Only 35 millions in revenue ? So the profit is a fraction (e.g. 15% ?) only huh… In the commercial world, ROI is measured to the tune of 7-10 times a headcount cost. In recession, this changes to about at least 4 times.

I know you are not keeping tabs of me lah :-) Just that the entire subject is too huge for discussion. I don’t claim to know everything, but I have works on KPIs in private sector though. At least experienced enough to tell from the outputs of policy makers they don’t know that much about KPIs. The other problem is the scholars think they are really that high flying. I know of one who came out to work in the private sector, and he said it’s tough cos there are budget scrutinies. Give me a break, budget scrutinies were there all along in private sectors! What we can do is whenever there are some TOC issues which concern KPIs, we can have that as part of the discussion. Like I once said in another post, the civil service hierarchy has many high paying parasites (civil service is by nature a parasitic industry dependent on true revenue gerenating industries for survivial). We can have non-revenue KPIs, (e.g. TFR), but they are not even delivering on them and it will take these people years to discover the world has moved on.

Lucky you, guess my family couldn’t afford TV back then. But we had school BOOKS…

Same sentiment about scholars. Nothing personal against them, but nobody seems to know what significant contributions they are adding to our daily lives, besides tuning the ERP rates now & then. So sad of wasted talents (19 Apr, The New Paper reported 1 in 3 scholars, including PSCs, not happy with their scholarship). One would expect a govt-pushed Microsoft-type company by now. (ST, 26 Aug reported that A*Star startups have generated {ONLY} $35 millions in revenue to date).

I’m not keeping tabs of you, it’s just that I remembered someone asked about KPIs. Anyway, nice to have your views.

Well, I grew up with a TV in front of me during youth (so you’re clearly more senior :-), haha). Ever wondered how we landed up having a system that allows scholars to serve in high appointments, and not delivering ? I am not a scholar and I have nothing against them. I also believe they have a place in the society, but to equate recruiting a scholar to having high performance in civil service is rubbish.

Wow, you remembered the KPI episode….. no, actually if you cover all the ministries (did it ever occur to you we had lots of ministerial posts already), you’ll need to have a really thick book (that’s how much accountability these people need to deliver). You say difficult to get past page one because ___________ ? :-)

Yes, failure is usually NOT a option for a high post in private sector. I too thought that a high pay was incentive to perform; but guess this line of thought is only an Aspiration in the public sect.

I laughed everytime a previous TV clip by Health Ministry implying that our eyesight problem was due to the heavy use of computers. Well, during my youth generation, we didn’t even have TV’s! And yet back then, about 60-70% of us were on specs by mid-primary. Such findngs must have been done by monkeys …. or highly meritocratic civil servants scratching their balls everyday…like… monkeys?

BTW, how is your list of ministers’ KPIs coming along? I wouldn’t write a book on that, you know. Difficult to get pass page one — blank space. (Ha, ha.)

Actually, there are 2 problems :
(a) during LKY’s era, the perception is they didn’t factor demographic changes into their planning (because they did not anticipate the issue). Failure to anticipate the issue is a failure in itself because it’s unacceptable they are paid to only manage facts.
(b) yes, I agree the bulk of the issues started during GCT’s time. Imagine a KPI dropping for years, and you couldn’t reverse the trend. You’ll be long gone if you are in the private sector.

The issues on schemes are like this : If they run the schemes, they pay a high price. If they don’t run the schemes, likelihood is the TFR is going to head further south. Now, it’s already 3rd counting from bottom of 200+ countries (and I think it’s misleading for them to represent using a chart online to indicate only selected countries).

They sure are clueless. I laughed everytime they claimed they are in touch with the people, without being able to overcome this TFR issue.
How can the top man get fired for such performance in public sector ? Not that I don’t have strong respect for old folks. The fact that no heads are rolling out of this for years, is good evidence it intends to run like an old folks’ home.

Sure there is at least 1 root cause they didn’t uncover. Also, it gives me an impression that the recruitment system in the civil service is a question mark. We continue to recruit and retain people who sidestep major issues and cannot deliver ?

“,,,,It is also possible that importing FTs/ FWs in such large numbers wasn’t considered at the early stages….”

In “early stages” back in 1960′s when the 2-is-enough was first effected, there were available literature on the changing demography of the world, in particular the longer life expectancy as a society becomes more affluent, causing a greying population. The policy was also targetted at a sustained 2-3 million population. The rot really set in during GCT era, when there were public bells ringing about the increasing FTs (not quite yet the FWs tsuinami). His infamous answer was that nobody knows the optimum ratio of foreigners to S’poreans, so just let them in! Then the TFR was about 1.7-1.5, so they already started playing the “import” option back then. The 15++ years since then have seen the TFR at 1.28 now, so WHEN did they first consider the “import” option? You think only 2-5 years ago? 10 years back?

