TOC Current Affairs Desk
When the session of the 11th parliament was prorogued on 13 April 2009, at the end of the day’s sitting, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that the government has regularly prorogued Parliament midway through the term. This allows the government, when it reopens Parliament, to set out new priorities for the rest of the term of the government.
Education
The second session of parliament was convened yesterday, with high anticipation of the President’s Address. He was to announce the priorities, policies and programmes of the government for the remainder of its current term of office. The President’s Address, “Building Our Future Singapore in an Uncertain World” though, was a huge disappointment. It spelled out no new programme/policies, neither did it set any new priority for the reconvened parliament.
In his Address, the President rightly spoke about the education improvements that have occurred over the last few years. The recent change of moving away from primary 1 and 2 examinations is encouraging. It opens a new chapter for a new vibrant learning culture in schools. Of course, this does not mean that we have moved away from our overtly strong emphasis on academics, but it signifies some progression.
The President’s promise to “especially ensure that children from vulnerable families enjoy every opportunity to reach their full potential in education” is highly commendable. But one cannot but wonder if this is another case of pure rhetoric of “more help for the needy”, where “more help”, actually does not mean very much.
A good case to highlight this is the new nationwide scheme spearheaded by the various race-based self-help groups, where a fund was set up to provide subsidised tuition at up to 90 per cent of the typical $50 to $90 fees, for about 1,000 children from needy families. The combined fund for this programme was to be co-funded with the five community development councils, and it has a budget of $500,000 per annum. But statistics from the Ministry of Education’s financial assistance scheme and school breakfast programme; and statistics from Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund and COMCARE financial assistance scheme, suggest that there are more than 1000 students who have to be helped through such tuition programmes.
What one also needs to question is what concrete measure have been undertaken to strengthen higher education, given the dip in university rankings recently? Besides, the offering of more degrees does not stipulate a better education in any sense. In addition, the implementation of university town has not convinced many undergraduates of the improvements in the quality of our education.
Jobs
The President in his Address also lauded the SPUR scheme, Jobs Credit scheme, and the Special Risk-Sharing Initiative as “decisive measures”. However, being decisive should not be confused with being effective. Has the outlay for the Job Credit scheme, that required the unprecedented withdrawal from the reserves, staved off retrenchments in the numbers that it was projected to do? What is the long-term viability of the SPUR scheme? Back-end and lower value-added jobs continue to be siphoned off by the low-cost and labour-intensive giants of India and China – so how much is the retraining effective in allowing the worker to be retained?
Social harmony
Noting that the influx of foreigners has been a prickly source of social discontent, the President urged citizens to “appreciate” their presence while asking the “newcomers … to adjust and integrate”. While the tensions of immigration are not peculiar to Singapore, the government has to address the disparity between male Singaporeans and the foreign counterparts – particularly in lieu of the latter’s National Service liabilities. While conceding that national defence is vital, disruptions attributed to military training can adversely affect the employment prospect of male Singaporeans. The government would do well then to ensure that the influx of cheaper and NS-free foreigners, who will similarly bask in the economic success of our nation, is not at the expense of male Singaporeans who have toiled for the defence of the nation.
Another familiar refrain of social harmony is heard when the President advised that Singapore go beyond being only “a collection of different communities”; which is a laudable goal, and one which the government itself can do much to advance. The “common Singaporean identity” will remain distant as long as the quasi-racial divide and rule policies is maintained – from the CMIO (Chinese, Malaya, Indian, Others) racial classification to the perpetuation of ethnic-based self-help groups and the unilateral appointments of minority MPs to become de facto ethnic community leaders.
Pertinent questions and issues not addressed
When the President spoke about “evolving our political system”, he seemed to favour a ‘one dominant party’ government for Singapore when he said, “Our political system encourages strong and effective government…in a more challenging and uncertain world, a sound political system and good leadership are all the more important”. Even his call for self-renewal of political leadership seems especially aimed at the ruling party.
The President passed up the chance to ask some pertinent questions of the government over some very visible failings. For example, there is no mention of the losses by Temasek and the GIC, even though these amount to sums that are larger than our annual budget – the loss over the Bank of America alone is bigger than the Jobs Credit Scheme. Should this necessitate that we adopt a more conservative manner of investing? How about the manner in which the escape of Mas Selamat Kastari was handled? It now appears that he slipped quite easily through our dragnet.
