The present generation of PAP leaders, such as Lim Swee Say, lacks the gravitas and stature of their forefathers. They should be judged on their own merits.
By Dr George Lim
Political Correspondent
With just hours remaining before Singapore heads to the polls, campaigning has been suspended thanks to a new PAP innovation, known as “Cooling Off Day”. Rallies will not be held, walkabouts will not be allowed, and new election advertising is strictly prohibited. The rationale, according to the PAP, is to allow all Singaporeans to reflect on who they would like to vote for logically and rationally, without any distractions that might threaten to see them head to their polling centres in an emotional huff.
The PAP has spent much of its disjointed campaign extolling its great track record. Even though the party failed to “get it exactly right”, it has gotten the big things right, or so we are to believe. Judge us on our track record, they say, and don’t zoom in on the isolated mistakes that we have made.
Well, let’s put first things first. The PAP’s track record is meant to be judged based on its last five-year term, since its track record prior to that will have already been judged at previous general elections.
Voters should form their opinions based on what the PAP has achieved – or failed to achieve – since 2006, when the party was returned to power with 66.6% of the national vote. What it did prior to 2006, and especially what it did in the 1970s and 1980s, is irrelevant. Back then, there was a very different economic and socio-political context, as well as a different set of PAP candidates.
In the past, the PAP was led by Mr Lee Kuan Yew, aided at various times by Dr Goh Keng Swee, Mr Hon Sui Sen, Mr Lim Kim San, Mr Eddie Barker, Mr S Rajaratnam, Mr S Dhanabalan and Mr Ong Teng Cheong. Singaporeans judged that PAP at the polls, and returned them to power with strong mandates. But the PAP of today is a different entity altogether.
This year, we will have to decide what sort of mandate we want to give to the PAP of 2011 – led by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, his Deputy Prime Ministers Teo Chee Hean and Wong Kan Seng, as well as other senior cabinet ministers, including Mr Lee Kuan Yew (who, we are told, serves in a purely advisory capacity), Mr Goh Chok Tong, Mr K Shanmugam, Mr Mah Bow Tan, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan and Dr Ng Eng Hen.
For the current batch of leaders to claim credit for the achievements of their predecessors just because they belonged to the same political party is misleading, manipulative and fallacious. Nottingham Forest were twice European champions in 1979 and 1980. Today, they languish in the second tier of English football.
Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was known to be a harsh and uncompromising taskmaster, demanding excellence from his own ministers
The current manager of the club, Billy Davies, is an honest and hardworking man, but he is by no means the equal of the legendary Brian Clough.
If he were to claim to have a better track record than, say, the current managers of Arsenal or Chelsea, he would be laughed out the door, even though neither of them has won any European Cups with their teams.
In an attempt to draw a line between his administration and previous PAP governments, the Prime Minister has said that despite the comments made by his father – who is now 87 – it was he, and not the Minister Mentor, who was in charge. Singaporeans have been waiting for Mr Lee Hsien Loong to do this for a long time. Though he has been Prime Minister since 2006, it has not always been easy to tell who the real leader of the PAP is, especially in a convoluted government structure that, besides the MM, also includes two Senior Ministers.
Nonetheless, Mr Lee has to be judged on his track record over the past five years, and not the track record of the old PAP that was led by his father. Mr Lee did not oversee Singapore’s independence from the British or from Malaysia. He did not have a hand in Singapore’s development from third world to first. He did not devise the economic policies that led to Singapore’s current status as a booming metropolis and international commercial hub.
What he did oversee, however, was the importation of more than one million foreign workers, brought in as a desperate measure to sustain Singapore’s growth in spite of its falling birth rate and greying population. He was in charge when Singapore’s income inequality shot to an all-time high, exceeding that of countries such as China and India. It was under his watch that Temasek Holdings and GIC lost hundreds of billions in bad investments, and dozens of PAP-controlled town councils followed suit.
It was also during his premiership that the PAP became more isolated, more arrogant and more self-serving than ever before. Few would have imagined that the venerable Dr Goh Keng Swee would have approved of ministers getting eight-month bonuses on top of their $2 million annual salaries; the man was widely known to be frugal and unmaterialistic. Yet, Mr Lee, as Prime Minister and previously as Finance Minister, allowed it.
