Wednesday, October 15, 2008 10:45
How to make better use of Government “goodies”
In Guest Writers, Main Stories • 1,035 views • 18 Comments
John Ang / Guest Writer
In recent, (as well as rather distant) memory, we have seen a relentless increase in prices of almost everything you would pay money for. Among them are rising food prices, rise in ERP, in medical care/insurance, and more recently, rising utility tariffs and public transport costs.
Through almost all these price increases, the trend has been that the average Singaporean has had no choice but to grit his teeth and bear the increases in cost, simply for the lack of an alternative; so much so that we have come to expect it to be the norm. (These days, I am so jaded that yet another price increase doesn’t incite indignation, but resignation.)
Goodies and Rebates
The Government has tried to help with these increases through the “goodies and rebates” given out in 2007 and 2008. The Workfare Incentive Scheme, Growth dividends, GST credits, U-Save and S&CC rebates all contribute to help buffer the increase in prices over and beyond their intended scope (for needy Singaporeans, at least).
Yet, I feel that the middle-class Singaporean isn’t really looking at the 3 billion dollars being thrown his way in terms of tiding him over (see record turnout and sales at NATAS and the various IT shows). In fact, like me, they might have clean forgotten that the payout was coming in October.
Free money (though not much) is always welcome (and how free it is can be debatable), but the way it is now, I feel that these monies can be put to much better use by the individual (with some government help).
Here’s how
When I read about the increase in subscription fees for Singtel’s land lines, I just shrugged in resignation and moved on to the next page. Imagine the breath of fresh air I felt when the next day, I opened the newspaper to see Telco wars: StarHub dangles $100 carrot. After such a long time of having “no choice”, here on offer was a cheaper alternative, based on an alternative infrastructure (VoIP instead of land lines).
It made me realise that the reason we have no choice is because we have been neglecting potential alternative infrastructures.
Thus, instead of just giving citizens money to buffer the increase in electricity tariffs, why not put that money in an account (accessible with singpass), that in addition to offsetting bills, can also be used to purchase environmentally friendly, energy saving electrical appliances, but more importantly, used to build up alternative infrastructure, such as self-power generation through the use of solar, wind, or biomass means, or to even have the house supply the grid.
Or, how about using these monies to provide a fast, convenient system. For example, in my article on cycling as a form of public transportation, people can actually fast track these credits to buy bicycles, or even use them to buy bike rentals or maintenance. (All these through vendors at bulk rates).
The incentives in pursuing these alternative paths include convenience to the individual, reducing his expenditure and more generally, alleviate the pressure on our existing infrastructure as well.
In short, like Starhub, we would be generating competition for the power companies, for the transport companies, for all the companies that you could think up an alternative to. If there is one thing true about competition, it’s that it brings prices down. We all could do with some of that.
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18 Comments
Watcher
First thing first, do we really have
COMPETITION?
I think its really up to the consumer to choose how to use their extra cash.. if they choose not to use it wisely, its really their choice. Some people could have already minimized their bills and would use the cash to offset their monthly utility bills.
Extra cash is more marketable mah. Lets the people see in a very direct way that the Government cares. Of course the people may appreciate it better if more was given to infrastructure to improve our lives overall but still?
Competition! That’s terrible – we can’t have that – this is Singapore!
beebee
Competition is a joke when the govt has a stake in almost every profitable ventures, directly or indirectly.
There should be political competition. Then the authority will not sukah sukah increase the electricity tarriffs when oil prices are dropping like siow!
Creative Juices
Goodies – pittances in comparison so far.
Thanks netizens – keep the suggestions coming – we may finally get some good people ideas in this economic crisis to really help the suffering public coping with all the price increases and now with uncertainty perhaps falling into joblessness for thousands soon.
All the Government’s men and women are well taken cared of with their high salaries and their iron ricebowls – it is time that they return some real help to its citizens.
gemami
i think what the govt can do is to let us help ourselves and this is how they can do this . . . return us a percentage, say, 10% or 20% of our cpf. this way, we do not need them to help us. we will be using our own hard earned money to help ourselves.
the biggest problem is not because solutions are hard to find but rather the people up there can no longer here us who are way below here.
blade
to john:
good idea on how to make sure the rebate is better spent. correct me if i’m wrong, but i think the U-save rebate is given directly by deducting the amount from our monthly utility bill.
and since we’re on the point of apple for apple, let me talk about my views on some of the govt policies like ERP and recent fine by PTA on our transport services.