“…..Actually, it doesn’t matter how many schemes they run, if they are ineffective, the results will not come….”

Agree. Last year $230 million spent on Baby Bonus, yet RESULTS were WORSE.
Significantly, no announcement who was looking into this issue, who will campaign it henceforth, who had failed when TFR = 1.5, etc… It’s like $230m is cheap-cheap. Throw money, if win, happy-happy; if lose, so what. After all, TH is throwing $b’s, so what.

“…..Finding examples of countries who have been successful in reversing TFR trends aren’t difficult (e.g. Holland and France in the 1990’s). So we didn’t learn the mechanics behind why others were successful, didn’t we ?…..”

Very recently, Britain also announced reversion in its declining births. Just look at the myopia eyesight issue of S’poreans. Just do a simple B vs C correlation study with ANY country and one should be able to pin-point the root cause(s). Till now, after what 40 years, still “clueless”?

“….So we tried to solve a sliding TFR problem, only to introduce an employment problem, and it’s a question mark whether this was anticpated earlier …. ”

This is called replacing one problem with another. In private sector, such hit-and-miss, aimless management will get the top man FIRED within a year. But I can’t comment about public sector since I’ve never been there…. never will.

It’s going to be a matter of opinion, not of fact between us whether there is a miscalculation. It is also possible that importing FTs/ FWs in such large numbers wasn’t considered at the early stages.
From the view of policy makers, they will also argue of the numerous schemes they launch to arrest the trend. (I recalled sometime back, ST ran a full page article on the issue). Actually, it doesn’t matter how many schemes they run, if they are ineffective, the results will not come. What we do not know is how lousy their thinking process was before they started to launch each scheme – the case of the ignorant not opening his mouth to others.
Also in the same article, there was no mention on failure on the part of policy makers, neither was there at least 1 explanation why the rate continued to slide. We cannot even present 1 explanation after so many years ?
Finding examples of countries who have been successful in reversing TFR trends aren’t difficult (e.g. Holland and France in the 1990′s). So we didn’t learn the mechanics behind why others were successful, didn’t we ?

Then come the FTs/ FWs import which may have been conceived at the beginning/ sometime later. It cannot be denied that FTs/ FWs are creating job issues (e.g. competition, scarcity, etc). The fact that the Mustafa example was raised in a previous National Day speech to reverse the argument, merely points to a weak attempt to use an outlier to make a point.
So we tried to solve a sliding TFR problem, only to introduce an employment problem, and it’s a question mark whether this was anticpated earlier …

“…You will never get the answer that there was a miscalculation through an earlier TFR policy, and a string of failures to revive it…”

There was no miscalculation since sustaining the natural birth rate was simply not in the economic equation for Singapore, or in the “long-term” KPIs. The question is: was there a “demographic” equation? Well, the TFR slided from 2.1 to 1.9 to 1.7 to 1.5 to now 1.28 over 40 YEARS and no concrete steps taken to seriously arrest the trend. Go figure why. (Hint: if an ace-card like importing FT/FWs has always been up the sleeve, I guess as a policy-maker, I will not lose much sleep).

“…the carrot and stick of upgrading cannnot be effectively used 10 years later when upgrading is almost all done….”

There will always be some flats to ugrade but there is a 40-year clause in the “resale-ability” of HDB flats. I think a big chuck of HDB flats are hitting this age now or within the next 10 years, so their resale value will be zil — thus no point upgrading something if that asset can’t be sold! This point is not visible as of now as most HDB on open market is less than 40 years. But this clause will come into play soon, and it will be interesting to see how public home prices can continue to be inflated upwards.

Indeed the PAP and LKY were responsible for implementing many of the policies that were crucial to Singapore’s success, and they therefore do deserve some credit. However you cannot deny that rising income inequality, the loss of jobs to foreigners and the existing restrictions on our freedoms are also the result of these policies. While this should by no means imply that they do not deserve credit for whatever good they have done, I believe that the public should be allowed to weigh for themselves and decide how much credit they deserve.

It is true that many people criticise Singapore and some of these criticisms are baseless. Yet you cannot deny that some of these criticisms are valid. Singapore may be in many respects a wonderful place to live in – and of course you are entitled to your opinion on this matter – however you must accept that some people are still disgruntled, and have good reason to be. People who are directly affected by restrictions on our freedoms or a rising income inequality for instance, have every right to raise the issue in criticism.

While there is no doubt that we need to give credit where credit is due, and acknowledge the relative prosperity that some of us enjoy, this should by no means restrict us from wanting a better life for ourselves – to do so would be to retard progress.

