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Aljunied GRC MPs Outreach...
- Thread starter sengkang
- Start date
People's Association is serviced by taxpayers's money. No opposiion party is allowed anywhere near the parameter drawn up by PA, it belongs to PAp. The whole idea is to contradict and make a laughing stock of our national pledge that chant:- based on justice and equality so as to achieve happiness and progress for our nation (or was it for PAP). All populations in Singapore believe PA is partisan to PAP, LKY believe with confident that Singapore is made up of 60% daft voters, no threat to PAP leegime. National Day is the day for 60% voters to entertain PAP and act like a clown. I will be away for holiday from such ugly celebrations.
Constitutional Rights: Implications for Youths.
Speakers for the day: A/P Jack Lee, Mr. Koh Jie Kai and Ms Sylvia Lim. The moderator of the session is WPYW's Mr. Wilson Foo.
WP Youth Wing (@wpyw) on Twitter
twitter.com
Sign up for Twitter to follow WP Youth Wing (@wpyw). Workers' Party Youth Wing
Speakers for the day: A/P Jack Lee, Mr. Koh Jie Kai and Ms Sylvia Lim. The moderator of the session is WPYW's Mr. Wilson Foo.
WP Youth Wing (@wpyw) on Twitter
twitter.com
Sign up for Twitter to follow WP Youth Wing (@wpyw). Workers' Party Youth Wing
THE STRAITS TIMES FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012, OPINION / PAGE A31
THE LONG INTERVIEW CHANGE-MAKERS
'Power of we'
What Chen Show Mao wants, more than anything, is to be a catalyst to get Singaporeans more engaged in their citizenship and to play their part in fixing what is wrong with society, he tells Susan Long.
Since giving up the corporate high life, Mr Chen Show Mao wears mostly short-sleeve polos and jeans, takes public transport and has most of his meals in hawker Centres
THE question foremost on most minds is: Is Mr Chen Show Mao for real? Ask him that and his brows knit in perplexity.
Well, it is hard not to do the cost-benefit analysis of him throwing in the almost-certain success of his pedigreed, multimillion-dollar law career for the uncertain prospects of joining Singapore's opposition.
But he challenges that calculus, saying it wrongly assumes the cost was all borne by him. It was not, he maintains.
Background story
ON PUBLIC SERVICE
The substance of servant leadership is about putting people at the centre of policies. The style is persuading the people to come along. You no longer can just say: 'Look, I'm the leader, follow me.' You're the leader but you're also the servant. What does that mean? That means the master has to be led or has to be persuaded to come along, because the decision is ultimately his.
- On what servant leadership should be about
'I didn't spring forth from my mother's womb, fully formed by my own talent and ambition. It took my parents who made sacrifices and a whole community of teachers, scholarship boards, donors, taxpayers and others to give me an education and since I can't pay them all back, I hope to pay it forward.
'Even if you just look at it in dollars and cents, I couldn't have attended university without help,' says the 51-year-old who attended Harvard, Oxford and Stanford on university scholarships and the Rhodes scholarship.
It becomes clear that he views things through a different lens. Since he was voted into Parliament in May last year - when his Aljunied GRC team, led by Workers' Party chief Low Thia Khiang, won 54.7 per cent of valid votes - most of his public speeches have been an exercise in reframing.
In his maiden Parliament speech and Stanford Club address here last year, he turned on its head concepts like 'patriotism', 'public service' and 'pragmatism' - maintaining that they apply just as much, if not more so, to the opposition as to the ruling party.The highest office in the land, he believes, is the office of the citizen. What he wants, more than anything, is to be a 'catalyst for us to be more engaged in our citizenship, for each of us to play our part to make this democracy work', he says.
'Everyday citizenship takes time, takes effort, takes skill. If we're not willing to put in the time and effort necessary to do what we believe is right for our community, say, organise people to rescue Bukit Brown Cemetery, then we can't make it work.'
To him, the most critical need in Singapore is to make government policies more responsive to people's needs. And he sees building a multiparty parliamentary democracy as the best way to achieve this.
'Given our history, our concerns and our reluctance, I thought standing in the last general election was a good thing I could do for us,' he says.His greatest worry remains that Singaporeans 'feel powerless to change things in a meaningful way'. 'We think what we can do is so little. Who's going to listen? What if we get knocked down, slapped around?' he says.
But through standing on the opposition ticket, he hopes to give effect to the 'Power of we'.
'Every little thing you do, whether it's speaking up, asking questions or standing for election, affect people around you. People see that and feel more emboldened.'You could be standing for election. You could be starting legal action to bring up the by-election date. You could be saying that we should double the wages of low-wage workers. That's so good to see because all this is supposed to be a part of our public lives. As a democracy, there ought to be a flowering of this.'
New growth metric
THE man who won a prize for law and economics at Stanford feels that Singapore needs to go beyond dollars and cents, not just in tabulating the sum of his foregone opportunities in corporate law, but in measuring national growth.
Singapore could use a more comprehensive and accurate growth metric, one that takes in longer-term and broader social and cultural registers of well-being, he says.'Are people at the centre of things, or some measure of gross development or growth, that has over time been taken as a proxy for what's good for Singapore?' he asks.In the past 10 years, gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 83.3 per cent, whereas median household income grew only 21.9 per cent in real terms. The bulk of growth went to corporate profits and the income of high earners. About 42 per cent of Singapore's GDP goes to wages here, which is one of the lowest such shares in the world. The rest goes to corporate profits, interest and dividends. Further more, Singapore's growth, he argues, was achieved mainly by adding more input in the form of foreign workers, with the costs borne very much by the bottom half of Singaporeans in terms of competition for jobs, wages and a squeeze on public transportation and housing.
Asked for the evidence of that, he cites that over the past 10 years, the average monthly household income for the top 20 per cent rose 31.3 per cent here, compared with only 8.4 per cent for the bottom 20 per cent. Recently, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam produced figures to show that incomes have risen more for Singaporeans in the middle, than at the top and bottom, in the last five years. Income per household member grew in real terms - after taking inflation into account - by 3.2 per cent each year for median households, or those in the middle of a range.
In other words, despite inflation, middle-income Singaporeans are doing better than their counterparts in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other developed economies. Some economists have also noted that however you measure it, slower growth would have hit the less well-off groups hardest. But Mr Chen asks: 'Who is all this growth for and does it make sense for most Singaporeans? How can we have better measures of growth and a better growth policy for Singaporeans?'
He swivels around in his chair and reaches for the bookshelf in his Aljunied Town Council office in Hougang Central for a copy of the Report By The Commission On The Measurement Of Economic Performance And Social Progress. It was commissioned in 2008 by former French president Nicolas Sarkozy who tasked economists, including Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, to look beyond GDP and create a new measure of growth that factors in societal well-being.
Another example, he suggests, is the Human Development Index, a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and living standards.
'Let's apply our great knowledge and expertise and do serious analysis of our social policies in health care, housing, education, infrastructure and the environment.'Just as we have outfits like Spring, A*Star and the Economic Development Board to calculate the cost and benefit of various investment projects for our economy, let's do likewise for other areas of policy to maximise social returns,' he exhorts.This means not just looking at social outlay as expenses to be minimised over the short term, he suggests, but as investments with economic and other benefits that can be optimised well into the future.'For Example, when we calculate the costs and benefits of outlay that would enable the elderly to live close to their community, we should factor in benefits such as stronger community bonds, grandchildren having more access to this wealth of knowledge that's locked inside the person of our elders, and the economic benefit of their children being able to work longer hours outside without worrying about them,' he says.
Unlikely politician
THE first morning the 11-year-old Chen Show Mao arrived here from Taipei, he tucked into ice kacang. He remembers the scorching sun, the bright hues and the depth of flavour. Sitting at the hawker centre near his Singapore Improvement Trust flat home in Prince Philip Avenue and watching a profusion of women in saris and sarongs go to the market, he was bowled over by Singapore's vibrancy. Up till then, home had been Taiwan's southernmost county, Pingtung, then Taipei, before he and his younger sister, accompanied by their schoolteacher mother, came here to join their father, a manager in a Japanese company. His father, who was the first in his family to go to university and later set up his own machinery trading company here, had high expectations for his exceptionally bright son to live up to. 'One of the rare times my father spoke about me within my earshot, when someone praised me, was to say he hoped I would be of some use to society when I grew up,' he recalls.
The boy with the Beatles mop-top hairstyle knew no English then and remembers springing to his feet at Nanyang Primary when the English teacher casually pointed to his water bottle. Feeling lost at his first Malay lesson at Catholic High and not knowing the required level of proficiency, he memorised the entire first chapter in Malay. When called upon, he stood up and recited it all. The teacher started chatting to him, thinking 'I was from Indonesia but had a funny accent', he relates. Midway, he transferred to Anglo-Chinese School and remembers the kindness of the late Mr Ernest Lau, then vice-principal, who gave him extra coaching in English every afternoon for a few months to help him 'fit in'. When he did well enough to choose a book prize, he picked Lady Chatterley's Lover, to the disapproval of Mr Lau, who made him select another book.
At National Junior College, as student council president, he set up a Shades of Grey notice board hoping to draw out views on student life. It was styled after the Democracy Wall in Beijing in 1978, where political dissidents publicly documented problems in China.
