To this blog, that is.
Commenting on my previous post about yet another monstrous increase in ministers' salaries, a reader wrote: "You can debate, go on and on.... Does it make an inch of difference what will happen?
Many of us wish for a more equitable society... possibly a consequence of years of reciting the national pledge.
That is but a wish and unless your 'fair'y appears and grants your wish, time spent wishing is time wasted.
Focus on things that are within your circle of influence. This will hopefully expand the range of choices available."
Yes, I do grow a little tired. In a sense - I give up. I need a change. So does this blog.
I am going to adopt a new thematic focus. This blog is usually devoted to analysing social trends, current affairs and the latest ways the government is messing things up. However, from now on, I will be much more practical.
I will be blogging my thoughts on about how the average Singaporean can survive, and thrive, and manoeuvre his way into a better life for himself - taking into account social trends, current affairs and the latest ways the government is messing things up.
In other words, I am going to write about what the average Singaporean can do, within his own circle of influence.
I haven't figured out all the details yet, but you get the general sense of where I'm going. Hope we all have fun. Look forward to all your comments on my future posts, as usual.
I was on holiday late last week, with no Internet access. When I came back, I learned that the PAP ministers had raised their salaries again.
Well, this was no surprise. Months ago, SM Goh had already dropped hints that the salary increase was on its way. So now, their salaries are not only the world's highest ministerial salaries, but the world's highest ministerial salaries by far.
Eat your heart out, George Bush.
I still haven't caught up with all the details. I've just been quickly browsing articles via the Intelligent Singaporean on this matter. MM Lee's age is showing - he spouts little bits of strange nonsense like this: "Low salaries will draw in the hypocrites who sweet talk their way into power in the name of public service, but once in charge will show their true colour, and ruin the country."
This is an illogical statement. One may just as well assert: "High salaries will draw in the hypocrites who sweet talk their way into power in the name of public services ...". Surely high salaries have greater ability than low salaries to attract hypocrites.
In fact, both statements are untrue. In Singapore, most ministers do not need to "sweet-talk their way into power in the name of public service". They just need to be picked by MM Lee, to be minister. That's the tough part. The easy part is getting into Parliament - that's usually done by election walkover.
Anyway, I wonder how the founding fathers of Singapore, like Goh Keng Swee or S Rajaratnam, would feel about MM Lee's remark. Really insulted, I guess.
Back in those days, ministerial salaries were low, far lower than now. There was no such thing as pegging ministers' salaries to the absolute top earners in the private sector. But were Goh and Rajaratnam really "hypocrites who sweet-talked their way into power in the name of public service"?
I don't think so.
Just started work at my new organisation (a bank). I learned something quite interesting during the orientation programme.
The HR department has a special service to help foreign employees in Singapore process their PR applications. However, that HR service has been outsourced to the global processing centre in Mumbai.
In other words, the administrative work of getting PR status for foreign employees in Singapore is now being handled by people in India.
We learn a few interesting things here. Firstly, this bank employs so many foreigners in Singapore that it's worth the trouble of setting up special support and administrative services for them.
Secondly, so many of the foreign employees end up applying for PR status that the HR department finds it cost-efficient to set up a special service to help them do it.
Thirdly, outsourcing has become so extensive that even such a highly local process as PR applications in Singapore has been outsourced to India. In other words, the bank does not hire any secretary, clerk or admin officer in Singapore to do the necessary paperwork. It's cheaper to get someone in India to do it.
In early February, the Singapore government announced its plans to eventually support and sustain 6.5 million people on our little island. Right now we're already the 2nd most crowded country in the world.
Blogger Alex Au (aka Yawning Bread) was not too concerned about this. In his analysis, he considered three broad areas - housing, transport and leisure. Alex gave examples of how it could or would be possible to create adequate space in Singapore for 6.5 million people. For example, build taller flats; build more train lines; build more linkways between buildings; build taller shopping centres and cineplexes.