Who wrote the Address?
Perhaps, the President’s Address was true to the Westminster tradition; where the Queen’s Speech is not prepared by the monarch herself, but by the cabinet. This is reasonable, since the opening speech usually addresses the legislative agenda that the incumbent government wants to pursue. But as Singapore has shed much of the Westminster tradition, it begs the asking, “Who prepared the President’s Address? Was it the President himself or the cabinet?” Whoever prepared the Address, there was an apparent and disappointing lack of effort to go beyond superficial and motherhood statements and question key assumptions.
Although the President spoke about various issues in his Address, his call for committing “ourselves to build on what we have achieved”, provides no new initiatives and in reality only regurgitates the ruling party’s programmes and policies over the decades; which leads one to ask, “What was the real reason for parliament to be prorogued because the President’s Address only emphasized and re-empasised the existing position and priorities of the current government?”
It may be too early to jump the gun, however. Parliament reconvenes next week to debate the President’s Address. That deliberation is the one that should be judged. The newly reconstituted Government Parliamentary Committees, with many MPs from the class of 2006, may finally leave their mark.
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changed the soup, but not the herbs
The president’s address has no impact and does not carry any weight at all. He is there for pap formality sake, for him to come out and repeat the ruling party sentences, to grandstand and thereafter do nothing or can’t do anything. He will continue to abide by pap instructions as long as they govern. So the speeches is nothing more than words carefully crafted for him. Sorry for being frank but it is good to know what is going on and be dissappointed than expect miracle from puppets.
A millionaire liability to our country and people.
aiyoyo
does he address economic issues? solutions?
investment losses? recovery plans?
preventive actions?
aiyoyo
My guess is, its going to be the same for the National Day speech. Our lives are not going to get better and workers are not going to be better off, by then I would dare say , worst off. Like the rest of you, what’s new ?!!! Words are just words if nothing effects the ground and what the general people are going through at this difficult time. They just have no solutions except to enjoy their multi million salaries.
Q: solution?
A: fend for yourself…
incidently “fend for yourself” is Gerber’s (outdoor products company’s) tagline. lol…
time to take a hike?
All speeches are written by their kar kia. Next step to this evolutionary process will be to have it prerecorded and our main man pretending to be speaking, I think there is a term for that, just can’t recall what’s that word?
As the President is appointed by the govt it is not surprising that what he sadi will be in line with the govt policies.
He has spoken but perhaps did not delve into details which is reasonable given that the President is a ceremonial figure head without much authority.
Nevertheless , i found that he talked much about the challenges facing the country. Hopefully, during Parliamentary debate next week, we will hear more of the issues that the country face.
More importantly, i agreed with him that we need to be creative in solving problems and that the country’s political system is not carved in stone.
I will be surprised though if we will see much changes during this particular PArliamentary sitting. Leopards do not change their spots easily.
Total control is still the theme for the day.
It must be a genuinely painful speech, not that he shares the same sentiment on the ground, but having to waste his time reading rhetorics which the ruling party is equally capable of. Anyway, if he ddin’t follow instruction, he hasn’t much job to do except to collect millions salaries. The world leaders are all moving into actions with concrete plans to help their citizens, ours are entertainers and making good speeches. Simply just that.
Took a bus and passed by Parliament House yesterday
They have many heavy concrete blocks (black & yellow striped) surrounding the building. It was like Iraqis type of roadblocks. I do not know what they are afraid of. Their own people or some foreign terrorists?
When you become richer and powerful, your lives are more dearer. You start to fear everything around you, including your own people. You placed yourself between the body guards. You have fears of losing power, you protect yourself at all cost.
DUH
Just a thought (so Mr President don’t sue me :P ):
“Looking at how you have praised the Government for their sterling leadership in managing the economic crisis (and I am thinking about how brilliant Temasek Holdings did), did you let MM clear this speech?”
WOW, ‘NEW STRATEGIES’ !!!!
The clown at advanced age and he will never die.
Thus is clown Blackout in action.
Cannot see him in the dark.
Switch on the light.
This clown makes millions.