He topped the 1979 national A-level cohort, and applied to study medicine here but was rejected. After his national service, he headed to Harvard to study economics, where he devised a freshman programme to help Boston's urban poor.
For a few summers, he worked with American consumer advocate Ralph Nader, doing research at his Centre for Study of Responsive Law in Washington DC.
He admires the man for his 'tirelessness and dedication to being a full-time citizen' and the real changes he made to people's lives, such as helping to introduce the seat-belt safety law, food labelling and the Freedom of Information Act.
'The Act didn't fall from the sky, not even in the land of the free. It was something that their citizens had to work hard to get for themselves,' he says.
Mr Nader was also a four-time failed US presidential candidate who stood for election because he felt the system wasn't working.'With businesses increasingly active in lobbying and financing candidates, he felt the two political parties ended up singing the same song, which was from the corporate song book. His point was that if the political system isn't functioning well, citizens have got to help make it work,' he says.
Around 1986, Mr Chen took up Singapore citizenship. He also won the prestigious Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, where he studied history and modern languages, before earning his doctorate in law from Stanford in 1992.
He joined the Tiffany of law firms, New York-headquartered Davis Polk & Wardwell, and became one of very few Asians to be made a partner there in 2000. He was based in Beijing from 2007 until last year. He never regretted going into corporate law, as it allowed him to witness 'the centre of gravity in capital markets shifting from America to Asia'. 'It was tremendously exciting for me to practise at the cutting edge, dealing with problems that had not existed before. It was like being present at the creation,' he says rather grandly.
Last year, American Lawyer magazine named him one of its 'Dealmakers of the Year' for his leadership in one of 2010's biggest deals, the US$22 billion initial public offering of Agricultural Bank of China.He flatly denies charges that he was a burnt-out corporate escapee seeking new meaning, as some have speculated, as he says he left 'on a series of career highs', or that he was returning opportunistically to seek fame and power after decades of being away from the country he claimed to want to serve. Rather, it was more a matter of him running out of time to 'discharge my obligations', he insists.
'The general election comes once every five years in Singapore. If I don't do it at 50, that means I will do it only when I'm 55 or 60. Time and chance happen to us all. And I had to make a choice,' says Mr Chen, who retired from the partnership last July.
That was how he came to knock on the doors of the Workers' Party during one of its open-house receptions in 2007, then to stand as a candidate 'however unlikely a politician I may have felt I was', he says. Since trading in his suits and the corporate high life, he's quickly adapted to his 'different mode of being' today. He walks to most places or takes the bus, MRT or taxis in short-sleeve polos and jeans, and has most of his meals in hawker centres, which he 'enjoys very much'. For exercise, he runs a fuss-free 5km three times weekly.
When his homemaker wife, a Taiwan-born American citizen, arrives here with their two children, aged eight and 12, next month, home will be a terrace house in his ward, Paya Lebar. Six years ago, they lost their second child, a three-year-old girl, to an illness, which he will say no more about, except that it turned his hair ash-white.
Asked how he feels about the Yaw Shin Leong episode, where the former Hougang MP was expelled by the WP after he refused to clarify personal indiscretions, he said that he deals with it 'by looking forward'. 'This thing happened, so what next? I couldn't go to medical school, so what next? 'So life just handed me a lemon, what to do with that? We continue on the path that we've been trying to go,' he says.
THE LONG INTERVIEW CHANGE-MAKERS
'Power of we'
What Chen Show Mao wants, more than anything, is to be a catalyst to get Singaporeans more engaged in their citizenship and to play their part in fixing what is wrong with society, he tells Susan Long.
Since giving up the corporate high life, Mr Chen Show Mao wears mostly short-sleeve polos and jeans, takes public transport and has most of his meals in hawker Centres
THE question foremost on most minds is: Is Mr Chen Show Mao for real? Ask him that and his brows knit in perplexity.
Well, it is hard not to do the cost-benefit analysis of him throwing in the almost-certain success of his pedigreed, multimillion-dollar law career for the uncertain prospects of joining Singapore's opposition.
But he challenges that calculus, saying it wrongly assumes the cost was all borne by him. It was not, he maintains.
Background story
ON PUBLIC SERVICE
The substance of servant leadership is about putting people at the centre of policies. The style is persuading the people to come along. You no longer can just say: 'Look, I'm the leader, follow me.' You're the leader but you're also the servant. What does that mean? That means the master has to be led or has to be persuaded to come along, because the decision is ultimately his.
- On what servant leadership should be about
'I didn't spring forth from my mother's womb, fully formed by my own talent and ambition. It took my parents who made sacrifices and a whole community of teachers, scholarship boards, donors, taxpayers and others to give me an education and since I can't pay them all back, I hope to pay it forward.
'Even if you just look at it in dollars and cents, I couldn't have attended university without help,' says the 51-year-old who attended Harvard, Oxford and Stanford on university scholarships and the Rhodes scholarship.
It becomes clear that he views things through a different lens. Since he was voted into Parliament in May last year - when his Aljunied GRC team, led by Workers' Party chief Low Thia Khiang, won 54.7 per cent of valid votes - most of his public speeches have been an exercise in reframing.
In his maiden Parliament speech and Stanford Club address here last year, he turned on its head concepts like 'patriotism', 'public service' and 'pragmatism' - maintaining that they apply just as much, if not more so, to the opposition as to the ruling party.The highest office in the land, he believes, is the office of the citizen. What he wants, more than anything, is to be a 'catalyst for us to be more engaged in our citizenship, for each of us to play our part to make this democracy work', he says.
'Everyday citizenship takes time, takes effort, takes skill. If we're not willing to put in the time and effort necessary to do what we believe is right for our community, say, organise people to rescue Bukit Brown Cemetery, then we can't make it work.'
To him, the most critical need in Singapore is to make government policies more responsive to people's needs. And he sees building a multiparty parliamentary democracy as the best way to achieve this.
'Given our history, our concerns and our reluctance, I thought standing in the last general election was a good thing I could do for us,' he says.His greatest worry remains that Singaporeans 'feel powerless to change things in a meaningful way'. 'We think what we can do is so little. Who's going to listen? What if we get knocked down, slapped around?' he says.
But through standing on the opposition ticket, he hopes to give effect to the 'Power of we'.
'Every little thing you do, whether it's speaking up, asking questions or standing for election, affect people around you. People see that and feel more emboldened.'You could be standing for election. You could be starting legal action to bring up the by-election date. You could be saying that we should double the wages of low-wage workers. That's so good to see because all this is supposed to be a part of our public lives. As a democracy, there ought to be a flowering of this.'
New growth metric
THE man who won a prize for law and economics at Stanford feels that Singapore needs to go beyond dollars and cents, not just in tabulating the sum of his foregone opportunities in corporate law, but in measuring national growth.
Singapore could use a more comprehensive and accurate growth metric, one that takes in longer-term and broader social and cultural registers of well-being, he says.'Are people at the centre of things, or some measure of gross development or growth, that has over time been taken as a proxy for what's good for Singapore?' he asks.In the past 10 years, gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 83.3 per cent, whereas median household income grew only 21.9 per cent in real terms. The bulk of growth went to corporate profits and the income of high earners. About 42 per cent of Singapore's GDP goes to wages here, which is one of the lowest such shares in the world. The rest goes to corporate profits, interest and dividends. Further more, Singapore's growth, he argues, was achieved mainly by adding more input in the form of foreign workers, with the costs borne very much by the bottom half of Singaporeans in terms of competition for jobs, wages and a squeeze on public transportation and housing.
Asked for the evidence of that, he cites that over the past 10 years, the average monthly household income for the top 20 per cent rose 31.3 per cent here, compared with only 8.4 per cent for the bottom 20 per cent. Recently, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam produced figures to show that incomes have risen more for Singaporeans in the middle, than at the top and bottom, in the last five years. Income per household member grew in real terms - after taking inflation into account - by 3.2 per cent each year for median households, or those in the middle of a range.
In other words, despite inflation, middle-income Singaporeans are doing better than their counterparts in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other developed economies. Some economists have also noted that however you measure it, slower growth would have hit the less well-off groups hardest. But Mr Chen asks: 'Who is all this growth for and does it make sense for most Singaporeans? How can we have better measures of growth and a better growth policy for Singaporeans?'
He swivels around in his chair and reaches for the bookshelf in his Aljunied Town Council office in Hougang Central for a copy of the Report By The Commission On The Measurement Of Economic Performance And Social Progress. It was commissioned in 2008 by former French president Nicolas Sarkozy who tasked economists, including Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, to look beyond GDP and create a new measure of growth that factors in societal well-being.
Another example, he suggests, is the Human Development Index, a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and living standards.
'Let's apply our great knowledge and expertise and do serious analysis of our social policies in health care, housing, education, infrastructure and the environment.'Just as we have outfits like Spring, A*Star and the Economic Development Board to calculate the cost and benefit of various investment projects for our economy, let's do likewise for other areas of policy to maximise social returns,' he exhorts.This means not just looking at social outlay as expenses to be minimised over the short term, he suggests, but as investments with economic and other benefits that can be optimised well into the future.'For Example, when we calculate the costs and benefits of outlay that would enable the elderly to live close to their community, we should factor in benefits such as stronger community bonds, grandchildren having more access to this wealth of knowledge that's locked inside the person of our elders, and the economic benefit of their children being able to work longer hours outside without worrying about them,' he says.