Let’s not even delve into the escape of Mas Selamat, the Orchard Road floods or the gross overspending on the Youth Olympic Games – these were isolated, specific incidents that could have been forgiven if not for the fact that they illustrate a growing sense of complacency and sense of entitlement within the PAP elite.
In his younger days, Mr Lee Kuan Yew was known to be an uncompromising taskmaster. Though his ways were described as paternalistic and at times even despotic, he demanded far more of his ministers than he did of ordinary citizens – and for this reason, they delivered. Mr Lee Hsien Loong, on the other hand, appears at times almost as a reluctant leader, lacking the charisma and the stature to command the complete respect and attention of his cabinet.
Wong Kan Seng has failed to take responsibility for his numerous mistakes, and has instead tried to brush them off
He has allowed a cover-up culture to seep in at the highest levels of government, and, as many a civil servant would gladly attest, that same mindset has trickled down to almost every government ministry and statutory board. Any Singaporean male who has served National Service will know that the Army’s new golden rule is “do anything you want, just don’t get caught.”
And so, whenever there is a problem, the immediate reaction these days is not to try and find a solution, but rather, to find ways to window-dress the issue so as to avoid blame. For the PAP of 2011, excellence in leadership is a hollow slogan, not a uncompromisable value.
And so, we return to the question of the PAP’s so-called track record, which is nothing more than a hollow myth. The PAP of 2011 has a track record of complacency, arrogance, self-entitlement, incompetence and irresponsibility. It has a track record of trying to sweep its mistakes under the rug, explaining them as either the result of “uncontrollable global phenomena” or simply as the fault of someone else.
And its leader, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, has a track record for weak, indecisive and reactive leadership. With no other options available to him in the face of unprecedented public anger, he makes a sham apology in an attempt to win sympathy votes from those who are still able to hark back to the good old days of the former PAP.
He may win this election by a landslide, but if his track record over the past five years is anything to go by, he seriously needs to pull up his socks. Come 2016, even fewer people will remember the accomplishments of the party that used to understand their concerns and aspirations, so much so that they trusted it with their lives.
–
The author is a Singaporean who has been based in Beijing for the past seven years. He is a lecturer at a reputable university there, and holds a PhD in management science. He returns to Singapore at least three times a year.
It is a problem I have to find more information about, thank you for the publish.
Just received this in my email:
Subject: Fw: Pensions of our ministers
Msg below is being circulated in the internet. Somehow this was not brought up as an issue in the election campaign by any of the opposition parties. If not mistaken, $9.6 billions have been put aside for this purpose and approved by Parliament then. Singaporeans seem to have poor memory and that is why the MIW have cleverly crafted this act to ensure that they and their families are well taken care of even they are being kicked out of Parliament. Hopefully the act will be repealed one day when the fat cats are ousted out.
DO MINISTERS RECEIVE 50% OF THEIR LAST-DRAWN PAY FOR LIFE?
You friend is wrong about 50%. It is actually as high as 2/3rds. The Parliamentary Pensions Act provides that “office holders” (which means “Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Speaker, Senior Minister, Minister, Senior Minister of State, Minister of State, Mayor, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Parliamentary Secretary or Political Secretary”). If you closed your eyes and threw a stone in Parliament House during a Parliamentary sitting – assuming if, and it is a big if, that everyone attends (which is never the case. Parliamentary sittings are lucky if 50% of MPs attend!) you will hit at least 1 or perhaps 2 with the stone ricocheting PAP chaps entitled to pensions.
Anyhow, back to your question. The Act has a formula for payment of the amount of pension. You start with a numerator of 8 (meaning 8 years of service as office holder) and add 1 for every year of service after that. You divide this number by a fixed denominator of 27, and you stop when the number hits 2/3rds, which means that anyone who has 18 years service will hi! t maximum pension. The amount that is due to him FOR LIFE is found at section 4:
4(2) The annual amount of pension payable to an office-holding Member shall be —
(a) in respect of every completed year of reckonable service in any office, or where he has served in
more than one office in each office, at the rate of one-twenty-seventh (1/27) of his annual salary in that
office; and
(b) in respect of any remaining uncompleted year of reckonable service in any office, or where he has
served in more than one office in each office, at the rate of one-three-hundred and twenty-fourth (1/324)
part of his annual salary for each completed month of reckonable service in that office.
