed.

Would there be fabrication of evidence to show that the North Koreans were guilty and subsequently the whole case fall flat like the Choenan case when preliminary evidence and allegations were all against the North Koreans?

The biggest joke in this case would be that the victim is not Kim Jong Nam but someone else. Cannot rule this out if the Malaysians are asking for DNA to prove that it is him.

Talking about fake news, fake reports, false flags and conspiracy? What is this case all about?

Higher taxes no problem, just think positive

“New taxes or higher tax rates are not causes for alarm, but a call for Singaporeans to recognise that there are difficult things that we have to do together, rather than leave problems or difficulties for the next generation.”
Prices of water was raised 30% and a new tax for motorcycles was introduced in the Budget 2017 announced last Friday. – Lawrence Wong.
‘In a question posed by a radio listener over the rising cost of living due to the water price increase, Minister Indranee Rajah told Singaporeans to raise their salaries instead:
“It all comes back to how people can increase their incomes, and how the revenue that comes into the household can be increased so all the other things can be managed.”’
Both the above quotes were from thestatestimesreview. I fully agree with the two ministers on what they said. The people must think positively. Higher taxes are necessary and it is either now or tomorrow. So might as well bite the bullet and take it now. And once it is out, daft sinkies must be brave and resolute to take these tax hikes positively and think of how to overcome them.
And yes, the best way is to raise your income and all the taxes would be non issues. If you are earning $1m, just a 10% increase in your income would make you rich, what is the problem with a 30% increase on water bills? Better still if you can write your own pay check. And if you are jobless, go get a job and you will not have any problem with more taxes. Regard paying taxes as a privilege like serving NS. You are very lucky if you can afford to pay higher taxes and do NS, to sacrifice for your country and people.
Now get off your butts and go look for a job. There are plenty of jobs at the job bank and there are also many job fairs to attend. If still cannot get a job, go for more training. Ask someone to teach you how to write a beautiful CV. There are plenty of jobs in Singapore, no need to worry, just don’t be choosy.
And if all else fails, go to be an entrepreneur, like being a hawker. Hawkers are earning big bucks. If not, try to be your own boss, like driving taxis. Now driving a taxis got many choices, Uber, Grab, Comfort, SMRT etc etc.
See, after all the good suggestions above, the problem of higher taxes no longer a problem. We are all in the same boat, one for all, all for one. And if still cannot pay your water bills, don’t feel so sad, we can empathise with you and your predicament. Even if you are poor, you are still the luckiest of the poor in the world to be able to afford to live in this most expensive city in the world. It is your good blessing to live in this fine city. Count your blessings.