Unlikely politician
THE first morning the 11-year-old Chen Show Mao arrived here from Taipei, he tucked into ice kacang. He remembers the scorching sun, the bright hues and the depth of flavour. Sitting at the hawker centre near his Singapore Improvement Trust flat home in Prince Philip Avenue and watching a profusion of women in saris and sarongs go to the market, he was bowled over by Singapore's vibrancy. Up till then, home had been Taiwan's southernmost county, Pingtung, then Taipei, before he and his younger sister, accompanied by their schoolteacher mother, came here to join their father, a manager in a Japanese company. His father, who was the first in his family to go to university and later set up his own machinery trading company here, had high expectations for his exceptionally bright son to live up to. 'One of the rare times my father spoke about me within my earshot, when someone praised me, was to say he hoped I would be of some use to society when I grew up,' he recalls.
The boy with the Beatles mop-top hairstyle knew no English then and remembers springing to his feet at Nanyang Primary when the English teacher casually pointed to his water bottle. Feeling lost at his first Malay lesson at Catholic High and not knowing the required level of proficiency, he memorised the entire first chapter in Malay. When called upon, he stood up and recited it all. The teacher started chatting to him, thinking 'I was from Indonesia but had a funny accent', he relates. Midway, he transferred to Anglo-Chinese School and remembers the kindness of the late Mr Ernest Lau, then vice-principal, who gave him extra coaching in English every afternoon for a few months to help him 'fit in'. When he did well enough to choose a book prize, he picked Lady Chatterley's Lover, to the disapproval of Mr Lau, who made him select another book.
At National Junior College, as student council president, he set up a Shades of Grey notice board hoping to draw out views on student life. It was styled after the Democracy Wall in Beijing in 1978, where political dissidents publicly documented problems in China.
He topped the 1979 national A-level cohort, and applied to study medicine here but was rejected. After his national service, he headed to Harvard to study economics, where he devised a freshman programme to help Boston's urban poor.
For a few summers, he worked with American consumer advocate Ralph Nader, doing research at his Centre for Study of Responsive Law in Washington DC.
He admires the man for his 'tirelessness and dedication to being a full-time citizen' and the real changes he made to people's lives, such as helping to introduce the seat-belt safety law, food labelling and the Freedom of Information Act.
'The Act didn't fall from the sky, not even in the land of the free. It was something that their citizens had to work hard to get for themselves,' he says.
Mr Nader was also a four-time failed US presidential candidate who stood for election because he felt the system wasn't working.'With businesses increasingly active in lobbying and financing candidates, he felt the two political parties ended up singing the same song, which was from the corporate song book. His point was that if the political system isn't functioning well, citizens have got to help make it work,' he says.
Around 1986, Mr Chen took up Singapore citizenship. He also won the prestigious Rhodes scholarship to Oxford University, where he studied history and modern languages, before earning his doctorate in law from Stanford in 1992.
He joined the Tiffany of law firms, New York-headquartered Davis Polk & Wardwell, and became one of very few Asians to be made a partner there in 2000. He was based in Beijing from 2007 until last year. He never regretted going into corporate law, as it allowed him to witness 'the centre of gravity in capital markets shifting from America to Asia'. 'It was tremendously exciting for me to practise at the cutting edge, dealing with problems that had not existed before. It was like being present at the creation,' he says rather grandly.
Last year, American Lawyer magazine named him one of its 'Dealmakers of the Year' for his leadership in one of 2010's biggest deals, the US$22 billion initial public offering of Agricultural Bank of China.He flatly denies charges that he was a burnt-out corporate escapee seeking new meaning, as some have speculated, as he says he left 'on a series of career highs', or that he was returning opportunistically to seek fame and power after decades of being away from the country he claimed to want to serve. Rather, it was more a matter of him running out of time to 'discharge my obligations', he insists.
'The general election comes once every five years in Singapore. If I don't do it at 50, that means I will do it only when I'm 55 or 60. Time and chance happen to us all. And I had to make a choice,' says Mr Chen, who retired from the partnership last July.
That was how he came to knock on the doors of the Workers' Party during one of its open-house receptions in 2007, then to stand as a candidate 'however unlikely a politician I may have felt I was', he says. Since trading in his suits and the corporate high life, he's quickly adapted to his 'different mode of being' today. He walks to most places or takes the bus, MRT or taxis in short-sleeve polos and jeans, and has most of his meals in hawker centres, which he 'enjoys very much'. For exercise, he runs a fuss-free 5km three times weekly.
When his homemaker wife, a Taiwan-born American citizen, arrives here with their two children, aged eight and 12, next month, home will be a terrace house in his ward, Paya Lebar. Six years ago, they lost their second child, a three-year-old girl, to an illness, which he will say no more about, except that it turned his hair ash-white.
Asked how he feels about the Yaw Shin Leong episode, where the former Hougang MP was expelled by the WP after he refused to clarify personal indiscretions, he said that he deals with it 'by looking forward'. 'This thing happened, so what next? I couldn't go to medical school, so what next? 'So life just handed me a lemon, what to do with that? We continue on the path that we've been trying to go,' he says.
Last edited:
[h=2]
Parliamentary Questions on 9 July[/h]
by The Workers' Party on Saturday, July 7, 2012 at 10:50am ·
Workers' Party MPs have filed a total of 23 questions for the 9 July Parliament sitting. These will be answered by the respective ministers either orally or in writing.
Questions for Oral Answer
*2. Mr Chen Show Mao: To ask the Prime Minister what is the rationale for the residency requirement for overseas Singaporeans to have resided in Singapore for not less than 30 days during the three years immediately before a general election to be eligible as overseas voters; and what measures are in place or will be taken to remind and assist overseas Singaporeans to register and vote, and whether the Ministry will consider increasing the number of nine overseas voting centres to be nearer the number of our diplomatic missions abroad or permitting online registration and voting by overseas voters.
*3. Mr Chen Show Mao: To ask the Prime Minister how many Singaporeans were entitled to vote in each of the 2001, 2006 and 2011 General Elections; of these voters, how many were registered to vote in each case; how many voters were removed from the register of electors following the 2001, 2006 and 2011 General Elections respectively; how many voters were restored to the register of electors before the 2001, 2006 and 2011 General Elections respectively; and for each of the 2001, 2006 and 2011 General Elections, what is the demographic breakdown of voters who were removed from the register of electors, by age gender ethnic group and type of residence.
*4. Mr Chen Show Mao: To ask the Prime Minister what is the rationale for removing non-voters from the register of electors when voting is compulsory for all eligible citizens; whether the $50 penalty imposed to restore a name to the register of electors without valid reasons for non-voting can be waived for low-income Singaporeans; and what measures are in place or will be taken to remind and assist citizens to restore their names to the register of electors; and whether the Ministry will consider changing the laws or regulations so that a voter's name is not removed from the register of electors even if a penalty is imposed for not voting.
*26. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Minister for Education whether the textbooks used by primary schools are comprehensive enough to cover all the curriculum content examined during the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) without the need for supplementary content and/or materials provided by teachers or tuition centres.
*27. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Minister for Education how are textbooks used by primary schools selected by the Ministry for inclusion in the Approved Textbook List (ATL); whether primary schools are allowed to select textbooks outside of the ATL as their primary text for a subject; and how does the Ministry ensure that all textbooks used by primary schools are of a uniform and sufficiently high standard to meet the demands of examinations, especially the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).
*42. Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap: To ask the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts & Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs what is the amount of funds that are granted to Mendaki for the Tertiary Tuition Fee Subsidy (TTFS) scheme each year since 2001; what are Mendaki's plans to ensure the financial sustainability of funding for the Tertiary Tuition Fee Subsidy (TTFS) for Muslim students; and in the event of a deficit, what are Mendaki's plans to ensure that the welfare of our students are met.
*48. Mr Yee Jenn Jong: To ask the Minister for Education over the past five years, in terms of primary schools that are ranked according to their number of graduating students with PSLE T-scores of 250 and higher what percentage of the graduating class in the top 10 primary schools obtained PSLE T-scores of 250 and higher; and what percentage of the graduating class in the bottom 10 primary schools obtained PSLE T-scores of 250 and higher.
*50. Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap: To ask the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts & Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs whether he will consider involving community leaders on the Community Leaders Forum's Steering Committee.
*56. Ms Sylvia Lim: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Manpower with regard to employers facing insolvency who have a mix of local and foreign employees whether the employer is usually required to settle all wage claims by foreign employees before they are repatriated; and whether local workers' wage-related claims are thereby jeopardised as local workers typically file their claims only when the businesses are liquidated.
*61. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Minister for Health what are the top five contributory factors for healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in our public hospitals; whether the HAI rate is linked to the high bed occupancy rates in the public hospitals; and what is the Ministry is doing to reduce HAIs in our hospitals.