All his suggestions share one common element - build. Perhaps that's what has recently terrified Indonesia. Construction requires concrete, and concrete requires sand, and Singapore has little of its own. So we must get what we need from our neighbours.
According to the Times article below, in 1965 Singapore was 581 sq km (224 sq miles); but by 2007, it had grown to 650 sq km and also plans to acquire another 100 sq km in the next 30 years. Furthermore it is not merely that our surface area is expanding; we are also building underground (eg more and more MRT lines) and upwards (taller and taller buildings) and all these activities require natural resources.
When we see things in this light, we may begin to realise that Indonesia may have genuine environmental concerns about Singapore grabbing its sand. Sometimes we may be overly inclined to think of Singapore as the poor whipping boy of its big, nasty neighbours. We might also see the recent sand ban as Singapore's latest whipping. But if you were Indonesia, wouldn't it be legitimate for you to be a little concerned about your vanishing islands?
TIMES March 17, 2007
Singapore accused of land grab as islands disappear by boatload
Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor
With more than 17,000 islands — from the jungly expanses of Borneo and Sumatra to unnamed rocks jutting out of the sea — you may think that Indonesia would not mind if a few of them went missing. But the huge South-East Asian nation has become caught up in a furious dispute with Singapore, its tiny neighbour, which is accused of literally making off with its territory.
Indonesia has banned the export of sand and imposed strict controls on shipments of gravel, after fears that its islands were being loaded on to ships and carried away to Singapore. In its thirst for building materials and landfill to reclaim new territory from the sea, Indonesians allege, Singapore has been stealing the land beneath their feet.
The dispute reached a climax this week after 24 tugs and barges, carrying granite chips, were intercepted by the Indonesian authorities as they sailed home to Singapore. Jakarta announced that future exports would be allowed only if the granite could be certified as environmentally friendly.
Since Indonesia announced its ban on sand in February, the price of a cubic metre of it has increased more than seven times, from S$6.5 (£2.18) to S$50. The Indonesian Navy has mobilised 18 ships to intercept gravel pirates and sand bandits.
“Some of these islands are reduced to islets, and could even disappear below the surface,” Hendropriyono, Indonesia’s former intelligence chief, has said. “This could theoretically lead to a cartographic zero-sum game in which Singapore’s gain could be at Indonesia’s territorial loss.”
Relations between Singapore and its neighbours have been tense since the city state became independent from Malaysia in 1965, and disagreements often arise over natural resources. The Singaporean achievement was to create an affluent, highly educated society in a swampy, jungly, malarial island with a population of 4.5 million people at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula.
Singapore’s reliance on its neighbours gives them powerful leverage over it — in the past Malaysia, with whom relations are particularly prickly, has threatened to cut off water supplies across the Straits of Johor. But the sand sanctions are equally threatening.
After years of stagnation, Singapore is undergoing a construction boom, with an increased demand for sand for the manufacture of concrete. The island also has long-term plans to ease its overcrowding by reclaiming land from the sea.
At independence, Singapore was 581 sq km (224 sq miles); now it is 650 sq km and plans to acquire another 100 sq km in the next 30 years. It gets through 1.5 billion cubic metres (2 billion cubic yards) of dredged silica a year — 333 cubic metres for each man, woman and child. The Government has been forced to draw on its strategic sand reserve, which Singapore hoards as other nations keep stocks of oil and food.
There may be more to Indonesia’s position than a sudden rush of environmental conscientiousness. If Indonesia really does lose islands, it also risks losing the rights to the ocean surrounding them. “The Convention on the Law of the Sea dictates that national territory is traced according to the coastal base line, and if islands near Singapore disappear, then the base line is pulled closer to the mainland,” says Mr Hendropriyono. “As it now stands, Singapore is only 20 kilometres from Nipah island, which has been especially eroded by the loss of sand.”
To this blog, that is.
