Let's talk about how to raise the cost of car ownership, and at the same time raise public transport fares, AND how to make the public swallow the bitter pill.
Impossible in other countries? Not in Singapore - adidas' famous (or infamous) slogan applies - impossible...... is nothing.
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The ERP (Electronic Road Pricing) system is an ingenious idea. Whoever came up with this idea should have the Nobel Prize (Economics).
I mean, seriously. Why have toll booths? Why pay people to collect money, when you can have it automated? When the system is faulty, there is no trouble for the government at all - the onus is on the driver to prove so.
Cheap to build, and the gantry can be up in days (probably 1 month or less if you throw in software configuration testing etc.) Next, you can start charging motorists based on a whim and fancy - "oh, traffic speeds are below 45kmh." And wait, motorists only need to be given a week's notice.
No alternative routes need to be suggested, Singaporean drivers don't need nannies to teach them how to drive, yeah? They can always use the numerous sites on the Internet to tell them how to plan their routes, and there's even one which will tell u how much your intended route costs (only ERP of course, petrol not included).
The government's rebuttals are getting tired of late. "Speeds are falling, we have to arrest the trend, before it rapidly degenerates and investors get put off into ploughing money in Singapore Inc."
Fear Factor, anyone?
It conveniently forgets the investors and its citizens ALREADY in Singapore who find the escalating costs going out of hand, or does the SG government do a calculated risk that Singaporeans are just too settled in to move out of this tiny island? Even if so, what about the existing investors/ foreign talent etc?
And the latest news, taxi drivers are finding it expensive to drive into the CBD because of ERP, so many will choose to stay away. So now commuters who need a cab in the CBD need to call for one! What next?
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The next bone I have to pick is the rising public transport fares. The government recently announced a change in the public transport fare structure that would be distance-based, rather than depending on how many times u switch buses/trains. That is reason to cheer, until you read on and realize that it is actually a facade for something more scheming - to raise fares for 6 out of 10 people who actually have direct buses from source to destination. What's more, transport companies are encouraged to scrap direct routes because they are "less efficient".
FARE HIKE, then no more direct routes? What in the world is the government thinking? When u factor in a journey's time, please also factor in waiting time. It is NOT fair at all to just compare travelling time, (because if you didn't already know!!!) waiting time can take up a significant portion of the total time u take to get from place to place! I wonder just how far removed our ministers are from the ground. Seriously!
Ministers and top management of LTA, please take the public transport at least once a week. The condition here is, you are not allowed to inform the bus companies when you want to take it. You are also not allowed to tell them where you are taking it from, or where you are going to. In brief, you should act as the man on the street for a day a week, so you can feel our pain.
If the government wants to encourage people to use public transport, then for heaven's sake, please improve the regularity, particularly during peak hours! Reasons like existing infrastructure not being able to support more regular train schedules are NOT acceptable. If the people at the top can for one moment stop running the country like a company, they might even have the heart and clarity to see the common man's problems. Or is it too cloudy on top to see the ground below? Or maybe, just maybe, they choose to assume these problems don't exist. After all, it's easy to do that when you have a nice comfy car and a motorcade to whisk you around wherever you need to go. And ERP is paid for by the government!
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High fliers, time to lower yr cruising level. Lower yourselves for one moment, live and breathe the shit we're facing now for some time, before you go back up to your perch and "continue looking at the big picture".
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label government. Show all posts
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Monday, March 26, 2007
Ministers and civil servants' pay to increase (part 2)
Back on the topic of government salary increases, I found a few interesting articles regarding this issue. Since the ruling government made it abundantly clear that political discourse should belong ONLY to political blogs, which I believe need to have a license(?) and I have NO wish to license this cos I HATE dislike (OK language called for reworking) people whom I dunno reading my blog, so I'll leave this as objective as humanly possible (faced with the amount of money we're talking here, of course.)
(Phew, run-on sentence. My GP tutor would have killed me for this.)
Anyway back to the topic. First I bring you, an extract of our MM's speech and views about raising government pay. He reasons that to keep top people in ministerial positions who are corruption-free, we require to dangle monetary carrots to attract talent and to retain existing ones. And he contends that ministers in Singapore are NOT ordinary people as they have to deal with Singapore's scarcity of natural resources as well as the fact that we have limited human resources. That, he says, makes managing Singapore all the more challenging. I guess MM Lee has good reasoning, and he has the wisdom of years behind him to base his views on. Kudos to him for being able to take unpopular decisions for the good of the country and succeeding. I'm not a big fan of his, but because of him, I believe that a limited democracy is the best system to go.