*65. Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap: To ask the Minister for National Development what were the number of cases in 2010 and 2011 respectively where owners of HDB flats had to sell off their units to enable them to pay off their HDB mortgage arrears; and whether HDB has any schemes or plans in place to facilitate such cases of displacement to acquire a shelter after the sale of their flat.
*70. Ms Sylvia Lim: To ask the Minister for Law regarding the conviction of Dr Woffles Wu for abetment of giving false information to the police in what manner did Dr Wu abet the giving of false information to the police; whether the Attorney-General's Chambers' statement of 17 June 2012 explaining the choice of charge against Dr Wu has addressed public concerns about the equitability of the legal system; and whether the Ministry has confirmation that written grounds of decision will be given by the sentencing court, despite there being no appeal pending.
*71. Mr Yee Jenn Jong: To ask the Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports whether the arrangement to allow a private pre-school education provider to manage a childcare centre in Bishan East on void deck space designated for non-profit childcare operations is consistent with the Ministry's objectives in providing such spaces at subsidised rents; and whether the Ministry will consider allowing the private pre-school education providers to operate on these spaces subject to their school fees being pegged to the median fee of non-profit operators or other appropriate controls of their fee structure.
*77. Ms Sylvia Lim: To ask the Minister for National Development what criteria does the Government use before granting approvals for single-house land plots to be redeveloped and sub-divided into multiple-unit developments such as condominiums; how does the Government ensure that such approvals for new developments do not adversely affect the liveability of estates by creating strains on the local infrastructure such as traffic congestion or parking place shortages along the local access roads; and for the Kovan/Hillside/Rosyth estates, how will the Government manage redevelopment so as to alleviate the current traffic congestion and parking crunches along local access roads and minimise such problems in the future.
*87. Mr Yee Jenn Jong: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance whether the returns from GIC and Temasek Holdings had influenced Singapore's fiscal policy in the past and, if so, how; and whether the returns from GIC and Temasek Holdings under the current investment climate will influence the planning of future fiscal policy.
Questions for Written Answer
3. Mr Chen Show Mao: To ask the Prime Minister how many overseas Singaporeans are currently registered as overseas voters.
5. Mr Chen Show Mao: To ask the Prime Minister how many Singaporeans were entitled to vote in the 2012 Hougang by-election; of these voters, how many were registered to vote; how many voters were removed from the register of electors for Hougang following the 2011 General Election; and how many voters were restored to the register of electors for Hougang following the 2011 General Elections and before the 2012 by-election.
9. Ms Sylvia Lim: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Manpower given that only 28 of more than 900 cleaning companies have tapped into the Inclusive Growth Programme (IGP) in the last two years what is the Ministry's target number of cleaning companies tapping into IGP by 2015; how much funds have the 28 cleaning companies received under IGP; what average percentage wage increase did the IGP-aided 600 cleaners receive and what is their average wage after the wage increase; and what number and percentage of all 69,000 cleaners and of the IGP-aided 600 cleaners are senior citizens aged 60 years and above.
22. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Minister for Health for each of the last three years what has been the healthcare-associated infection (HAI) rate (measured per 100 hospital admissions) in each of the following hospitals: (i) Singapore General Hospital (ii) National University Hospital (iii) Tan Tock Seng Hospital (iv) Changi General Hospital (v) Alexandra Hospital (vi) Khoo Teck Puat Hospital; (b) how many patients are diagnosed with HAIs in these public hospitals; and (c) what are the annual direct medical and non-medical costs on the healthcare system and patients resulting from HAIs.
23. Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap: To ask the Minister for Health whether the Ministry can release an eldercare facilities masterplan to show Singaporeans where eldercare facilities will be built in every precinct; what are the criteria used in siting eldercare facilities and whether these are explained to residents; what consultative time frame and procedure has the Ministry put in place to engage residents; and whether the Ministry will request the URA to share its best practices given its recent success on consultation with the Dairy Farm estate.
26. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Minister for Transport when will the report of the Committee of Inquiry (COI) looking into the December 2011 MRT train disruptions be released; whether the full transcripts of the COI proceedings will be released to the public; and whether the Government will table the report as a motion for debate in this House.
30. Mr Yee Jenn Jong: To ask the Minister for Education over the past five years what percentage of each Gifted Education Programme (GEP) cohort and how many GEP students enter secondary school by Direct School Admissions yearly; and what percentage of each GEP cohort receives the Edusave Entrance Scholarships for Independent Schools yearly.
32. Mr Yee Jenn Jong: To ask the Minister for Education whether the Ministry will consider reviewing its policy of not allowing full-time NSmen to be eligible for government subsidy for part-time degree studies undertaken by working adults; and increasing the award values of bursaries for part-time degrees for those ineligible for the subsidy for working adults.
-----------------
Source: Parliament Order Paper: http://www.parliament.gov.sg/order-paper
Parliamentary Questions on 9 July[/h]by The Workers' Party on Saturday, July 7, 2012 at 10:50am ·
Workers' Party MPs have filed a total of 23 questions for the 9 July Parliament sitting. These will be answered by the respective ministers either orally or in writing.
Questions for Oral Answer
*2. Mr Chen Show Mao: To ask the Prime Minister what is the rationale for the residency requirement for overseas Singaporeans to have resided in Singapore for not less than 30 days during the three years immediately before a general election to be eligible as overseas voters; and what measures are in place or will be taken to remind and assist overseas Singaporeans to register and vote, and whether the Ministry will consider increasing the number of nine overseas voting centres to be nearer the number of our diplomatic missions abroad or permitting online registration and voting by overseas voters.
*3. Mr Chen Show Mao: To ask the Prime Minister how many Singaporeans were entitled to vote in each of the 2001, 2006 and 2011 General Elections; of these voters, how many were registered to vote in each case; how many voters were removed from the register of electors following the 2001, 2006 and 2011 General Elections respectively; how many voters were restored to the register of electors before the 2001, 2006 and 2011 General Elections respectively; and for each of the 2001, 2006 and 2011 General Elections, what is the demographic breakdown of voters who were removed from the register of electors, by age gender ethnic group and type of residence.
*4. Mr Chen Show Mao: To ask the Prime Minister what is the rationale for removing non-voters from the register of electors when voting is compulsory for all eligible citizens; whether the $50 penalty imposed to restore a name to the register of electors without valid reasons for non-voting can be waived for low-income Singaporeans; and what measures are in place or will be taken to remind and assist citizens to restore their names to the register of electors; and whether the Ministry will consider changing the laws or regulations so that a voter's name is not removed from the register of electors even if a penalty is imposed for not voting.
*26. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Minister for Education whether the textbooks used by primary schools are comprehensive enough to cover all the curriculum content examined during the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) without the need for supplementary content and/or materials provided by teachers or tuition centres.
*27. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Minister for Education how are textbooks used by primary schools selected by the Ministry for inclusion in the Approved Textbook List (ATL); whether primary schools are allowed to select textbooks outside of the ATL as their primary text for a subject; and how does the Ministry ensure that all textbooks used by primary schools are of a uniform and sufficiently high standard to meet the demands of examinations, especially the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).
*42. Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap: To ask the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts & Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs what is the amount of funds that are granted to Mendaki for the Tertiary Tuition Fee Subsidy (TTFS) scheme each year since 2001; what are Mendaki's plans to ensure the financial sustainability of funding for the Tertiary Tuition Fee Subsidy (TTFS) for Muslim students; and in the event of a deficit, what are Mendaki's plans to ensure that the welfare of our students are met.
*48. Mr Yee Jenn Jong: To ask the Minister for Education over the past five years, in terms of primary schools that are ranked according to their number of graduating students with PSLE T-scores of 250 and higher what percentage of the graduating class in the top 10 primary schools obtained PSLE T-scores of 250 and higher; and what percentage of the graduating class in the bottom 10 primary schools obtained PSLE T-scores of 250 and higher.
*50. Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap: To ask the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts & Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs whether he will consider involving community leaders on the Community Leaders Forum's Steering Committee.
*56. Ms Sylvia Lim: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Manpower with regard to employers facing insolvency who have a mix of local and foreign employees whether the employer is usually required to settle all wage claims by foreign employees before they are repatriated; and whether local workers' wage-related claims are thereby jeopardised as local workers typically file their claims only when the businesses are liquidated.
*61. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Minister for Health what are the top five contributory factors for healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in our public hospitals; whether the HAI rate is linked to the high bed occupancy rates in the public hospitals; and what is the Ministry is doing to reduce HAIs in our hospitals.
*65. Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap: To ask the Minister for National Development what were the number of cases in 2010 and 2011 respectively where owners of HDB flats had to sell off their units to enable them to pay off their HDB mortgage arrears; and whether HDB has any schemes or plans in place to facilitate such cases of displacement to acquire a shelter after the sale of their flat.
*70. Ms Sylvia Lim: To ask the Minister for Law regarding the conviction of Dr Woffles Wu for abetment of giving false information to the police in what manner did Dr Wu abet the giving of false information to the police; whether the Attorney-General's Chambers' statement of 17 June 2012 explaining the choice of charge against Dr Wu has addressed public concerns about the equitability of the legal system; and whether the Ministry has confirmation that written grounds of decision will be given by the sentencing court, despite there being no appeal pending.
