By Choo Zheng Xi, Editor-at-Large
In Singaporean political lore, Dr Seet Ai Mee of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) is widely held to have lost her seat to Mr Ling How Doong of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) in 1991 after being caught on camera wiping her hand after shaking hands with a fishmonger. If a picture could speak a thousand words, this was a picture of how detached the PAP was from the Singaporeans they were elected to represent.
In 2010, three Members of Parliament (MPs), two of them Ministers, have snubbed stallholders across five wet markets by allowing monopolistic business behavior to run them out of business. Supermarket chain Sheng Siong intends to increase stall rentals by 30%, citing increased property tax, maintenance fees, and bank interest rates as a reason.
The dishonor roll: Manpower Minister Gan Kim Yong, MP for Choa Chu Kang, Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, MP for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC which includes the Bukit Batok area, and Dr Teo Ho Pin, MP for Bukit Panjang.
Headlining the dishonor roll, Dr Teo wrote a terse letter to the SDP last year blandly noting that his constituents prefer a wet market, and that he had “conveyed their concerns to the HDB”.
What wet market will be left when stallholders move out after having their livelihoods crushed by the extortionate increase? What wet market will be left when Sheng Siong’s staggering 30% rental increase has already driven out some stallholders and put the future of the rest in jeopardy?
The MPs involved have already been showed up as grossly negligent by refusing to vigorously represent their constituents’ interest to the Housing Development Board (HDB).
They have also failed to mitigate the impact of that purchase, failing to negotiate with Sheng Siong to hold off on rental hikes.
A good MP would make these efforts, rallying the community to meet with the HDB, showing the bureaucrats who their policies are affecting. A good MP would have used his platform in Parliament to grill the Minister for National Development. A good MP would have complained to the Competitions Commission of Singapore about Sheng Siong’s monopolistic behavior. A good MP would take his electoral mandate seriously.
By sitting on their hands and writing tokenistic correspondence, the MPs in question have been showed up as worse than useless.
In contrast, the SDP highlighted the issue early on, hitting the ground to speak to affected stallholders who were apprehensive about the takeover. They have now been proven 100% correct.
The SDP’s Assistant Secretary-General Mr John Tan has recently asked Dr Teo two simple questions: “Are you going to do anything to help resolve the matter?” and “Do you support the raising of the rental?”
Dr Teo and the PAP ignore these questions at great political risk.
Avarice and apathy
Contrary to their protestations that property tax and maintenance fees are really to blame, Sheng Siong has made no efforts to negotiate more gradual rental increases with stallholders. Their actions stink of an abuse of their market position, and elected officials can only sit back and shrug their shoulders.
Even if Sheng Siong is being honest about identifying increased property tax and bank interest rates as the cause of rental hikes, this fits into a broader narrative of a runaway cost of living that is undermining the purchasing power and standard of living of ordinary Singaporeans.
Minister for National Development Mr Mah Bow Tan has come under fire from even the non-partisan Real Estate Developers’ Association of Singapore (Redas) for runaway property prices. Singaporeans are treated to news stories of public housing fetching record prices on the resale market at a regular clip.
The Sheng Siong debacle is the latest feather of failure in Mr Mah’s cap.
For the MPs involved, the writing is on the wall: if you can lose a seat by snubbing a fishmonger, don’t expect to get away unscathed after spitting in the face of five wet-markets full of residents.
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TOC is planning further action to be announced at a later date to address the increased rental costs at affected wet markets. If you would like to contribute to our efforts in either a reportorial, legal, or advocacy capacity, please write to us at theonlinecitizen@gmail.com with your name and contact number, thank you.
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@Greed — i think i had not been clear, and hence I was misconstrued. let me rephrase what i had said. i do not mean Sheng Siong has done nothing “wrong” in the grand, moralistic tone of the society. i meant they had not done anything legally wrong. my point is that we cannot expect private businesses to bear the moral burden of society. they do what is defined for them by the government — that is the function of the government.
for example, with the whole foreign worker issues, can we expect local companies to willingly not hire the readily available, perfectly legal and much cheaper foreign workers in Singapore? he also has shareholders and business competitors to cope with. he will do what is most efficient for him. in other words, we simply cannot expect private businesses to set the moral tone and current for a society — the conflict of interests is just too apparent and severe.
Hence my post is to highlight that the appropriate burden of blame must be placed squarely on the government because they are the ones who set the moral and legalistic framework for the country. especially in the context of singapore with essentially a non democratic legislative system!
@I AM STUPID — i am not yet a professional economist though hopefully i am getting there. you raised a very interesting issue, which can be addressed from many angles. but let me give you the most controversial view which may pique your interest.
economic competition occurs between any set of economic actors. essentially one can define every individual as an economic actor, in competition with each other. i.e. economics is not just about businesses and . its about you versus me versus everybody else in the economy and society. under market competition then, we may then consider that if certain goods and services are priced out of any one consumer’s reach, then that consumer will not be able to afford those goods and services, and hence will be priced out.