(2A) The annual pension payable to any office-holding Member under subsection (2) shall not exceed two-thirds
of the highest annual salary of any office held by him.
(3) Subject to sections 13 and 15, a pension granted under this section shall continue for the life of the person to
whom it is payable but shall not be payable in respect of any period during which he is again an office-holding
Member; at the end of that period the pension shall again be payable and shall be re-computed with the addition
of that period to the period of his former reckonable service as an office-holding Member.
(4) Fo! r the purposes of subsections (2) and (2A), “annual salary”, in relation to any office, means the annual
equivalent of the highest monthly rate of salary (excluding any non-pensionable allowances) received by an
office-holding Member during any period of reckonable service as a holder of that office.
Astonishing, isn’t it that the pension is payable based on the “Highest annual salary of any office held by him” and “highest monthly rate of salary”. So, it doesn’t matter that the MP was a low ranking parliamentary secretary for 17 years, and then became a multi-million $ minister for 1 year. His pension will be based on 2/3rds of his salary as a minister, as that is his highest annual salary of any office held by him. So, it also doesn’t matter that there are occasional reductions in salary during recessions, since their pension is based on their highest annual salary.
On this basis, SM / PM / MM will get 2/3rd x $3 million for the rest of their lives. I understand that if they are eligible for pension and they are still serving, they get both salary plus pension concurrently. (see section 5).
Or did I forget to tell you that pensions are exempt from income tax? This is stated in the Income Tax Act!
It gets better. The Act says that the pension can be commutated. This means that it is paid in 1 lump sum instead of monthly payments for life. The lump sum is equivalent to 175.14 months of pension, i.e. 14.6 years of pension. It doesn’t matter that the minister asks for it because he has terminal cancer and has 3 months to live. He will get 14.6 years of pension paid to him in 1 go, and it will be tax free. If MM’s pension is base! d on 2.5 million (conservative estimate), his commutated pension is $36.5 million. Can buy a GCB with it, without any bank loan!
This is a real scandal. I was horrified when Goh Chok Tong proposed recently that ministers serve 8 years only, and new ones come in. It means that the pool of multi-million dollar pension earners will get bigger and bigger! It will add to the financial burden of future generations of Singaporeans having to pay for the pensions of people who have already been paid too much during their terms of office.
Who in the private sector is entitled to pension? And yet the ministers, etc are collecting tax free pensions on top of their world’s highest salaries. Now you know why George Yeo is fighting so hard to keep his job as minister.
Incidentally, all Admin Service officers, Sr Police & Military Officers and High Court Judges are still entitled to pensions in the same manner. No one else in the Civil Service gets pensions.
A gentle reminder for 2day:
VOTE OPPOSITION PARTIES!!! KICK THE PAPAYAS OUT!!!
THROW PAPAYA SUCKERS OUT WITH THE DISHWATER!!!
I think this article is slightly unfair. The PAP has still gotten alot of things right. We still have one of the most modern countries in the region. And one thing that’s really great about Singapore is the high efficiency and high social mobility that allows people to do well if they are smart and diligent. However, there are of course a number of problems that need to be fixed. The question is, who is the best team to fix these problems? The PAP or the WP?
I would really like them to come clean on exactly how much has been lost by Temasek, GIC and other agencies on the following fiascos:
1) Lehman Brothers
2) Citibank
3) Suzhou Industrial Park
4) Shin Corp
I really wonder why they refuse to come clean with actual figures instead of just being vague. Maybe it will be like when President Ong Teng Cheong asked them to reveal the amount in the national reserves.. and they told him that it would take 52 man years to produce an audit.
The following took place the day after the elections between 2 seniors:
Citizen A: As the cock crows when the sun rises, I told you so
Citizen B: Pls elaborate
Citizen A: I told my son to tell them we are sorry for the mistakes, that we are human.
Citizen B: What’s your point?
Citizen A: These voters are so stupid and naive, like I always said. They believe everything my son said: They bought what he said and its 87-0
This is a completely one-sided and biased article. You say that the past PAP track record should not be taken into account? Well, you are right that the Old Guards are no longer around, but MM Lee is still around. He is the invisible hand that steers the ship. He provides wisdom to the younger ministers, gained through 50 years of experience.