*71. Mr Yee Jenn Jong: To ask the Acting Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports whether the arrangement to allow a private pre-school education provider to manage a childcare centre in Bishan East on void deck space designated for non-profit childcare operations is consistent with the Ministry's objectives in providing such spaces at subsidised rents; and whether the Ministry will consider allowing the private pre-school education providers to operate on these spaces subject to their school fees being pegged to the median fee of non-profit operators or other appropriate controls of their fee structure.
*77. Ms Sylvia Lim: To ask the Minister for National Development what criteria does the Government use before granting approvals for single-house land plots to be redeveloped and sub-divided into multiple-unit developments such as condominiums; how does the Government ensure that such approvals for new developments do not adversely affect the liveability of estates by creating strains on the local infrastructure such as traffic congestion or parking place shortages along the local access roads; and for the Kovan/Hillside/Rosyth estates, how will the Government manage redevelopment so as to alleviate the current traffic congestion and parking crunches along local access roads and minimise such problems in the future.
*87. Mr Yee Jenn Jong: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance whether the returns from GIC and Temasek Holdings had influenced Singapore's fiscal policy in the past and, if so, how; and whether the returns from GIC and Temasek Holdings under the current investment climate will influence the planning of future fiscal policy.
Questions for Written Answer
3. Mr Chen Show Mao: To ask the Prime Minister how many overseas Singaporeans are currently registered as overseas voters.
5. Mr Chen Show Mao: To ask the Prime Minister how many Singaporeans were entitled to vote in the 2012 Hougang by-election; of these voters, how many were registered to vote; how many voters were removed from the register of electors for Hougang following the 2011 General Election; and how many voters were restored to the register of electors for Hougang following the 2011 General Elections and before the 2012 by-election.
9. Ms Sylvia Lim: To ask the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Manpower given that only 28 of more than 900 cleaning companies have tapped into the Inclusive Growth Programme (IGP) in the last two years what is the Ministry's target number of cleaning companies tapping into IGP by 2015; how much funds have the 28 cleaning companies received under IGP; what average percentage wage increase did the IGP-aided 600 cleaners receive and what is their average wage after the wage increase; and what number and percentage of all 69,000 cleaners and of the IGP-aided 600 cleaners are senior citizens aged 60 years and above.
22. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Minister for Health for each of the last three years what has been the healthcare-associated infection (HAI) rate (measured per 100 hospital admissions) in each of the following hospitals: (i) Singapore General Hospital (ii) National University Hospital (iii) Tan Tock Seng Hospital (iv) Changi General Hospital (v) Alexandra Hospital (vi) Khoo Teck Puat Hospital; (b) how many patients are diagnosed with HAIs in these public hospitals; and (c) what are the annual direct medical and non-medical costs on the healthcare system and patients resulting from HAIs.
23. Mr Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap: To ask the Minister for Health whether the Ministry can release an eldercare facilities masterplan to show Singaporeans where eldercare facilities will be built in every precinct; what are the criteria used in siting eldercare facilities and whether these are explained to residents; what consultative time frame and procedure has the Ministry put in place to engage residents; and whether the Ministry will request the URA to share its best practices given its recent success on consultation with the Dairy Farm estate.
26. Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song: To ask the Minister for Transport when will the report of the Committee of Inquiry (COI) looking into the December 2011 MRT train disruptions be released; whether the full transcripts of the COI proceedings will be released to the public; and whether the Government will table the report as a motion for debate in this House.
30. Mr Yee Jenn Jong: To ask the Minister for Education over the past five years what percentage of each Gifted Education Programme (GEP) cohort and how many GEP students enter secondary school by Direct School Admissions yearly; and what percentage of each GEP cohort receives the Edusave Entrance Scholarships for Independent Schools yearly.
32. Mr Yee Jenn Jong: To ask the Minister for Education whether the Ministry will consider reviewing its policy of not allowing full-time NSmen to be eligible for government subsidy for part-time degree studies undertaken by working adults; and increasing the award values of bursaries for part-time degrees for those ineligible for the subsidy for working adults.
-----------------
Source: Parliament Order Paper: http://www.parliament.gov.sg/order-paper
[h=2]Debate on LTA Amendment Bill - MP Pritam Singh[/h]
by The Workers' Party on Monday, July 9, 2012 at 11:27pm ·
I seek a few clarifications from the Minister with regard to Section 12 and 13B, a proposed amendment and insertion into the Land Transport Authority of Singapore Act (LTA Act) respectively, made necessary by the Bus Service Enhancement Fund (BSEF).
Mr Speaker, the tabling of these amendments to the LTA Act sheds more light on how the BSEF will be implemented, further detailing the points covered by the Finance and Transport Ministers during the Budget and Committee of Supply debates earlier this year. In the Minister of Finance’s speech on 17 Feb 2012, he referred to the government’s commitment to fund 550 buses as a “one-time commitment”. In the Minister’s round-up speech on 1 Mar 2012, the Minister stated that out of the $1.1 billion package, $280m was budgeted for the purchase of 550 buses while $820m covers net operating costs over the 10 years. The Minister also stated that should the PTO’s losses in running the additional 550 buses turn out to be lower than expected, Government funding will be reduced correspondingly.
My first query relates to Clause 7 which introduces Section 13B(1)(e) to the Act. This section states that, “there shall be established by the Authority a Bus Service Enhancement Fund comprising (amongst others) – all investments and other property purchased out of moneys in the Bus Service Enhancement Fund, including the net income from such investments”. Separately, Section 13B(1)(f) states that the BSEF will comprise “all interest received on investments belonging to the Bus Service Enhancement Fund, and all amounts received by the Authority from the sale of any investments or other property paid for with money from the Bus Service Enhancement Fund.”
In light of this, could the Minister please explain the effect of Section 13B(1)(e) and (f) highlighted earlier, which give the government wide powers to use BSEF funds beyond bus acquisition and accounting for net operating costs as long as the object of these investments is to improve and expand the range and reliability of bus services? At first blush, it appears as if the $280m earmarked for bus acquisition and the $820m for net operating costs does not leave much scope for additional investment since this neatly comes up to $1.1b. If the PTOs do not use the entire $1.1b set aside for the 550 buses, the Bill suggests that the BSEF will continue to exist to extend grants and loans to the PTOs. What this really means is that the BSEF would institutionalise active government intervention in the public transport sector for the long-term, until such a time the government decides to dissolve the BSEF.
The proposed Bill also allows BSEF funds to be employed for investment in any property in addition to the standard investment power of statutory bodies as provided for in section 33A of the Interpretation Act, which is referred to in section 17 of the LTA Act. Could the Minister share with the House the type of investments that the monies in the BSEF are envisaged to be used for, apart from those permitted under section 33A of the Interpretation Act, and more specifically, the risk-profile of these envisaged investments?
My second query relates to Clause 7 introducing Section 13B(2) to the Act, which gives wide-ranging powers to the LTA to withdraw BSEF monies to provide grants or loans to the holder of a bus service licence or a bus service operator’s licence. The inclusion of this provision clearly presages the use of the BSEF to extend loans, not just grants - a point I raised in my speech on the BSEF during the Budget debate, where I proposed that the government claw back the $1.1b from the two PTOs over a fixed period of time.
This question is quite central to the disbursement of $1.1b of taxpayer monies, as it is clear that the government eschewed from extending the BSEF as a loan to the PTOs, even though both PTOs operate in near-monopolistic market conditions and have announced healthy dividends for their shareholders over the years. Can the Minister share with the House what considerations the government deliberated upon when it decided to extend the $1.1b BSEF to the two PTOs, as opposed to extending a loan - as we now know that this Bill also authorises the government to use the BSEF for the purpose of extending loans to PTOs and holders of bus operator licences. In addition can the Minister also clarify what factors would determine when the LTA would decide to extend a loan to a PTO or bus licence holder, as opposed to a grant from the BSEF?
My third query relates to relates to Clause 5 which amends Section 12(1)of the Act. Section 13A and 13B require certain revenue streams to be channelled into the Railway Sinking Fund and the Bus Service Enhancement Fund respectively, instead of the Land Transport Revenue Account. The explanatory note to the proposed Bill states that the Minister will apportion this revenue stream between the Bus Service Enhancement Fund and the Land Transport Revenue Account. Would the Minister clarify what is the expected ratio of apportionment between the two accounts?
Finally, in a ChannelNewsAsia report on 14 May 2012, it was reported that the purpose of the BSEF is for the government to set aside money to fund the commitment for the Bus Service Enhance Programme and provide transparency and accountability as to the use of the money. I have a final clarification I seek from the Minister and this pertains to a point about the potential abuse, or even the creative use of the BSEF by the PTOs.
For example, in anticipation of 550 additional taxpayer-funded buses on the roads, can the PTOs deploy the taxpayer-funded BSEF buses rather than their self-financed ones to service existing routes which are comparatively less revenue-generating than other routes? If so, the PTOs can plausibly improve their profit margins by deploying their self-financed buses on the more profitable routes, legitimately employing the BSEF to subsidise their operations as a whole. This is conceivable since the Minister has stated that 300 of the 550 buses will go towards supporting existing bus routes while 250 will be for new routes.