Now, if the market is really efficient and free, then new suppliers or businesses will come in and provide for these consumers who are priced out. however, this is often not true due to market imperfections. so far, these points are quite obvious.
However, what is less obvious is that in the general economic welfare scheme of things, is this necessarily a “bad” thing? if one really subscribes to a really pure social darwinistic point of view, then pricing those consumers out may be a “good” thing because they are the less efficient actors in the economy who are unable to generate enough rent to afford these goods and services while others can.
I hope you see where I am going. This is the essence of the healthcare debate going on in the US. The dems believe that healthcare is an essential right, which everyone must have regardless of ability to pay. the republicans on the other hand, believes it is not a right but a good, that should be consumed only if the consumer can afford it. this promotes competition between economic actors (citizens in this case) to strive to generate more economic rent, and hence be able to afford the good.
viewed in this context, i believe everything in singapore is essentially in this tone. it subscribes to an extreme form of social darwinism, where competition is applied to every level of singaporean society. hence welfare is minimum or non existent — if you can’t afford it, you are probably a non efficient being, its better if you die off and your genes are removed from the gene pool. in this case of sheng siong, if you can’t afford the rent, its better off you either get out of Singapore or find another means of livelihood. its a merciless world that our government has created.
now if your question is purely at the efficiency level, and by efficiency we only look at pure economic rent without inclusion of social benefits, MAYBE this sheng siong shenanigan is justified. but should this be how we run our society?
These 3 stooges have obviously been hoodwinked by SS into agreeing on the sale.
Anycase, all have deserved their effort. The 3 is now infamous for being stoopid, and the latter for being opportunistic.
where competition is applied to every level of singaporean society, excluding the political realms
To Orange and Apples (Mar 29, 2010 20:44)
“…viewed in this context, i believe everything in singapore is essentially in this tone. it subscribes to an extreme form of social darwinism, where competition is applied to every level of singaporean society.” Orange and Apples
The PAP government does not believe in Darwinism, rather it practices nepotism, favoritism, crony capitalism, cheating and does all ti can to win.
Darwinism is a natural process where the best are selected.
If you consider the “elected” president, the select committee disqualified all the candidates except one so that in the end he was not elected.
Is it any wonder that NTUC ‘fairprice’ only succeed in S’pore? It tried opening branches overseas but they were soon closed. This is clear proof that only PAP-related companies succeed in S’pore.
They want to fund their Sheng Siong variety show on Channel 8, that’s why.
Good point JW..
TOC , why worry?
Dun be so kancheong lah.
The MPs and Ministers will be there to answer our questions what. We got all the time till they retire to ask them waht.
no worry wan. They will be there for a long time to answer all our questions wan.
To JW: Good point, but note that the government if it truly believes in Darwinism, would then make sure that nothing can derail it because it wants to ensure self preservation right? ;-) hence this explains its actions.
nonetheless, i like to point out how this social Darwinism ideas extend to every aspect of our governance. for example, our sports excellence program. compare it to malaysia. actually in terms of back loaded rewards i.e. rewards one gets if and only if one wins (for example olympic medals etc.), singapore’s system is comparable to malaysia’s. but what we do really badly are in the front loaded components i.e. salary, pension scheme, assurance of career in case sports career does not take off. we extend virtually no help for athletes who may never make it to the top. as such, risk averse singaporeans are naturally unlikely to embrace sports!
Singapore’s woes (and successes) are a direct reflection of our governance principles. If we do not agree to them, then exercise our citizenship rights (whatever that’s left) appropriately.
People must realise that contrary to what the ruling party claims, they are no longer the people’s representatives. I would dare challenge any PAP MP to confidently say that he or she believes that the PAP would still be in power if it were all single seats. For a man who claims to want to protect his honour through law suit, will not do defend his honour and all his claims to be the people’s representative in a fair and representative election(single seats) just like they did in the 60′s. So cut the crap and put your honour where your mouth is. Otherwise adopt China’s policy and do away with elections.
Gan Kim Yong, Vivian B. and Teo Ho Pin, are a total disgrace. Showing their true colours of leaving the resident stallholders in the cold and make no effort to stop the Sheng Siong’s debacle.
Then again, can they do anything when ‘higher up’ has clung the deal with SS. They are just stooges to the regime. This yesmen ministers and MP lack the moral courage to be themselves. They know the injustice to the stallholders but they want to safeguard their positions and the fat salary than risk being branded. If those wards were oppositions or SDP control, Sheng Siong
will not sail through that easy. SO CITIZENS OPEN YOUR EYES AND VOTE FOR MORE OPPOSITION TO HELP YOU. PAP MPs only help their master not the citizens that voted them in.