ERP is implemented to reduce congestion on the road. With the objective in mind, ERP revenue collected should be put into building of more roads and highway to reduce this congestion instead of just adding on to our budget surplus.
PTA has fined SBSTransit and SMRT $9000+ ($9400?) and $1000 respectively for non compliance of standard. Though inadequate in detering the transport companies in complying with the standard, eg better services and punctuality of buses, this fines should be return to the commuters in term of rebates as the commuters are the end users affected by this bad service and long waiting time for buses and trains.
James
Good suggestions. At least, we shared the similar ideas. If Singaporeans generally walked more instead of taking buses, seeing a drop in the profit margin and frequencies of rides, im sure the private monopolies could provide incentives for us to use them again. Today, how many people actually walk from one bus stop to another?
My fellow Singaporeans, its time we wake up and do something else each time some costs are increase some where, we could only resign to fact. Please remember that somebody will always tell us that we shouldn’t ask for wage increase because that will affect our competitiveness and cause a strain to the economy. Yet, the next day, we have somebody to tell us that Singapore needs foreign talent to increase our skill levels and we need their expertise.
Most of the younger Singaporeans are probably Diploma or Graduates, yet we are constantly classified as the not as good skill levels, expertise and competitiveness against foreign talent. While our universities kept proclaiming how prestigious they are and links to the overseas universities, ain’t that contradicting with the somebody up there?
So, end of the day, somebody needs to wake up and lets start with ourselves..
Phu
To Blade:
Agreed! We need to start thinking of how best we can get out monies to work for us.
I thank for rebates! NO MORE INCREASE IN NEXT 10 YEARS OK!!! We should be relentlessly remind government of this! lol Where’s the government contract ar?
P.S. Do not put everything into the same basket!
Keep promoting your wares! Your only way OUT!
gemami
kelly, sometimes got no choice when all the eggs go into the same basket; example: CPF.
I think we have to seriously consider doing something about the monies in our cpf.
One way, as I mentioned earlier, is for the govt to return us a percentage of it from time to time.
Example: at intervals of every 5 years, a withdrawal of 10% of the total amount in our cpf account is made available to us. We then have the option whether to withdraw or not. Imagine, we can go on that dream holiday, do a small business, throw a party etc.
At the moment, we can only dream of doing all these only when we are way past our twilight years and with no more energy left to pursue such interests. What good is the cpf money then but only to purchase our coffins.
Yes, Gemami you are right but I was referring to your own savings which you have 100% control over. And you have an excellent proposal also Gemami! Why no big shot in CPF suggested it, has convinced me that government don’t care as much as we’d expect them to.
blade
gemami (#14)
good point that you’ve brought up.
some questions:
1) does anyone know where does our cpf money go? is gic of other govt authority managing our cpf? if so, since the return from gic is an average of 8.2%/annum (http://www.gic.com.sg/faq.htm#05), why are we getting only 2.5% interest in our ordinary account and 4% for our special account?
2) how about temasek holding? where does its fund come from?
if these infos are not released by the govt, i think they should do so, to increase transparency of our people’s money. even the govt bodies should account for its profit and loss, since they are managing our citizen’s money.
For Blade at #16:
1) does anyone know where does our cpf money go? is gic of other govt authority managing our cpf? if so, since the return from gic is an average of 8.2%/annum (http://www.gic.com.sg/faq.htm#05), why are we getting only 2.5% interest in our ordinary account and 4% for our special account?
kelly: You guess is as good as mine!
2) how about temasek holding? where does its fund come from?
Kelly: Private investors. Many from educational alumni and a handful of foreigners. Including foreign governments. Look at its shareholders too.
blade
kelly (#17)
a search on google show these:
http://www.temasekholdings.com.sg/about_us.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temasek_Holdings
from the official website, not much is said on its major shareholder.
from wiki, ministry of finance is stated as its major shareholder (need other sources to prove its credibility since any tom dick harry can write in wiki). but if it’s true, does it mean that our budget surplus can be made available to temasek holding for investment? or it it our cpf that they’re using for investment?
Well written piece. Pls keep up the flow of creative
suggestions and encourage us. Best wishes!