The Minister stated during the COI debates that as an additional safeguard, the LTA will scrutinise the PTO’s actual costs for the purchase and running of the BSEF buses. However, does this government scrutiny extend to the selection of bus routes by the PTOs on which the BSEF buses will operate? The Finance Minister has assured this House that should the PTO’s losses in running the additional 550 buses turn out to be lower than expected, Government funding will be reduced correspondingly. However, there is nothing in this Bill that can protect the taxpayer from the shrewd use of the BSEF by the PTOs - a scenario that should not be discounted because these are profit-generating entities fundamentally answerable to their shareholders. Would the Minister demand strict and active regulatory oversight over the use of the BSEF such that the prospects of abuse are significantly lowered? Can we have an assurance from the Minister that the LTA will be able to perform this role and prevent the abuse of the BSEF, in light of recent question marks over LTA's regulatory responsibilities with regard to the COI on SMRT disruptions?
Thank you.
by The Workers' Party on Monday, July 9, 2012 at 11:27pm ·
I seek a few clarifications from the Minister with regard to Section 12 and 13B, a proposed amendment and insertion into the Land Transport Authority of Singapore Act (LTA Act) respectively, made necessary by the Bus Service Enhancement Fund (BSEF).
Mr Speaker, the tabling of these amendments to the LTA Act sheds more light on how the BSEF will be implemented, further detailing the points covered by the Finance and Transport Ministers during the Budget and Committee of Supply debates earlier this year. In the Minister of Finance’s speech on 17 Feb 2012, he referred to the government’s commitment to fund 550 buses as a “one-time commitment”. In the Minister’s round-up speech on 1 Mar 2012, the Minister stated that out of the $1.1 billion package, $280m was budgeted for the purchase of 550 buses while $820m covers net operating costs over the 10 years. The Minister also stated that should the PTO’s losses in running the additional 550 buses turn out to be lower than expected, Government funding will be reduced correspondingly.
My first query relates to Clause 7 which introduces Section 13B(1)(e) to the Act. This section states that, “there shall be established by the Authority a Bus Service Enhancement Fund comprising (amongst others) – all investments and other property purchased out of moneys in the Bus Service Enhancement Fund, including the net income from such investments”. Separately, Section 13B(1)(f) states that the BSEF will comprise “all interest received on investments belonging to the Bus Service Enhancement Fund, and all amounts received by the Authority from the sale of any investments or other property paid for with money from the Bus Service Enhancement Fund.”
In light of this, could the Minister please explain the effect of Section 13B(1)(e) and (f) highlighted earlier, which give the government wide powers to use BSEF funds beyond bus acquisition and accounting for net operating costs as long as the object of these investments is to improve and expand the range and reliability of bus services? At first blush, it appears as if the $280m earmarked for bus acquisition and the $820m for net operating costs does not leave much scope for additional investment since this neatly comes up to $1.1b. If the PTOs do not use the entire $1.1b set aside for the 550 buses, the Bill suggests that the BSEF will continue to exist to extend grants and loans to the PTOs. What this really means is that the BSEF would institutionalise active government intervention in the public transport sector for the long-term, until such a time the government decides to dissolve the BSEF.
The proposed Bill also allows BSEF funds to be employed for investment in any property in addition to the standard investment power of statutory bodies as provided for in section 33A of the Interpretation Act, which is referred to in section 17 of the LTA Act. Could the Minister share with the House the type of investments that the monies in the BSEF are envisaged to be used for, apart from those permitted under section 33A of the Interpretation Act, and more specifically, the risk-profile of these envisaged investments?
My second query relates to Clause 7 introducing Section 13B(2) to the Act, which gives wide-ranging powers to the LTA to withdraw BSEF monies to provide grants or loans to the holder of a bus service licence or a bus service operator’s licence. The inclusion of this provision clearly presages the use of the BSEF to extend loans, not just grants - a point I raised in my speech on the BSEF during the Budget debate, where I proposed that the government claw back the $1.1b from the two PTOs over a fixed period of time.
This question is quite central to the disbursement of $1.1b of taxpayer monies, as it is clear that the government eschewed from extending the BSEF as a loan to the PTOs, even though both PTOs operate in near-monopolistic market conditions and have announced healthy dividends for their shareholders over the years. Can the Minister share with the House what considerations the government deliberated upon when it decided to extend the $1.1b BSEF to the two PTOs, as opposed to extending a loan - as we now know that this Bill also authorises the government to use the BSEF for the purpose of extending loans to PTOs and holders of bus operator licences. In addition can the Minister also clarify what factors would determine when the LTA would decide to extend a loan to a PTO or bus licence holder, as opposed to a grant from the BSEF?
My third query relates to relates to Clause 5 which amends Section 12(1)of the Act. Section 13A and 13B require certain revenue streams to be channelled into the Railway Sinking Fund and the Bus Service Enhancement Fund respectively, instead of the Land Transport Revenue Account. The explanatory note to the proposed Bill states that the Minister will apportion this revenue stream between the Bus Service Enhancement Fund and the Land Transport Revenue Account. Would the Minister clarify what is the expected ratio of apportionment between the two accounts?
Finally, in a ChannelNewsAsia report on 14 May 2012, it was reported that the purpose of the BSEF is for the government to set aside money to fund the commitment for the Bus Service Enhance Programme and provide transparency and accountability as to the use of the money. I have a final clarification I seek from the Minister and this pertains to a point about the potential abuse, or even the creative use of the BSEF by the PTOs.
For example, in anticipation of 550 additional taxpayer-funded buses on the roads, can the PTOs deploy the taxpayer-funded BSEF buses rather than their self-financed ones to service existing routes which are comparatively less revenue-generating than other routes? If so, the PTOs can plausibly improve their profit margins by deploying their self-financed buses on the more profitable routes, legitimately employing the BSEF to subsidise their operations as a whole. This is conceivable since the Minister has stated that 300 of the 550 buses will go towards supporting existing bus routes while 250 will be for new routes.
The Minister stated during the COI debates that as an additional safeguard, the LTA will scrutinise the PTO’s actual costs for the purchase and running of the BSEF buses. However, does this government scrutiny extend to the selection of bus routes by the PTOs on which the BSEF buses will operate? The Finance Minister has assured this House that should the PTO’s losses in running the additional 550 buses turn out to be lower than expected, Government funding will be reduced correspondingly. However, there is nothing in this Bill that can protect the taxpayer from the shrewd use of the BSEF by the PTOs - a scenario that should not be discounted because these are profit-generating entities fundamentally answerable to their shareholders. Would the Minister demand strict and active regulatory oversight over the use of the BSEF such that the prospects of abuse are significantly lowered? Can we have an assurance from the Minister that the LTA will be able to perform this role and prevent the abuse of the BSEF, in light of recent question marks over LTA's regulatory responsibilities with regard to the COI on SMRT disruptions?
Thank you.
[h=2]Debate on LTA Amendment Bill - NCMP Gerald Giam[/h]
by The Workers' Party on Monday, July 9, 2012 at 7:17pm ·
Mr Speaker,
The Land Transport Authority (Amendment) Bill gives the Government the powers to fund and implement the Bus Services Enhancement Programme (or BSEP). The BSEP provides for the purchase of 550 new buses over the next 5 years, the hiring of over a thousand bus drivers, and the funding of the maintenance and operational costs for these buses over 10 years.
I support the objective of the BSEP, which is to improve and expand the range and reliability of bus services provided to commuters. Like most commuters, I hope to see more frequent and less crowded buses, especially during peak hours.
However, I have several concerns about how the Government is going about achieving this objective.
Planning and regulatory failures
The plans to increase the bus fleet to ease commuters’ woes are long overdue. Over the past 10 years, Singapore’s population has grown by over one million people, yet the pace of expansion of our transport infrastructure and operations has not kept pace.
The Government’s failure to expand our transport infrastructure and operations in tandem with the influx of foreigners has led to the current situation of long waiting times, overcrowded buses and trains, and very frustrated commuters.
The Government has belatedly realised that the quality of service (QoS) standards that the public transport operators (PTOs) signed up to previously are not sufficient to meet the needs and expectations of commuters.
Who established these service standards? Is it not the Public Transport Council (PTC), which is an agency under the Ministry of Transport?
Why did the PTC set the bar for QoS standards so low? For example, the current QoS allows for bus loading of up to 95% capacity. This is a very generous allowance, considering it includes standing passengers, not just sitting passengers. I have boarded such packed buses before, where I have found myself standing on the entrance stairs, barely able to even reach the fare card reader to tap my ezLink card.
Despite this soft standard, both bus operators failed to meet the standards in 3 of the 6 months in the most recent QoS reporting period1. They were issued paltry fines in the magnitude of $100 each time they were caught not meeting these standards.
Now the Government wants to set more stringent QoS standards for the PTOs. Among these, the bus loading limit will be lowered from 95% to 85%.
If the Government had set these more stringent QoS standards earlier, and rolled them out more gradually over the past 10 years in anticipation of our population boom, there would be no need to suddenly ramp it up now. Bus operators could have planned their purchases of new buses and factored them into their annual cost projections.
This might have cut into their profit margins, but taxpayers might have been spared having to fork out $1.1 billion to help the operators meet these sudden new standards.