Their true colours are exposed !!
SDP are sincere to assist but everyone knows the limitation faced by the opposition in a totally suppressed society of ours under the Pappies.
VOTE FOR CHOICE, VOTE FOR FREEDOM, VOTE FOR BETTER HELP. VOTE FOR THE OPPOSITION.
You know, the least the government couldve done was to attempt to mitigate the situation. Is it really that difficult to get some action done? I mean, to bring up the issue to the relevant agencies, to lobby for someone be held accountable… how hard can that get?
Why suddenly so many of you attacking sheng song? Is SS a PAP fan?
Any story behind?
@ Orange and Apples
You are assuming Singapore land prices and rental are determined “freely” by the “market”.
All land is the government’s – even as Temasek belongs to the government, which technically means belonging to all the people of Singapore – and the government controls and determines the land supply.
And getting rich people into the land, such as easy, even automatic, PR or citizenship for people like Carlos Slim (if he so wants to come to Singapore), Jet Lee and so on, only increases the demand, even to make it “artificial”. For it is arguable that Singapore soil should only be owned by locally born Singaporean, who have served NS, or whose parents are of second or higher generation Singaporeans.
So are Singapore land prices and rental truly derived from a “free market”?
In any case, there are no real free market in the real world – all markets are imperfect, to a greater or lesser degree. And we certainly ought not to surrender, put up our hands and say, social Darwinism, to imperfect market forces; for imperfect social Darwinism – which is a contradiction in terms in some ways – is just an excuse for manipulation and control by the dominant powers in a society.
Another clear and concrete evidence to prove that PAP MPs are useless. Could it be the result of taking high dose of obscene salaries or are they not getting enough of pay hike and thus have to give us a dose of their incompetency?
A vote for the PAP is a vote for a lesser Singapore. If you want a great nation, stop voting for a mediocre government that thought itself to be supremely intelligent. We, sons of this land should realise that it only take ONE GENERATION to brought demise to our culture and the happiness of our children. There is no longer any need to give them more second chance. They are way passed expiry dates.
To: Boboshooter
When the ERP first started, it is to regulate traffic in the city, what happens now?
And you want the population to pro-create?
If they don’t generate income for the government, how can these highly paid scholars survive?
Anyway, I see a conspiracy brewing, the highly-paid scholars will messed up and the old man will pick up the pieces (to see if he still hold fort) just like Nee Soon for HPK. remember the temple story? Instead of stepping down after the fiasco, he is promoted to a full minister, got the picture?
PAP ministers are all crap…. but why are they still so many who vote for them????
The act of squeezing money from citizens by all necessary means, such as privatising public markets, ERPs, GST increases etc , is a necessary one.
How else can you fund the wages and allowances of the Kings and numerous small Princes ruling this tiny spot of land?
zero
@Sibeh Tulan
You asked, “And you want the population to pro-create?”
I don’t think the PAP or particularly LKY is concerned about people having children or building family groups, for happiness or social stability or whatever. To him people are just numbers, cogs in his economic machine that is Singapore Inc.
In the early days, there were too many numbers. So stop at two.
Now there are too few numbers that are willing to slog and slave on the cheap. So just bring these cheap numbers.
In either case, it is all about money, or the lack of it.
And LKY wont care if the newcomers procreate or not. That is certainly not a criteria for granting PR or citizenship.
And the incumbents, the so-called citizens, who have been led to believe in prosperity and happiness and progress in the nation, and who have believe also that higher education – or more precisely having the paper to show such – and hard work lead to higher paying jobs, and who resent being slaves and are disappointed that the reality and truth are not what was believed, are slapped left, right and centre, over and over again, kicked and screwed in the ass, spurs stuck into his hides, and scolded incessantly by deaf frogs that they are merely grumblers.
http://voixdeviant.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/monopoly-the-sheng-siong-edition-2010/
does anyone know who are the top management, top stakeholders, directors in SS ?
certainly highly decorated? no?
Dear Zheng Xi
I wonder why is MP Gan KY is mentioned in this editorial when the two CCK wet markets sold to SS are not in his ward.
The markets, in Choa Chu Kang Avenue 1 and Choa Chu Kang Street 62, are actually under Hong Kah GRC.
The former is in Zaqy B Mohamad’s Keat Hong ward; the latter is in Yeo Cheow Tong’s Yew Tee ward.
Would you do any amends to the editorial? Also, why is the wet market at Block 267 in Serangoon Avenue 3 in Marine Parade GRC not mentioned with such bluster?
ALL I CAN SAY ITS TIME FOR A CHANGE JUST LIKE IN THE USA.TAKE PAP OFF AND PUT OPPOSITION IN.TATS IT!!!
This post has been somewhat of a revelation to me.
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