This want for a better life often expresses itself in the form of criticism, which when constructive may prove directly useful and even when not constructive has its uses in pointing out the flaws that need to be corrected.

you meant he is not gettin paid @ over $100,000/month till today?
beside his son bein the prime minister with his daughterinlaw as the temasek ceo as well?
how about the public transports? who owned the majorities shares?
taykoryat inc perhaps? who now hold powers on the PUB(utilities)?
you me?
wow! good dog you are….
here a bone for you just taken from istena cookhouse leftover by the ole gheezer himself

As I have said elsewhere, you can have LKY and PAP….but without the hardworking citizen to help build up singapore, do you think we will be at this stage at this age? Do you think a general can win a war by himself? can a contract build a building without his workers?

Before blowing the trumpet for our oh-so-glorious leader… just think about it and analyse what is been said, if not it will sound empty…granted, they did help build up singapore….but to quote your own words, somepeople are emptily giving credits…

Do you emptily judge freedom and democracy and fairness by the standard of starvation, poverty and healthcare? so the people should be willing to give up freedom of speech as they are not suffering from poverty, starvation and having good healthcare….and tolerate whatever stuff that is been forced down their throat?

“one of the world’s best education” Woa, amazing, perhaps our ranking is good, but are the people that this world’s best education system produced that good? and speaking of minimal cost, we can quote tons of examples from more democratic countries with better institution?

“As a result of the meritocracy system upheld in Singapore” Meritocracy system? maybe in some sectors yes? but are you so sure about that? or did you failed to see examples of non-meritocracy? talking about meritocracy just sounds….weird

Lastly, People who shamelessly gives credit, parroting and failing to understand that lack of poverty/healthcare/starvation does not justify lack of freedom, clearly do not know what they are talking about….

As I have said elsewhere, you can have LKY and PAP….but without the hardworking citizen to help build up singapore, do you think we will be at this stage at this age? Do you think a general can win a war by himself? or do you think he needs the *soldiers* and advanced weaponry?

Before you go about blowing the trumpet for our oh-so-glorious leader… just think about it and analyse what you have said, if not it will sound empty…granted, they did help build up singapore….but to quote your own words, you are emptily giving credits…

MRI, do you emptily judge freedom and democracy and fairness by the standard of starvation, poverty and healthcare? so the people should be willing to give up freedom of speech as they are not suffering from poverty, starvation and having good healthcare….hey, MRI, by the time when those stuff struck on you, it will be too late….

“one of the world’s best education” Woa, amazing, perhaps our ranking is good, but are the people that this world’s best education system produced that good? and speaking of minimal cost, we can quote tons of examples from more democratic countries with better institution?

“As a result of the meritocracy system upheld in Singapore” MRI, is your vision ok? Meritocracy system? maybe in some sectors yes? but are you so sure about that? or did you failed to see examples of non-meritocracy?

People who shamelessly gives credit, parroting and failing to understand that lack of poverty/healthcare/starvation does not justify lack of freedom, clearly do not know what they are talking about….

Somehow, i know this will get moderated

The fact that Singapore was able to grow and develop into a world class nation was due to her government’s wise policies and the strong leadership and vision of her leaders. The PAP and Mr. LKY should get most of the credit for where our nation is standing today.

Many people emptily criticize Singapore for her lack of human rights, democracy, and fairness. But, one thing that I would like to clarify is, what lack of human rights, democracy and fairness are we talking about here? No one in Singapore is dying of starvation or poverty. Furthermore, our nation boasts of one of the best healthcare systems in the world. Our population is living longer and healthier than ever and our youths have access to one of the world’s best education at minimal cost. As a result of the meritocracy system upheld in Singapore, everyone here has a decent chance of breaking the poverty cycle as long as he or she works hard and is determined enough.

People who shamelessly demean Singapore, clearly do not know what they are talking about.

Nice summary, well said !
This is what we have in Singapore. A dictatorship masquerading as a democratic and corrupt-free govt., in reality has fooled and will continue to fool many citizens including the international community.

this is a realive situation here
he eat in istena palace and sleep there if he wants to and golfin all day if he had to for FREE….by the end of the month he get paid over $100,000++/month
who in singapoor in his right mind would want to give up this dream?
worst of all.. he ain’t even the elected peoples’ president

lhl is dragon, dragon is very aggressive and haolian, so similar. pig and dragon very gum

Cantonese called such person, “dragon head pig nose”, means seems smart but actually stupid !! :)

I have started to email some namecard contacts asking to do the same to their own contacts asking them to post an honest comment at TOC for one of the articles.

I am one man only and to see the effect, it may take a lot of time.

I hope some of you likeminded ones could do the same?

thanks.