The Government needs to answer for this planning and regulatory failure.
A related question I have on the QoS is whether it is really the case that the Government cannot increase the standards without breaching the contracts with the bus operators. I understand the PTOs operate on 10-year contracts. When were the current contracts signed and when will they be up for renewal?
According to the PTC website, the QoS standards were revised in August 2007, August 2008 and August 2009. Obviously these were done mid-way during the contract. Why are we being told now that the Government cannot revise the QoS standards without compensating the PTOs?
Scrutinising the costs
A second broad concern I have about the Bill is how is the Government is going to ensure that the subsidy does not get used, either directly or indirectly, to improve the bottom lines of our very profitable PTOs.
During the Committee of Supply debate in March, the Transport Minister said he was going to "scrutinise the PTOs’ actual costs for the purchase and running of the buses" to ensure that PTOs do not profit from this subsidy. Unfortunately, the Bill does not prescribe any mechanism for this scrutiny.
Is there any process in place to prevent the PTOs from acquiring spare parts or maintenance equipment, or conducting staff training using BSEP funds, that can be used to benefit the rest of their fleet?
How will the LTA prevent the PTOs from making the BSEP buses run only the unprofitable routes in far flung areas, while running the profitable routes using their own buses?
In short, how is the Government going to prevent BSEP funds from cross subsidising other parts of the PTOs’ operations?
Will the operations and accounting for the 550 buses be managed by the PTOs, who will then report the figures to LTA and seek funding accordingly? Will LTA take at face value all the figures the PTOs report to them? How will LTA audit the reporting?
Will the establishment of the BSEP mean that LTA will need to set up another department to manage and audit the operations of the PTOs? How many more staff is LTA going to have to hire to manage this 550 bus operation? How much is it going to cost? Is this cost going to be part of the $1.1 billion package or is it extra?
Who is going to fund the operations and replacement of the 550 buses after the 10 years are up? Is this the last such subsidy that taxpayers are going to give to PTOs? If not, are we on a path to permanent operational subsidies being given to these two listed companies?
Public transport model
During the COS debate earlier this year, the Transport Minister, in arguing his case for having profit-oriented companies run public transport operations, said that “the profit incentive drives the operators towards higher efficiency and productivity, which keeps costs as low as possible”.
This sounds ironic in light of all that has happened under in the past year.
Commuters have experienced the most serious and sustained series of MRT breakdowns in its 25-year history. It was not just the December 15 and 17 stoppages, but several other disruptions on the Circle Line, the LRT, the Northeast Line and the East-West Line that took place after that, some of which occurred as the MRT Committee of Inquiry (COI) was underway.
Now despite all the official justifications for the BSEP, there is no running away from two facts: One, that bus service standards are not up to the mark and, two, the government is stepping in to the tune of $1.1 billion to subsidise the service recovery.
What higher efficiencies has the profit-oriented model brought us? We have not seen an improvement of service quality, but a deterioration, especially over the past 5 years. We have seen fares increase but yet the government still needs to pour in billion dollar operational subsidies. We have seen trains breakdown due to underinvestment in maintenance, yet these companies are reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in profits each year. Since 2003, SMRT and SBS Transit have paid over $1 billion in dividends to their shareholders.
Public transport is an essential public good just like education, healthcare and public housing. The returns from this public good benefit more than just the commuters themselves. When commuters are able to get to work quickly, conveniently and in comfort, their companies benefit from their more productive work. By allowing them to reach home on time after work and with less frustration, they can build better relationships with their families, and perhaps even help to raise our nation’s total fertility rate.
The economy and society benefit when we have good and affordable public transport. These positive externalities do not show up in the balance sheets of the PTOs.
The BSEP seems to belatedly recognise that greater government investments are necessary to rectify the market failure in the public transport industry. With this Bill, the LTA will not just be a regulator, but will purchase the buses and fully fund their operations. Effectively the LTA, which is a government agency, is going to be the de facto owner of a fleet of 550 buses plying our roads.
However it is neither here nor there. The BSEP does not introduce any competition to spur efficiency and service improvements, yet we do not have a full public monopoly that reaps be benefits of direct control, with profits being reinvested to improve service quality. It is the worst of both worlds.
The public transport model has a great bearing on the long term outcomes of our public transport system. The focus of our bus and train operators should be on improving service quality to meet or exceed commuters’ expectations, not maximising profits for their shareholders.
Mr Speaker, as a daily commuter myself, I share the concerns of many Singaporeans about the quality, comfort and affordability our buses and trains. The public transport failures of the past few years have caused much angst among Singaporeans. It is incumbent upon this Government to set things right, both in the short term as well as in the long term.
Thank you.
by The Workers' Party on Monday, July 9, 2012 at 7:17pm ·
Mr Speaker,
The Land Transport Authority (Amendment) Bill gives the Government the powers to fund and implement the Bus Services Enhancement Programme (or BSEP). The BSEP provides for the purchase of 550 new buses over the next 5 years, the hiring of over a thousand bus drivers, and the funding of the maintenance and operational costs for these buses over 10 years.
I support the objective of the BSEP, which is to improve and expand the range and reliability of bus services provided to commuters. Like most commuters, I hope to see more frequent and less crowded buses, especially during peak hours.
However, I have several concerns about how the Government is going about achieving this objective.
Planning and regulatory failures
The plans to increase the bus fleet to ease commuters’ woes are long overdue. Over the past 10 years, Singapore’s population has grown by over one million people, yet the pace of expansion of our transport infrastructure and operations has not kept pace.
The Government’s failure to expand our transport infrastructure and operations in tandem with the influx of foreigners has led to the current situation of long waiting times, overcrowded buses and trains, and very frustrated commuters.
The Government has belatedly realised that the quality of service (QoS) standards that the public transport operators (PTOs) signed up to previously are not sufficient to meet the needs and expectations of commuters.
Who established these service standards? Is it not the Public Transport Council (PTC), which is an agency under the Ministry of Transport?
Why did the PTC set the bar for QoS standards so low? For example, the current QoS allows for bus loading of up to 95% capacity. This is a very generous allowance, considering it includes standing passengers, not just sitting passengers. I have boarded such packed buses before, where I have found myself standing on the entrance stairs, barely able to even reach the fare card reader to tap my ezLink card.
Despite this soft standard, both bus operators failed to meet the standards in 3 of the 6 months in the most recent QoS reporting period1. They were issued paltry fines in the magnitude of $100 each time they were caught not meeting these standards.
Now the Government wants to set more stringent QoS standards for the PTOs. Among these, the bus loading limit will be lowered from 95% to 85%.
If the Government had set these more stringent QoS standards earlier, and rolled them out more gradually over the past 10 years in anticipation of our population boom, there would be no need to suddenly ramp it up now. Bus operators could have planned their purchases of new buses and factored them into their annual cost projections.
This might have cut into their profit margins, but taxpayers might have been spared having to fork out $1.1 billion to help the operators meet these sudden new standards.
The Government needs to answer for this planning and regulatory failure.
A related question I have on the QoS is whether it is really the case that the Government cannot increase the standards without breaching the contracts with the bus operators. I understand the PTOs operate on 10-year contracts. When were the current contracts signed and when will they be up for renewal?
According to the PTC website, the QoS standards were revised in August 2007, August 2008 and August 2009. Obviously these were done mid-way during the contract. Why are we being told now that the Government cannot revise the QoS standards without compensating the PTOs?
Scrutinising the costs
A second broad concern I have about the Bill is how is the Government is going to ensure that the subsidy does not get used, either directly or indirectly, to improve the bottom lines of our very profitable PTOs.
During the Committee of Supply debate in March, the Transport Minister said he was going to "scrutinise the PTOs’ actual costs for the purchase and running of the buses" to ensure that PTOs do not profit from this subsidy. Unfortunately, the Bill does not prescribe any mechanism for this scrutiny.
Is there any process in place to prevent the PTOs from acquiring spare parts or maintenance equipment, or conducting staff training using BSEP funds, that can be used to benefit the rest of their fleet?
How will the LTA prevent the PTOs from making the BSEP buses run only the unprofitable routes in far flung areas, while running the profitable routes using their own buses?
In short, how is the Government going to prevent BSEP funds from cross subsidising other parts of the PTOs’ operations?
Will the operations and accounting for the 550 buses be managed by the PTOs, who will then report the figures to LTA and seek funding accordingly? Will LTA take at face value all the figures the PTOs report to them? How will LTA audit the reporting?
Will the establishment of the BSEP mean that LTA will need to set up another department to manage and audit the operations of the PTOs? How many more staff is LTA going to have to hire to manage this 550 bus operation? How much is it going to cost? Is this cost going to be part of the $1.1 billion package or is it extra?
Who is going to fund the operations and replacement of the 550 buses after the 10 years are up? Is this the last such subsidy that taxpayers are going to give to PTOs? If not, are we on a path to permanent operational subsidies being given to these two listed companies?
Public transport model
During the COS debate earlier this year, the Transport Minister, in arguing his case for having profit-oriented companies run public transport operations, said that “the profit incentive drives the operators towards higher efficiency and productivity, which keeps costs as low as possible”.