YoungPAP's elaina olivia chong bolsters this view. She says "money is the proverbial carrot" and that even ministers should not be expected to take the "moral high ground". I reserve my stand on this, however, I agree with some of her statements. But the first statement in her second paragraph puts me off. I feel that she, as well as many of the ministers and policymakers should respect the diaspora of views in the forums and on the ground and maybe use their elite brains to try to understand where the common people are coming from. Seek to persuade people to your side, not coerce people into your thinking. In this aspect, I believe that for all its successes, PAP (and by extension, YoungPAP) has one big failing - that in their duty to the public to properly educate the masses on their reasons for numerous policies, not just on this issue. Sooner or later, I predict that it will fall (if it continues on this way), not because it is not a good government, but because the-Singaporean-on-the-street is becoming increasingly disgruntled and perturbed with these "elite ministars" just making decisions on their own. (If you did a double take on "ministars", no, it's not a spelling mistake.)
And then there are of course the people on the ground who are just plain disturbed by the multimillion-dollar salaries that the ministers are taking home. It seems that somehow, some of them got their facts mixed up and some thought that it was a million-dollar monthly salary that the ministers were taking home. Haha. I mean seriously, you want to blog, get your facts right first. That's the annual figure for you, dudes (although it's still frigging huge.)
The opposing camp:
I am Singaporean XX - Singaporeans in Demand?
I am Singaporean XX, cont’d - An Answer. (apparently the same guy.)
And for good measure read the comments below the very first post (the post where MM Lee was quoted). I guess these views are simple enough to digest, and need not be elaborated on.
Then there are others who try to infuse their views with facts: http://samaryn.com/2007/03/05/linking-pay-with-performance-in-singapore-civil-service
For even more information out there, use Google.
Politics, politics, politics.
If there's one reason why we should support this obscene salary, it's because it will help the ministers stay "white" and free from corruption. After all, not many in the world can afford to bribe a million dollars. Corruption in the government is a very serious affair, because it is at the highest level and is very hard to check. Once corruption seeps into the highest levels, it can remain there for a very long time. I mean, look at the neighbouring countries, the ministers are paid lowly salaries, but turn out to be the richest people in their respective countries. Scratching your head? Look no further than Thaksin, or Mahathir. I guess most people here are familiar with them both. I'm not saying they're corrupt, but I just wonder how they got so rich. I bet you are too.
So far, paying out millions has worked fine. But then, when the casinos come rolling in together with the high-rollers and the vice that come along with it, ahhh, then I really wonder.
Edit: Oops after re-reading, I realized I wasn't being very objective (and the post is very messy). But heck, unless some higher powers orders the razing of this blog, nothing will be changed.
(Phew, run-on sentence. My GP tutor would have killed me for this.)
Anyway back to the topic. First I bring you, an extract of our MM's speech and views about raising government pay. He reasons that to keep top people in ministerial positions who are corruption-free, we require to dangle monetary carrots to attract talent and to retain existing ones. And he contends that ministers in Singapore are NOT ordinary people as they have to deal with Singapore's scarcity of natural resources as well as the fact that we have limited human resources. That, he says, makes managing Singapore all the more challenging. I guess MM Lee has good reasoning, and he has the wisdom of years behind him to base his views on. Kudos to him for being able to take unpopular decisions for the good of the country and succeeding. I'm not a big fan of his, but because of him, I believe that a limited democracy is the best system to go.
YoungPAP's elaina olivia chong bolsters this view. She says "money is the proverbial carrot" and that even ministers should not be expected to take the "moral high ground". I reserve my stand on this, however, I agree with some of her statements. But the first statement in her second paragraph puts me off. I feel that she, as well as many of the ministers and policymakers should respect the diaspora of views in the forums and on the ground and maybe use their elite brains to try to understand where the common people are coming from. Seek to persuade people to your side, not coerce people into your thinking. In this aspect, I believe that for all its successes, PAP (and by extension, YoungPAP) has one big failing - that in their duty to the public to properly educate the masses on their reasons for numerous policies, not just on this issue. Sooner or later, I predict that it will fall (if it continues on this way), not because it is not a good government, but because the-Singaporean-on-the-street is becoming increasingly disgruntled and perturbed with these "elite ministars" just making decisions on their own. (If you did a double take on "ministars", no, it's not a spelling mistake.)