Charlie Chaplin, the genius clown had to crack his head to get people to laugh for 60 years.
SIng Song and Talkcock!!
“We must keep up the effort to up-skill and re-skill our workers to become more employable and productive in a changing economy. NTUC is at the forefront of these efforts, working shoulder to shoulder with the Government and employers.”
>>Read betwwen the line… More Cheers, Fairprice, Foodcourts, coffin shops to open and compete with the already dieing shops. So much about encouraging Entrepreneurship.
“The escape and recent recapture of Mas Selamat reminds us of the threat of extremist terrorism, not only to our security, but also to our racial and religious harmony…
>> the escape of MS become our problem now. Who is to blame,…. WE the people of Singapore. Not WKS…
How can we build new capabilities and anchor value in Singapore for the long term? How can we deploy our finite resources to maximum effect? And how can we create good, high-value jobs for Singaporeans?
“These questions need fresh rethinking and creative answers. If all of us in the public and private sectors put our minds together, I am confident we will develop new ideas to help Singapore transform, advance and prosper in its next phase of growth.”
>> Our present gahmen already have the answer… they are holding the highest-value jobs in the world… “creative answer”…. Join PAP, iron rice bowl garanteened!!
“Our leadership team, too, must self-renew. We must continue to induct new leaders in touch with the new generation, who understand how Singapore works and who bring with them fresh thinking and energy to set and achieve new goals. For our political system to continue working well, we must find outstanding, younger men and women to lead Singapore.”
>> “Self-renew”?? if i’m not wrong it means PAP will still stay but add somemore posts…. haha
This fat ass is a PAP DOG!!
Why can’t he just say…”It’s about time to CHANGE”….
slubmillionair!!
Wonder why is our President being kept busy these days? (when he supposed to be ceremonial according to our government)
Wonder why Ho Ching stepped down suddenly (while she is still considered a talent hard to come by)?
Wonder why our ST Index outperformed our regional countries? (when Singapore is recording the worst GDP since independence, and possibly will the last to recover to positive growth amongst Asian countries)
Wonder why after listening to our President’s latest speech, listeners failed to get motivated or at least an ‘OHM’ in the hearts?
Had there been a contest during the last presidential election in 2005, I don’t think he will be the one addressing Parliament all this while.
aiyoyo
today yahoo news :
“Singapore’s GIC still bets on UBS, Citi”
sad story…
aiyoyo
even ahmeng can be presidenta
including tan kim lian
so nothin is new
It is time for Tan Kin Lian to get ready, we have had enough of pap president. We need a sincere people president. Singaporean can identify between a genuinea and fake president. Time for change to get a real one.
I think I also wanna be President. It is the best retirement job in the world. Highly paid, well served, cut ribbons and give grand motherhood speeches. Wonder how i can get there.
Its a 4M dollar job. Anyway, since he wasnt elected, few people think well of him. Whatever he say or do, does anyone care? He is probably given a script by those writers from PMO and regurgitate. What they want him to do is to say yes to the top and echo the same thoughts and sentiments.
I am not a fan of scripts and I notice almost all our ministers are reading them in their speeches. To me, they dont look real and sometime the “idioms” and annecdotes are specially crafted to look special. PMO script writers must be paid a lot to do this and be sworn in secrecy not to tell anyone they are doing this sort of work in Singapore. I think our politicians should learn from Obama and speak like one, not ask some scholars to write on your behalf.
S’pore president is NOT American PRESIDENT.
S.R Nathan is NO OBAMA.
S’pore president is even NOT an elected president. He entered through back door. He can’t even show “his winning election results to the rest of the world”.
He is a puppet at current age 85.
When S R Nathan & his wife went to Japan recently, many were shocked to see how bloody FAT (like a PIG) is the s’pore president & his wife compare to the Japan Emperor Akihito (Age: 75) and Empress Michiko (Age: 74) in the photos.
You go & take a look.
It is a laughing stock.
What sort of image is the s’pore president projecting to the world?
He is sort of like the “fat emperor without his clothes on, walking on the streets yet without SHAME”.
How to know if SPURs or JCS save any job?
How to know what has not happened?
While I am used to believing and find it convenient to just believe,
I have learned to like to know based on black and white after the mini bon bon saga.
