Singabloodypore

A Report on Poverty and Labour in Singapore 2007

Without the PAP, Lee Kuan Yew swears, our women folk would end up as domestic help in distant lands. So be thankful. In fact, be more than thankful. Be worshipful that we have national leaders who have brought us riches – and continue to do so.

Bunkum, many of you say. We may be grateful but we don’t have to be talked down to in such a manner even if it is by the Minister Mentor.

Maybe the MM was too blunt, the PAP admits, but at least the citizens are grateful, at least they should be, for all that the party has done for Singapore.

Bunkum, A Nation Cheated says. This latest SDP report written by Dr Chee Soon Juan punctures the propaganda that Singapore is well-served by the PAP.

Available in electronic format, this 72-page Report on poverty and labour in Singapore traces developments over the last 10 years since the Asian crisis in 1997, and provides evidence – hard, irrefutable evidence – that Singapore is ailing from failed PAP policies.

Unlike other emerging markets Singapore does not have an entrepreneurial class that can compete globally, continuing instead to rely on MNCs and inept GLCs. The emergence of a permanent underclass is a result of such an economic arrangement.

Experts, and there have been many of them, have repeatedly warned that without urgent reforms of the political and economic systems, Singapore's economic situation will continue to deteriorate.

To be absolutely sure, the unprecedented level of poverty seen in this country is not the unintended by-product of globalization, as the PAP would have us believe. It is a creation from Lee’s eugenicist views:

"Free education and subsidised housing lead to a situation where the less economically productive people in the community are reproducing themselves at rates higher than the rest. This will increase the total population of less productive people. We must... take the first tentative steps towards correcting a trend which can leave our society with a large number of the physically, intellectually and culturally anaemic."

One of his faithful ministers, the late S Rajaratnam, darkly promised: "We want to teach people the government is not a rich uncle. You get what you pay for. We are moving in the direction of making people pay for everything."

Such attitude has produced a society with individuals like TT Durai with his avarice, Mrs Goh Chok Tong with her "peanuts" comment, Wee Shu Min with her repugnant diatribe against Derek Wee (and her father’s defence of her comments), and Lee Hsien Loong with his petulance that he and his ministers should not be expected to make "unnecessary financial sacrifices."

A Nation Cheated pieces together an unmistakable picture of PAP's failure. It tells the real story of how our enormous reserves have been accumulated through forced savings under the CPF scheme as well as through the sale of HDB flats. The slew of taxes and fees designed to maximise the extraction of funds from the people is another avenue.

More recently, however, economic growth has been sustained from illicit money laundered from foreigners. The explosive influx of migrants has also contributed much to the fattening of state coffers.

The question is: Is this kind of growth sustainable and how much damage is it inflicting on our society?

Perhaps the ultimate indicator of the failure of the PAP is that in the half-a-century of uninterrupted rule, it has failed to create a nation where Singaporeans are proud to be identified with. A 2007 survey of young Singaporeans revealed that more than half wanted to emigrate. A shocking 37 percent said they were not patriotic to this country.

For Singaporeans, this Report is a must read. It informs, it rebukes, it persuades. It is a call for us to awake from our fearful slumber.

For the foreign observer, it is an opportunity to be disabused of the notion that the Singapore Way is a model.

The sin is not in being ignorant, but in choosing to remain so.

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