And then there are of course the people on the ground who are just plain disturbed by the multimillion-dollar salaries that the ministers are taking home. It seems that somehow, some of them got their facts mixed up and some thought that it was a million-dollar monthly salary that the ministers were taking home. Haha. I mean seriously, you want to blog, get your facts right first. That's the annual figure for you, dudes (although it's still frigging huge.)
The opposing camp:
I am Singaporean XX - Singaporeans in Demand?
I am Singaporean XX, cont’d - An Answer. (apparently the same guy.)
And for good measure read the comments below the very first post (the post where MM Lee was quoted). I guess these views are simple enough to digest, and need not be elaborated on.
Then there are others who try to infuse their views with facts: http://samaryn.com/2007/03/05/linking-pay-with-performance-in-singapore-civil-service
For even more information out there, use Google.
Politics, politics, politics.
If there's one reason why we should support this obscene salary, it's because it will help the ministers stay "white" and free from corruption. After all, not many in the world can afford to bribe a million dollars. Corruption in the government is a very serious affair, because it is at the highest level and is very hard to check. Once corruption seeps into the highest levels, it can remain there for a very long time. I mean, look at the neighbouring countries, the ministers are paid lowly salaries, but turn out to be the richest people in their respective countries. Scratching your head? Look no further than Thaksin, or Mahathir. I guess most people here are familiar with them both. I'm not saying they're corrupt, but I just wonder how they got so rich. I bet you are too.
So far, paying out millions has worked fine. But then, when the casinos come rolling in together with the high-rollers and the vice that come along with it, ahhh, then I really wonder.
Edit: Oops after re-reading, I realized I wasn't being very objective (and the post is very messy). But heck, unless some higher powers orders the razing of this blog, nothing will be changed.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Ministers and civil servants' pay to increase
If you thought a $3000/month job was good, wait till you see Singapore government ministers' pay.
Right now, they're earning S$1.2 million annually (I think the PM earns more than that). If we take a normal year (365 days), that works out to be $3287.67/day. That's assuming they even work every day of the year. They should, else their pay will be even more obscene.
And now our dear PM has said it's NOT ENOUGH, since a 1994 ruling pegged ministers' salaries to a benchmark that has been set at "two-thirds of the median income of the eight top-earning professionals in six professions", which includes lawyers, bankers, businessmen, engineers(?!?!) and I can't remember the last two. (Strangely enough, doctors weren't included in the list- aren't they supposed to be pulling in big bucks too?)
Anyway, the government has calculated this benchmark to be $2.2 million now, so I think they're going ahead and PM's gonna say something like, "OK Singapore Inc. is doing quite well now. We've won numerous awards like Best Airport and Best Airline in the world, No.1 Least corrupt government in the world, Top 10 Best Nightlife Spots in the world, yada yada. As your reward, I'm giving you a $1 million increase in pay as a pat on the back, how's that? You guys staying or leaving for the Middle East?"
I think Singapore can get another award: Highest Ministers' Pay in the world.
But then, if you angle it differently, it all begins to make sense. Looking at the level of the ministers' pay, one wonders why there is any need for corruption in Singapore AT ALL.
Right now, they're earning S$1.2 million annually (I think the PM earns more than that). If we take a normal year (365 days), that works out to be $3287.67/day. That's assuming they even work every day of the year. They should, else their pay will be even more obscene.
And now our dear PM has said it's NOT ENOUGH, since a 1994 ruling pegged ministers' salaries to a benchmark that has been set at "two-thirds of the median income of the eight top-earning professionals in six professions", which includes lawyers, bankers, businessmen, engineers(?!?!) and I can't remember the last two. (Strangely enough, doctors weren't included in the list- aren't they supposed to be pulling in big bucks too?)
Anyway, the government has calculated this benchmark to be $2.2 million now, so I think they're going ahead and PM's gonna say something like, "OK Singapore Inc. is doing quite well now. We've won numerous awards like Best Airport and Best Airline in the world, No.1 Least corrupt government in the world, Top 10 Best Nightlife Spots in the world, yada yada. As your reward, I'm giving you a $1 million increase in pay as a pat on the back, how's that? You guys staying or leaving for the Middle East?"
I think Singapore can get another award: Highest Ministers' Pay in the world.
But then, if you angle it differently, it all begins to make sense. Looking at the level of the ministers' pay, one wonders why there is any need for corruption in Singapore AT ALL.
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