Trust may make life easier as one need not check.
But black and white is more convincing.
Singapore and Singaporeans never need any of the many figure heads that collect multi-million SIN Dollars annually as rewards.
Singapore is after all only about 760 square kilometres populated by about 3.5 million COMPLIANT Citizens. As the records shows, there are just a handful with the guts to reason with the Rulers.
BUT, the worst that ever happens to SIN is that it has a President that is employed by the PAP Rulers all his life. How is he able to be independence of the Government ?
patriot
Hi Gilbert,
“As the President is appointed by the govt it is not surprising that what he sadi will be in line with the govt policies.”
I am sort of confused.
I read somewhere this guy is the Elected president.
Is this understanding wrong? Is it a fallacy?
I would like to assume at this juncture, he IS the officially Elected President.
But feel free to correct me, someone , anyone ,if i am wrong.
So, which is it :
1. He is Elected President.
2. He is gubbermern appointed president.
3. He is Both.
4. Only answer 1.
5. Only answer 2.
oh, i know for sure, OTC was the people’s president. That one I certain.
regards
Naivea Oblivea
1 Million-Dollar Question:
Is Singapore’s so-called “Elected President” really ELECTED by the People or actually NOMINATED by the PAP ???
2 TALK IS CHEAP.
Politicians and other Public Officials must WALK THE TALK in order to EARN the respect/trust/confidence of The People.
can’t he see that there is something very wrong with singapore as a nation already??
MP being torched, threatened, locals loathing FT and yet siding with the FT TT coach?
my brain just cannot reconcile the fact that we lost $4 billions like chump change while people are dying of hunger, cut off electricity/water, chased out of hdb.
Mr. Keymaster has spoken. In between attending ministars’ children’s wedding, jet-setting to foreign lands, shake-hand sessions with socialites, what has he exactly done to deserve the $3M salary ?
He is just vomitting what everybody already knew. No power, no weight and no substance, just a puppet to the famiLEE and doesn’t deserve a single dose of respect from me !
i think for some to see there is something wrong, it must reach & affect them directly?
dun say economic recovery important when company survival more important, people loose job with little compensation still can give money (through JCS) blindly to companies, even if they may not need it.
25) Naivea Oblive on May 19th, 2009 10.43 pm How to know if SPURs or JCS save any job?
How to know what has not happened?
this is another of pap’s trademark.
when low tk and the nmp question spur,jcs effectiveness, all the pap mps jump up and bark ‘wheres the data that jcs will not work huh?’
now when u ask pap how well jcs work, they will just say ‘trust me, it works.’
pap only talk about data when it suits them.
Dear everyone,
Please use short nicks or handles when you post. Anyone with long nicknames or handles will have his comment disallowed.
*Note to the one with a 25-word nickname: Your comment is not allowed.
Frankly speaking, I am totally unimpressed by his speech – talked a lot but actually says nothing.
In the first place, he does not have the capability and experience to analyse and decide what strategies to set forth.
Secondly, he does not have the power to see through the implementations by the various ministers/ministries based upon the “directions” he set.
His speech has obviously been prepared for him by someone else – probably someone from the PMO, or the PM himself or even the MM. Definitely not from his own presidential staff. That means it was not his own work, words, feeling or conviction. His job was only to read out what have been written – full stop.
To me, it was simply a wayang kulit – the Indonesian puppet shadow show!
Its a facile, puerile, cliche’ ridden speech, more suitable for delivery to a group of school children than to the nation’s law makers.
The President’s speech-writer (or speech-writers, for it was probably put together by a committee) did a poor job of conceptualising and articulating the challenges facing the country at this time. If this is the standard of speech-writing that is acceptable at head-of-state level, it is sad.
The real, weighty issues that should be exercising the minds of our leaders are absent from this speech, both in nuance and form. Whether this is deliberate or not, we shall never know.
It comes across poorly when compared with recent ‘state of the nation’ addresses by other heads of state.
Mr. Prez, please tell us who should be responsible for the billion dollar losses in the BOA sell-out? Where is the accountability?
hi TOC,
what you really mean 25-character, not 25 words right?? o.O
You would gain more respect from Singaporeans if you had taken part in an election and won.