This sounds ironic in light of all that has happened under in the past year.
Commuters have experienced the most serious and sustained series of MRT breakdowns in its 25-year history. It was not just the December 15 and 17 stoppages, but several other disruptions on the Circle Line, the LRT, the Northeast Line and the East-West Line that took place after that, some of which occurred as the MRT Committee of Inquiry (COI) was underway.
Now despite all the official justifications for the BSEP, there is no running away from two facts: One, that bus service standards are not up to the mark and, two, the government is stepping in to the tune of $1.1 billion to subsidise the service recovery.
What higher efficiencies has the profit-oriented model brought us? We have not seen an improvement of service quality, but a deterioration, especially over the past 5 years. We have seen fares increase but yet the government still needs to pour in billion dollar operational subsidies. We have seen trains breakdown due to underinvestment in maintenance, yet these companies are reporting hundreds of millions of dollars in profits each year. Since 2003, SMRT and SBS Transit have paid over $1 billion in dividends to their shareholders.
Public transport is an essential public good just like education, healthcare and public housing. The returns from this public good benefit more than just the commuters themselves. When commuters are able to get to work quickly, conveniently and in comfort, their companies benefit from their more productive work. By allowing them to reach home on time after work and with less frustration, they can build better relationships with their families, and perhaps even help to raise our nation’s total fertility rate.
The economy and society benefit when we have good and affordable public transport. These positive externalities do not show up in the balance sheets of the PTOs.
The BSEP seems to belatedly recognise that greater government investments are necessary to rectify the market failure in the public transport industry. With this Bill, the LTA will not just be a regulator, but will purchase the buses and fully fund their operations. Effectively the LTA, which is a government agency, is going to be the de facto owner of a fleet of 550 buses plying our roads.
However it is neither here nor there. The BSEP does not introduce any competition to spur efficiency and service improvements, yet we do not have a full public monopoly that reaps be benefits of direct control, with profits being reinvested to improve service quality. It is the worst of both worlds.
The public transport model has a great bearing on the long term outcomes of our public transport system. The focus of our bus and train operators should be on improving service quality to meet or exceed commuters’ expectations, not maximising profits for their shareholders.
Mr Speaker, as a daily commuter myself, I share the concerns of many Singaporeans about the quality, comfort and affordability our buses and trains. The public transport failures of the past few years have caused much angst among Singaporeans. It is incumbent upon this Government to set things right, both in the short term as well as in the long term.
Thank you.
[h=2]14.07.2012 - An invite to 'Dignity Kitchen'[/h]
Pritam Singh the MP for Aljunied GRC, Eunos was invited to the Dignity Kitchen on the 14th of July. The Dignity Kitchen is a hawker centre that aims to give the disabled and disadvantaged not only purpose, but useful skills that they may use for life. The Dignity Kitchen teaches them to cook so that they can be competent in the working industry. Dignity Kitchen aims to provide the disabled and disadvantaged with some dignity, and hopes to break the stereotypes existent in society.
The place is run by many volunteers with a great positive attitude. Even though Mr Singh was there on an invite for a supposed special occasion, it was a rather casual and heartwarming affair. People of all ages, young and old, were there to support the various hawker stalls mended by the disabled and disadvantaged. The Dignity Kitchen also invited the elderly and hired a bus to bring them down from the old folks’ home. At the event, they even had Karaoke available to entertain the elderly. The event was full of kind hearted and good natured people.
The place also had nice little touches that made the place so much more unique, such as, signs to teach people how to order their coffee using sign language! We look forward to dining at the Dignity Kitchen again and hope that more people will support this noble initiative.
Photo credit: Loh Pei Ying
Pritam Singh the MP for Aljunied GRC, Eunos was invited to the Dignity Kitchen on the 14th of July. The Dignity Kitchen is a hawker centre that aims to give the disabled and disadvantaged not only purpose, but useful skills that they may use for life. The Dignity Kitchen teaches them to cook so that they can be competent in the working industry. Dignity Kitchen aims to provide the disabled and disadvantaged with some dignity, and hopes to break the stereotypes existent in society.
The place is run by many volunteers with a great positive attitude. Even though Mr Singh was there on an invite for a supposed special occasion, it was a rather casual and heartwarming affair. People of all ages, young and old, were there to support the various hawker stalls mended by the disabled and disadvantaged. The Dignity Kitchen also invited the elderly and hired a bus to bring them down from the old folks’ home. At the event, they even had Karaoke available to entertain the elderly. The event was full of kind hearted and good natured people.
The place also had nice little touches that made the place so much more unique, such as, signs to teach people how to order their coffee using sign language! We look forward to dining at the Dignity Kitchen again and hope that more people will support this noble initiative.
Photo credit: Loh Pei Ying
14.07.2012 - An invite to 'Dignity Kitchen'
Pritam Singh the MP for Aljunied GRC, Eunos was invited to the Dignity Kitchen on the 14th of July. The Dignity Kitchen is a hawker centre that aims to give the disabled and disadvantaged not only purpose, but useful skills that they may use for life. The Dignity Kitchen teaches them to cook so that they can be competent in the working industry. Dignity Kitchen aims to provide the disabled and disadvantaged with some dignity, and hopes to break the stereotypes existent in society.
The place is run by many volunteers with a great positive attitude. Even though Mr Singh was there on an invite for a supposed special occasion, it was a rather casual and heartwarming affair. People of all ages, young and old, were there to support the various hawker stalls mended by the disabled and disadvantaged. The Dignity Kitchen also invited the elderly and hired a bus to bring them down from the old folks’ home. At the event, they even had Karaoke available to entertain the elderly. The event was full of kind hearted and good natured people.
The place also had nice little touches that made the place so much more unique, such as, signs to teach people how to order their coffee using sign language! We look forward to dining at the Dignity Kitchen again and hope that more people will support this noble initiative.
Photo credit: Loh Pei Ying
Pritam Singh the MP for Aljunied GRC, Eunos was invited to the Dignity Kitchen on the 14th of July. The Dignity Kitchen is a hawker centre that aims to give the disabled and disadvantaged not only purpose, but useful skills that they may use for life. The Dignity Kitchen teaches them to cook so that they can be competent in the working industry. Dignity Kitchen aims to provide the disabled and disadvantaged with some dignity, and hopes to break the stereotypes existent in society.
The place is run by many volunteers with a great positive attitude. Even though Mr Singh was there on an invite for a supposed special occasion, it was a rather casual and heartwarming affair. People of all ages, young and old, were there to support the various hawker stalls mended by the disabled and disadvantaged. The Dignity Kitchen also invited the elderly and hired a bus to bring them down from the old folks’ home. At the event, they even had Karaoke available to entertain the elderly. The event was full of kind hearted and good natured people.
The place also had nice little touches that made the place so much more unique, such as, signs to teach people how to order their coffee using sign language! We look forward to dining at the Dignity Kitchen again and hope that more people will support this noble initiative.
Photo credit: Loh Pei Ying
14.07.2012 - An invite to 'Dignity Kitchen'
Pritam Singh the MP for Aljunied GRC, Eunos was invited to the Dignity Kitchen on the 14th of July. The Dignity Kitchen is a hawker centre that aims to give the disabled and disadvantaged not only purpose, but useful skills that they may use for life. The Dignity Kitchen teaches them to cook so that they can be competent in the working industry. Dignity Kitchen aims to provide the disabled and disadvantaged with some dignity, and hopes to break the stereotypes existent in society.
The place is run by many volunteers with a great positive attitude. Even though Mr Singh was there on an invite for a supposed special occasion, it was a rather casual and heartwarming affair. People of all ages, young and old, were there to support the various hawker stalls mended by the disabled and disadvantaged. The Dignity Kitchen also invited the elderly and hired a bus to bring them down from the old folks’ home. At the event, they even had Karaoke available to entertain the elderly. The event was full of kind hearted and good natured people.
The place also had nice little touches that made the place so much more unique, such as, signs to teach people how to order their coffee using sign language! We look forward to dining at the Dignity Kitchen again and hope that more people will support this noble initiative.
Photo credit: Loh Pei Ying
Pritam Singh the MP for Aljunied GRC, Eunos was invited to the Dignity Kitchen on the 14th of July. The Dignity Kitchen is a hawker centre that aims to give the disabled and disadvantaged not only purpose, but useful skills that they may use for life. The Dignity Kitchen teaches them to cook so that they can be competent in the working industry. Dignity Kitchen aims to provide the disabled and disadvantaged with some dignity, and hopes to break the stereotypes existent in society.
The place is run by many volunteers with a great positive attitude. Even though Mr Singh was there on an invite for a supposed special occasion, it was a rather casual and heartwarming affair. People of all ages, young and old, were there to support the various hawker stalls mended by the disabled and disadvantaged. The Dignity Kitchen also invited the elderly and hired a bus to bring them down from the old folks’ home. At the event, they even had Karaoke available to entertain the elderly. The event was full of kind hearted and good natured people.
The place also had nice little touches that made the place so much more unique, such as, signs to teach people how to order their coffee using sign language! We look forward to dining at the Dignity Kitchen again and hope that more people will support this noble initiative.
Photo credit: Loh Pei Ying
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