As for the others, well, the system is still there, the PAP brand name is still there thanks to the system and the culture that MM Lee put in place.
Now, we talk about the concrete achievements of the current batch of PAP leaders. Yes there were mistakes, but they owned up and said sorry, which in itself is an achievement as it is a sign that PAP is re-inventing itself and moving towards a different and more engaging style.
Next, consider how much the PAP has done to encourage entrepreneurship (through SPRING Singapore) and engage overseas Singaporeans (through Overseas Singaporean Unit). Consider that the PAP (through MAS) managed to steer Singapore out of the recession in double-quick time, giving us double-digit economic growth at a time when other countries are still struggling.
And what about employment? Consider that the PAP (through MOM) managed to keep unemployment at 1.9% when other countries have double-digit unemployment including US and most European nations.
And we are now becoming a world-class city with many landmarks and attractions, such as an improved MRT line, two IRs, the Singapore Flyer, the Night Safari, etc.
Everyone wants to come to Singapore. We should be proud of our nation and we should be proud of the PAP.. the only party that has a solid TRACK RECORD.
LOL. The Night Safari and Singapore Flyer are due to the PAP?
Hilarious.
Might as well say that chilli crab and chicken rice were invented by PAP.
Yeah PAPaya sucker, I know. The moon and sun are also to be credited to your PAPaya masters!
Nani, harping on the name of an age old institution does nothing for anyone, because we are looking at a track record delivered over the course of PM LHL’s stewardship, not what took place under LKY and GCT. Judge a man on his own merits, and I shall attempt to do just that.
On the point that PM LHL has made apologies for his Cabinet ministers and that should suffice for the electorate, I beg to differ. This is akin to pleading guilty in front of a judge and saying “don’t send me to jail,” merely because one has been caught with their hand in the cookie jar and not out of a genuine sense of repentance.
I do not expect my ministers to be infallible, I leave that to the gods. All Singaporeans ask, is that they admit their mistake and move on from there, at the point of the mistake, and not 3 days before the elections. This apology is at worst, a cynical attempt to sway the undecided, and at best a genuine, but ill-timed effort.
As for stimulating entrepreneurship, I believe that necessitates a systemic change of our education system. Only people who dare to dream and dare to fail, dare succeed. As the famed SAS’ motto goes; “Who Dares Wins.” Setting up SPRING and other ventures is one way to encourage it, but in the first place, you must have people able to take up that mantle.
With regards to our astounding economic growth in the past few quarters, one reason is the sharp fall in the aftermath of 2008, any subsequent growth naturally looks “inflated” due to a smaller base. Moreover, as an open economy, our growth is subject more to external market forces than to local policies and circumstances. A resurgent Asia-Pacific has more to do with our growth than anything else. You might disagree, but that would seem a logical conclusion to draw given the limited nature of our direct fiscal / monetary policies.
As for unemployment, we may have low unemployment (which is certainly preferable to high unemployment) but we also have to look at the real wages of the lower-income groups. Being employed does not mean you can provide for yourself and your family if you are earning $1000 a month, especially in light of escalating inflation rates.
Just my two cents worth of course, please feel free to disagree with me and explain where and how I could be wrong. =)
@ Rooney
Thanks for your comments. At least you can constructively disagree unlike some trolls who are only capable of personal insults and attacks. I don’t agree with all your points but I will provide reasons why.
(1) You say that what happened under LKY and GCT are not to be taken into account. But LKY and GCT are still part of the cabinet. They are important members of the PAP team. That’s because the PAP believes in transferring knowledge from the older generation while also renewing itself with fresh talent. That is a unique feature of the PAP model, and what makes it work so well. You’ve got a mixture of fresh ideas and solid experience/wisdom.
(2) You said that LHL should not be forgiven after his apology. We need to ask ourselves if we want to be vindictive and simply vote against the PAP. On the other hand we need to ask if the alternative is actually better. So why cut off your nose to spite your face? Voting out the PAP out of vindictiveness will just result in your family and country being worse off. Even if you are just talking about voting them out in specific wards like Aljunied, the price to pay is heavy. We are already short of talent, being a small country. We can’t afford to lose top talents like George Yeo, or we will be worse off.