The true situation is that the PAP government stopped and disqualified those who aspire to the office of President of Singapore. You were the only candidate “qualified” by the commision.
For this, and many other reasons, the PAP establishment represents only the interests of the rich, their friends, relatives and well connected foreigners.
In a free and fair one-on-one election, at least 45% of the PAP MP’s would be voted out.
Over $3 million a year just to read a speech written by someone else ?
A speech which contains nothing new. What is happening in Singapore.
What type of government is this. So out of touch and uninspiring.
# 7) polo on May 19th 2009 5.20pm
<>
Lip-sync.
ALL OF YOU HAVE FAILED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE PURPOSE OF THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS
The Pres’s address is supposed to be like the Queen’s address at the opening of parliament. The speech is written by the government. It is a statement of the government’s policy direction for the next parliamentary term. It is not a platform for the president to inspire people a la Obama or to state his personal views. It’s not even meant to be a state of the union address, because he’s not an executive president. It is not for him to comment on government policy, because he’s a figurehead. If it reads like some civil servant wrote it, that’s because that’s how its supposed to be!
During OTC first years in office, he already challenged the govt on several issues, one was even brought to court for the judges to rule.
But in 10 years in office, the current one has never raised a single one with Govt. I can think of many issues that he should have raised and checked this govt, but he didn’t
It’s understandable, given that he’s been a civil servant all his life. And there is another thread by TOC on the partiality of the Civil Service recently
#small timebusinessman,
Not only change the soup, but more likely, refrying the cold rice….
Just might give you indigestion or diaarhoea…
Overpaid pompous idiot!
Yup. A S$1 Million figurehead. Much more expensive than other figureheads, but anymore different?
SOS – SAME OF SHIT REGURGITATING
Better to look at my own water cistern
No improvement
the down and out are still scavenging to survive
Hi nickname #39,
A formality then?
We all know that he is a figurehead and not an executive president. Then Post #16 (We are the BOSS) ‘s point would do nicely. It would save everyone some time and the Cabinet can go back to clearing their emails sooner.
Any why can’t Mr President comment on Government policy? Surely his role is not confined to greeting citizens at the Istana once in a while. In my opinion, it was an opportunity for him to show us that the President is non-partisan in balancing some of his views on the Government’s current management of Singapore and how differently certain things can be done looking ahead. That would have been constructive.
#40 Artemov,
Actually, its close to 3.5 mil. And thats excluding the pensions he is also
getting.
We should be asking, is he worth paying all this money?
If the allegiance of the civil service is pledged to the President, surely the President has a say on the administration of government policy and not government policy itself. Just a thought…
Even our late Ong Teng Cheok couldn’t get much out of the Ministeries… see link below and he’s at least elected by people (a rather old tread).
http://antineodem.wordpress.com/2006/06/18/an-old-interview-with-ong-teng-cheong/
Sorry to say that, I don’t think our current president can be compared to our late Ong Teng Cheok in anyway unless he’s willing to go through the baptism of fire and with an iron will to serve the people. I don’t think anyone in the current regime can outperform our late Ong anyway… most netizen don’t think highly of anyone nominated from the current regime… and the president electorate criteria (reference to our late Ong Teng Cheong) is far too “stringent” to give people any choice….. I guess this will become another “joke” in singapore history….. self-proclaimed nominated “people-elected” president?
Did I get it correctly? I don’t even know. Nominated or People-elected? I must sound very confused….
The speech has been written by a civil servant, that’s obvious. An ex-ISD officer cannot write a speech like that.
Inputs obviously came from all the government ministries – health, education etc. The PM no doubt, vetted the final speech..
Its the quality of the speech we are talking about. From someone drawing a salary of $3.5 million a year and, assuming there were inputs from our highly paid ministers, we have a right to expect better quality.
It is not as though we are sitting in a class listening to a school teacher. Where are the real issues that are bothering Singaporeans? Have these been accurately identified, if so have they been treated sensitively, with feeling and empathy for the people?
Instead, the speech is full of cliche’s and platitudes. If its a statement of the government’s intentions and priorities, they don’t seem to reflect what’s on the people’s minds. At least not in terms of the weightage given to the different issues.
TOC writers can do better than this.
(PS LKY would never have delivered a speech like this)