They are of different races, languages and religions. Their presence is being felt around the neighbourhood, in places of worship, and at community activities. Many of these newcomers are here to stay.
Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, urging Singaporeans to reach out to new immigrants and permanent residents.
HELP keep the voice of TOC alive!
If you like this article, please consider a small donation to help theonlinecitizen.com stay alive. Please note that we can only accept donations from Singaporeans. Thank you for your assistance.Do you have a flair for writing? Volunteer with us. Email us your full name and contact details to theonlinecitizen@gmail.com
Lets hope the foreigners stay long enough to become citizens. For their sons to serve NS/reservist, to sink long term debts for public housing, to compete with newer temporary immigrants for jobs/wages not meant to support a decent family in S’pore, to know that you can’t do much about cramped environment/public transport, no country of abode to go back to, to forget abt retirement, to go to a foreign land for healthcare knowing you can’t afford one locally even after paying taxes for yrs, etc. But at least the foreigners can cut loss and flee, what abt citizens?
Ho, ho, ho welcome these new friends to singapore to take away our jobs, to inflate the prices of housing, tranportation, food etc. We must thanks them for coming to singapore so that our men (NS) then hv a job to protect them in case of war.
Take care of your own first before talking and making no sense of welcoming others unless you are using others to deliberately fix your own.
Price of flats still won’t go down in this recession, is it due to these newcomers?
Ofcoz Dr VB can utter this nonsense. He, his cronies and their million dollar salaries is largely shielded from the increasingly fierce competition that we the lesser mortals are facing now with the garhman relentless drive to import more FTs into our tiny market.
And asking us to welcome them into our community, our places of worship and our lives when they are robbing us of our rice bowls ? What a piece of condescending crap !
Let me ask you Dr Vivian. You and your regime has been advocating the import of FTs to enrich and propel our country.
What and how have they contributed ? We lost, and continuing to bleed, billions in overseas investments. We are the first country in Asia to slip into major recession. Our cost of living has risen becoz of the competition by them for housing & transportation.
You are obviously either ignorant or have scant feelings for the SINGAPOREAN commoners to understand the ground feeling and thus can talk like a airhead dimwit.
Vivian, what a humbug you are, asking citizens to reach out to foreigners !
You failed miserably when the opportunity was there for you to reach out to needy Sporeans. Tell me Vivian, was the bloody $330 you offered to the needy a good example of reaching out to fellow citizens ? We have also not forgotten your prickly comments to Lily Neo who made a passionate plea to reach out to our needy.
well..the blockhead has all the resources under his chin…why dont he let them drop by for tea soon..at his place!
rem they are the ones who open the floodgates to these foreigners, why does this feel like they’re pushing away the responsibilities of the foreigners to us citizens when they asked us to reach out to them….why didn’t the govt reach out to us before they ask us to do the same?
It should be reaching out to SINGAPOREANS! Foreigners are only here for the better salary earned. In fact, they are taking away our jobs, depressing our wages, depriving us of training opportunities. How many of you work for a foreigner turned PR who in turn report to another foreigner turned PR? They favour people from their hometown, hire them and train them. This is one reason why more graduates are jobless, because even the trainee position are given to foreigners. Sigh!
Something often overlooked – the employment of foreign workers actually causes a massive cash drain overseas when they send significant amount of their salaries.
Assume 1million working foreigners who send 60% of their average $1800 back home each month. That works out to be S$1.08billion each month.
Of course I don’t have the actual figures, but can imagine the magnitude of the blackhole….
most singaporeans think that singapore is overcrowded now (just look at the state of public transport), w** would they welcome even more pple?
btw, why doesn’t vivian invite them to the cabinet? lead by example!
Dont blame Dr V and the government. One of the (many) bonus components of their salaries is the GDP component. They have 13th month, AVC (Annual Variable Component), performance bonus and GDP bonus, which add up to a (needless to say, but I’ll still say it) sizeable sum. More foreign workers means better productivity for corporations and higher domestic consumption and guess what, higer BDP bonus ! We locals are useless and do not help to enhance the GDP bonus !