(3) Regarding what you said about unemployment and the poor people having to live of $1000 per month. Well, two points. Firstly, it’s better to have $1000 than to have nothing, don’t you agree? Secondly, it has been PROVEN that in Singapore, even if you have little education, you can make it if you work hard and have talent. This is a meritocratic country. How many company bosses have we seen, who came from nowhere to earning big bucks? If these “poor” people upgrade themselves and work hard, there is social mobility, they can rise up. But sometimes we have to ask ourselves, who is really responsible for their predictament? My view is that the poor are poor for a reason. I’m not about to subsidise their healthcare and education, that is what the WP and SDP want. Why should the most talented and hardworking Singaporeans have to pay a penalty for being successful? What message does that send out? That we should not strive for excellence?
Hi again Nani,
(1) Regarding your point on knowledge transfer, I agree that yes, MM & GCT are still part of the Cabinet, able and willing to pass on their knowledge, but I think we must acknowledge that there are certainly things to learn and also things to not learn (case in point, MM’s recent comments on Malay integration, but that’s a story for another day). At the end of the day, the ministers themselves will be charting their own paths and our Singaporean paths. MM and GCT won’t be around forever, but I feel a key obstacle between effective transfer are the ever-evolving mindsets of generations. There lacks a certain sense of shared identity and nationhood (though that could just be me), but I do feel that we’re only ever going to be able to judge PM’s stewardship of the country objectively after he has stepped out of his father’s enormous shadow.
(2) This I definitely do not disagree, neither do many Singaporeans I feel. As I’ve said before, the key is in the timing. Must apologies only come during elections where there is an unprecedented groundswell of opposition support? It is certainly a good thing that LHL is beginning to come around to what the public-at-large thinks, but a culture created over decades cannot change overnight. I do not advocate a wholesale change of government, there are many opposition policies I disagree with, and they do not have enough top-notch personnel, but I think their very existence forces the PAP to take a more middle ground than they have in the past. And that, given the current state of the opposition, is more than we have ever had in the past decade or so. (I choose to ignore the prior decades since the opposition was barely a presence barring figures such as Chiam and JBJ)
Yes, George Yeo is an excellent foreign minister and one of the few without a blight on his record (As SM so happily pointed out, unlike WKS. Haha) but might the nation not be better served in the long-run to have the PAP realise that at the end of the day, they are answerable to the electorate and that their policies, focused as they are on GDP, do have very real, very human consequences. I am certain that there are other capacities in which George Yeo can be employed, a man as talented as he is cannot possibly only be suitable for the role of Foreign Minister.
(3) On this point however, I must vehemently disagree with you. Certainly a thousand dollars is better than nothing, but what about those with families to support? We are a meritocratic country, but what about those who started the race 10m back in a 100m sprint? Especially if you’re carrying a backpack and missing a leg. Do we forget about these people? That is certainly not something I can stomach. You and I may lead comfortable lives, but that was more luck than anything else, that we were born into good environments. If we are to forge a collective identity, it cannot only be one that encompasses the poor.
No one is seeking to penalise the rich, but I feel we cannot afford to forget those of our countrymen who by a simple quirk of birth, are not in as fortunate a position as we are. Pity the children suffering from poor parents. The elderly who have unfilial children. The disabled who got the short end of the stick. It is only in our collective that we are human. On our own, we are merely animals in the animal kingdom, a different and far more advanced species for sure, but we wouldn’t be “human” anymore.
(3)
You said you disagree with me, but what is your solution?
Those who have to live on $1,000 a month, are we going to force employers to pay them more? By implementing a minimum wage?
SDP’s proposal is to have a minimum wage set at $6.50 per hour. This means that you can paid $6.50 an hour for ANY job in Singapore, including hawker’s assistants, clerks, McDonald’s cashiers, and factory workers. Do you support this? If this is the case, why would the low-skilled workers want to upgrade themselves? They would be happy to just accept the $6.50 an hour as it would help them get by.
Parents would tell their kids not to study hard because they can be GUARANTEED $6.50 per hour NO MATTER WHAT job they do.
Is that the kind of mentality that we want?
In my opinion this is anti-meritocratic as it provides those who are lazy, untalented, and complacement with false crutches to stand on.
