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<DL class=userinfo_extra><DT>Join Date <DD>Jan 2011 </DD><DT>Posts <DD>40 </DD></DL>
[h=2]Ho Kwon Ping chide PAP for using scare tactics on wage to put down Prof Lim[/h]
<DL class=userinfo_extra><DT>Join Date <DD>Jan 2011 </DD><DT>Posts <DD>40 </DD></DL>
[h=2]Ho Kwon Ping chide PAP for using scare tactics on wage to put down Prof Lim[/h]
Executive Chairman of Banyan Tree Holdings Ho Kwon Ping has taken a potshot at PAP leaders for using their usual ‘scare tactics’ to discredit Professor Lim Chong Yah’s ‘wage shock therapy’.
Professor Lim’s proposal to forcefully raise the salaries of those earning $1,500 and below has been criticized and ridiculed heavily by PAP ministers such as Lim Swee Say and Lee Yi-Shyan who warned of ‘dire consequences’ if pay hike is not accompanied by increase in productivity.
Without giving names, Mr Ho wrote in the Straits Times today that it is ‘disingenuous’ of Prof Lim’s detractors to use such warped logic to dismiss his proposal:
“But I also think it is somewhat disingenuous of Prof Lim’s detractors to simply use scare tactics like ‘investors will flee’ or ‘we will have a drastic economic decline’ to reject his proposals out of hand. Critics of the plan – many of whom have access to economic modelling capabilities – should run their models and share with everyone their findings.”
He added rather sarcastically that the critics are doing a great disservice to the government:
“In fact, those critics who invoke the foreign investor scare tactic are doing a great disservice to all Singaporeans, and particularly our own Government.*Singapore is not a cheap-labour attraction. Singapore’s investment climate is stellar because we have achieved that rare combination of clean, pragmatic and efficient government, a hard-working and problem-solving population, and a good society to live in.”
Though Mr Ho is not in favor of Prof Lim’s proposals, he felt there should be a constructive debate on them:
“I am personally not in favour of Prof Lim’s proposals, but I admire him for having the gumption to make radical proposals. If we are to have a thoughtful society, we should debate the merits of his proposals with equally coherent arguments, grounded in data and reason.”
Professor Lim’s proposal to forcefully raise the salaries of those earning $1,500 and below has been criticized and ridiculed heavily by PAP ministers such as Lim Swee Say and Lee Yi-Shyan who warned of ‘dire consequences’ if pay hike is not accompanied by increase in productivity.
Without giving names, Mr Ho wrote in the Straits Times today that it is ‘disingenuous’ of Prof Lim’s detractors to use such warped logic to dismiss his proposal:
“But I also think it is somewhat disingenuous of Prof Lim’s detractors to simply use scare tactics like ‘investors will flee’ or ‘we will have a drastic economic decline’ to reject his proposals out of hand. Critics of the plan – many of whom have access to economic modelling capabilities – should run their models and share with everyone their findings.”
He added rather sarcastically that the critics are doing a great disservice to the government:
“In fact, those critics who invoke the foreign investor scare tactic are doing a great disservice to all Singaporeans, and particularly our own Government.*Singapore is not a cheap-labour attraction. Singapore’s investment climate is stellar because we have achieved that rare combination of clean, pragmatic and efficient government, a hard-working and problem-solving population, and a good society to live in.”
Though Mr Ho is not in favor of Prof Lim’s proposals, he felt there should be a constructive debate on them:
“I am personally not in favour of Prof Lim’s proposals, but I admire him for having the gumption to make radical proposals. If we are to have a thoughtful society, we should debate the merits of his proposals with equally coherent arguments, grounded in data and reason.”