Yes, the remarks that VB retort at Dr Lily Neo during that fiasco is unforgettable, it portrays him for what he truly is, and i will take what he say with a bagful of salt. Dr Lily Neo has my respect because of what she did, but VB…negative…
Ah Lian,
the magnitude will be quite big due to multiplier effect, and not only does it affect remittance, it also affect other areas. yes, in terms of economics, the amount that FW remit back to their country will be reduce from our GDP and increase theirs. Moreover, with such a high percentage been remit, less will be spend on consumption…and the cycle will continue throughout as a multiplier effect.
and lastly, they can’t foresee the economic meltdown etc, so can they really foresee this people staying for good? even i doubt them…
Stupid HDB control supply, how can subsidised housing of 4 rm more than 300k when average per capitial is $2500.
Surely you indebt forever and in future is yet to know. Housing price is tied to economic and if truly 200,000 foreigners are retrenchment and our populations drop by 4%, so do the HDB prices.
Never put your egg into one basket and this is biggest investment of your life unless your future is certain!
and must they stay? primary fallacy unanswered. /why/ must they stay?
Anyway VB made the speech not for us to hear. His target audience is LKY. He is trying to make his boss happy by supporting his policy.
Oh yes, absolutely. Let’s just sweep every gripe under the rug and pretend we do not see that blob of spit flying out of a talented foreign talent’s mouth. Let’s pretend we are oblivious to the loud handphone conversations in the MRT. Let SG men just pretend to be flattered by the persistent come-hithers from the ladies down in Geylang. Let’s just move over, make room and eat it all up.
Very Confucian. We should be sensitive. I agree. Let’s see, what sort of alternative venting outlets do we have? The parliament? The ST Forum? Meet the People Sessions? (cmon, everyone, stifle those snickers. Be sensitive.) Maybe the Online Citizen.
Last I checked, no one asked if I liked to see more of these people here. I don’t work at the immigration authority and had no hand in their vetting. I don’t own a coffeeshop or a restaurant or a retail outlet employing these people over locals. If these “New Singaporeans” create a riot, let the people who brought them here in the first place deal with it.
Not talking about things, and accepting everything we are told has brought us to the present situation, where the ruling party has basically a free hand to do everything from meddling in your family life, circumscribe your personal ideals, to giving themselves salaries as if the members therein had never left their private sector jobs – unopposed and unopposable.
Please Dr VB, tell me, being nice and docile is good – for whom?
[ They are of different races, languages ...]
Yes, but about 90% are PRC Ah Tiongs.
[ Their presence is being felt around the neighbourhood, in places of worship, and at community activities ]
Also true. The Ah Tiongs speak very loudly, litter everywhere, park their bikes in corridors and dry their laundry in playgrounds. PRC hookers can be found almost everywhere. In some neighbourhoods, you’ll also find hookers from Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, Sri Lanka so yes, Vivan is correct. Like he said, it all depends on what kind of meal you want.
i am a singaporean.
if i one day become a pr of another country most likely i will stay as pr of that country and not convert to citizenship.
it will be even better my country allow dual citizenship.
so i can run any place.
so am i a singaporean?
Dr V to me is not sincere. everytime when he make speech, i can feel of him being fake like forcing to say against his will. in another word, pretending. i heard of him being so ‘gongho’ during his younger days and lot of us thought that maybe, just maybe he can be the future real, true, sincere and outright spokeman for singaporean to fight for our rights. BUT, he is such a disappointed leader to me.
I have two comments on this.
1. When anyone moves or migrates to another country, how often do you hear their leaders say – “Let’s welcome these foreigners”? If we go to Australia or US or Malaysia even, u ever hear of their governments saying “Guys, please welcome these Singaporeans.”
2. Dr Vivian, instead of asking us to reach out to them, how about you tell them to reach out to us, and embrace the Singapore lifestyle? Volunteer for the army or police, send your children through our education system, speak more english, contribute to CPF as we do, retire at 67 as we do, etc etc?
I remember reading an article many years ago about Asians migrating to Canada. She was responding about a HKer who was complaining that caucasians are racist, difficult to settle in etc etc. The gist of her response was “If you come to my country, then please embrace my country’s ideals and lifestyles. Stop living in your own communities, build your own schools, speak in your own language. What you’re doing is build resentment among Canadians who are born here.”
The SG Power should recognize foreigners are likely to be detrimental to housing, education, job market in time to come and even create society/community problems