And what about employers? They will be forced to hire less workers. Meaning that less people will have jobs. Unemployment will shoot up. It’s better to have people earning $1,000 p/mth than none at all.
If parents are poor, their kids can still get a scholarship if they are smart. Singapore is a meritocratic country that doesn’t discriminate on the basis of class, family background, race or religion. It’s not like in India where the lower castes can’t get access to schools. If your parents were poor, you can still move up the social ladder if you are smart. I know this. My parents grew up in a VERY poor family but they still made it. And who made this possible? The PAP.
Hey PAPaya sucker, while we’re at it you might as well go all the way and claim that although your PAPayas let Mas Selamat escape they more than made up for it by hunting down and getting rid of Osama bin Laden for the world. That’ll be great for their solid-gold TRACK RECORD!
VOTE OPPOSITION PARTIES!!! KICK THE PAPAYAS OUT!!!
THROW PAPAYA SUCKERS OUT WITH THE DISHWATER!!!
At a wage rate of $6.50 an hour, assuming you work 10 hours a day and not on weekends, you will draw an annual income of $17,160, not factoring in days where you might have to take leave or you are ill.
That being the case, I certainly do not see any parents encouraging their children to aim for a job that pays a wage of $6.50. The SDP proposal may or may not have its flaws, but the end objective was to highlight that something has to be done.
There are plenty of people subsisting on less than a $1,000 a month, living a wretched hand-to-mouth existence. This without factoring all the hidden costs in Singapore.
The only real solution, would be better education, not the trash we’re fed in schools now, that is simply training, but rather real thinking, analytical education as per the Scandinavian countries. You might have been intelligent and fortunate enough with encouraging parents to beat the poverty trap, but there are many others who are certainly starting many many meters back in the rat-race.
We cannot afford to alienate these people simply because they are poor and uneducated. We might be a system focused on meritocracy, but it only promotes relative social mobility barring cases such as yours. By and by, the children of the poor perpetuate a poverty cycle until they have offspring of above intelligence. No one is about to promote the slavish welfare system so commonly abused throughout the Northern Hemisphere but there can certainly be more done for the poor.
Stereotyping the poor, handing them a few hundred dollars every five years and allowing indiscriminate import of foreign talent serves no one. All it does is breed a groundswell of resentment.
What a great track record – Mas Selamat, YOG, losses at GIC and Temasek, Szechuan Biz park fiasco, soaring inflation, homeless, penniless aged, stratospheric Ministerial salaries, people jumping into MRT tracks to commit suicide, out of reach property prices, jam packed MRT trains, Singaporeans reporting to foreign bosses, doling up money on foreign students, Pinoy maids as loan shark runners, etc etc etc.
Track record? Yes, many big companies have them. Some good ones, some so so.
But like they always say : Past performance does not always guarantee future returns.
It is not wise to always harp on past performance. If the govt can say that, then the Financial Planners should be allowed to advise their clients and insist them to buy such and such a fund becos they have track records. Can they do that? No, the MAS die die also will not agree to that.
So, please please please, STOP this track record bullshit!
Track record? Yes, but the PAP were able to have a track record only because of their DOMINANCE in power.
Now that there is a credible Opposition, their tactics in the last few days is to remind Singaporeans that the opposition has no track record, yes, but that’s because Singaporeans did not, save for 1991, give the Opposition a chance.
Now, Singaporeans have a real chance to.
And, after what the ruling party has done for the past five years, what trust is left?
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Believe me.. if Goh Keng Swee, Toh Chin Chye and the rest of the gang were still around, they would rebel and maybe even join the opposition. There is talk that Lau Goh is not happy with the direction of the new PAP, hence his sabotaging comments against some of the hardliners. He specifically singled out Wong Kan Seng. Lau Goh can snipe at them but he doesn’t have the courage to actually quit and challenge them. But I think that some of the Old Guards might have done so.
The PAP has lost its moral compass. The lame apology won’t fool me.
Great article. Couldn’t have said it any better. The PAP should stop relying on sentimental crap, I mean not a single one of them were around when the Old Guards were building up Singapore.The only link is LKY. But it’s like LKY has become a different person now. He is senile and his nonsensical utterings are really discrediting himself and his party when he was once a wise and inspirational leader. Voters need to get it out of their minds that the PAP of today is still the PAP of old.