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Senior Minister of State, Lee Yi Shyan, uses the example of a small town called Yubari in Hokkaido, Japan. He says, “It retrenched half of its civil servants. Public service in the City was badly affected. The public library was gone. Six primary schools merged into one. The General Hospital closed down two thirds of its facilities to save utilities. It also halved its number of ambulances and asked its elderly patients to walk to the hospital by themselves.”
This is again fear mongering and it is also inappropriate to use a small, (ex) coal mining town, Yubari with a population of about 10,000 compared to ours of 5.3 million.
The New York Times ran an interesting story last year – Yubari’s new 31 year old mayor who sacrificed Tokyo’s pay and comfort to look after a down and out town.
Our politicians could take a leaf from Yubari’s book instead of focusing on monetary gains and material wants.
It would be more appropriate to highlight other cities when comparing Singapore ie Tokyo. Tokyo and Yubari are worlds apart – public service has not been badly affected, its libraries are not gone, no instances of 6 schools merging into one etc. One will always cherry pick to support one’s argument but compare apples and apples please, not Yubari’s melons and our durians.
- http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2013/02/open-letter-pm-lee-white-paper-debate/
This is again fear mongering and it is also inappropriate to use a small, (ex) coal mining town, Yubari with a population of about 10,000 compared to ours of 5.3 million.
The New York Times ran an interesting story last year – Yubari’s new 31 year old mayor who sacrificed Tokyo’s pay and comfort to look after a down and out town.
Our politicians could take a leaf from Yubari’s book instead of focusing on monetary gains and material wants.
It would be more appropriate to highlight other cities when comparing Singapore ie Tokyo. Tokyo and Yubari are worlds apart – public service has not been badly affected, its libraries are not gone, no instances of 6 schools merging into one etc. One will always cherry pick to support one’s argument but compare apples and apples please, not Yubari’s melons and our durians.
- http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2013/02/open-letter-pm-lee-white-paper-debate/
