Khaw Boon Wan: So what if you have a degree?

Posted on May 5, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘University degree ‘not vital for success’:Khaw Boon Wan’, 5 May 2013, article by Toh Yong Chuan, Sunday Times

Singaporeans do not need to be university graduates to be successful, said National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan yesterday.

What is more important is that they get good jobs after leaving school, Mr Khaw told some 160 students and young adults in an Our Singapore Conversation dialogue.

“If they cannot find jobs, what is the point? You own a degree, but so what? That you can’t eat it. If that cannot give you a good life, a good job, it is meaningless,” he added.

Mr Khaw was responding to a participant who said the Government should set aside more university places for Institute of Technical Education (ITE) and polytechnic graduates.

Said Mr Khaw: “Can you have a whole country where 100 per cent are graduates? I am not so sure.

“What you do not want is to create huge graduate unemployment.”

I’m not sure what our Minister meant by ‘you can’t EAT it’. Did he mean you can’t physically eat a degree? Or is ‘eat it’ his way of saying ‘can’t endure suffering’ in the ‘bite the bullet’ sense? In any case, Khaw himself graduated from Australia under the Colombo Plan Scholarship as a Bachelor of Engineering with Honours Class I. In 2002, he was awarded a Doctor of Engineering honoris causa, which makes him DR KHAW according to the University of Newcastle website, though his Cabinet Profile retains the ‘Mr’.

The Minister’s daughter, Khaw Chun Ting, has apparently caught the engineering bug from her father, herself an Engine graduate from the Class of 2010.  Daddy looks as proud as any father would in his position in the picture below, and it’s not clear if he had the notion in his head then that a university degree is ‘no big deal, really’. I’m sure if Chun Ting wanted to skip uni altogether and join an NGO to save endangered turtles from extinction, Daddy would understand perfectly. (Chun Ting has a Facebook profile that you’re free to Google, where you can tell she likes performing on stage, has worked for ST Electronics and ‘Likes’ the PAP Facebook page. Obviously.)

It’s a given that extraordinary success stories have come out of individuals without stellar academic qualifications, but it’s tempting to ask a graduate Minister with a graduate daughter if he would have been OK with any of his daughters opting for a polytechnic education instead, or as his boss would call it, the JEWEL of Singapore’s educational system. It’s like asking Minister of Defence if he would send his sons to war, or the Minister of Education if he sends his kids for holiday tuition.

There seems to be a recent surge of calls for Singaporeans to be less obsessed with the paper chase and settle for jobs like hawkers or crane operators, by leaders who are the very products of the said paper chase no less. In contrast, we were all told in the mid sixties that a University education ‘will pay rich dividends’, the only place of learning which can produce not only ‘specialists, but also well rounded, cultivated men and women of learning…with analytical powers and WISDOM..who can be FUTURE LEADERS’. An article in 1966 ends with the following smarty-pants prediction:

Despite fears about their monetary value, a degree in time may well be regarded as the ONLY academic qualification for most jobs.

Then there’s the other problem about marriage and birth rates. Singaporean women, particularly graduates, have been found to prefer men with ‘higher qualifications’. The lack of a degree but a decent job may earn you ‘a good life’, but getting a ‘good wife’, or ANY wife, is another matter altogether if you’re not of a certain ‘calibre’. It’s an ugly truth that we all have to deal with every single day. I’d love to see the look on the Minister’s face when he finds out that his future son-in-law turns out to be a highly paid crane operator. Still, if you happen to be interested to know any of Khaw’s lovely daughters but do not hold a degree, I recommend that you save the article above and print for safekeeping, so that when the time comes to meet the parents and Khaw interrogates your educational qualifications or lack thereof, you’d know EXACTLY how to defend yourself.

I guess this guy’s face from the Sunday Times photoshoot of the Conversation event says it all. THIS FACE. My sentiments exactly.

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Filed under: 2013, Kids, Politicians | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Singaporean crane operators needed for BTO flats

Posted on May 2, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘More local crane operators needed: Khaw Boon Wan’, 2 May 2013, article by Charissa Yong, ST

More local crane operators are needed to boost productivity in the construction sector and reduce reliance on foreign workers, said National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan today. “Half of the (current 3,600) operators are Singaporeans. But we need more, a few hundreds more, as we ramp up our Build-To-Order programme,” he wrote on his blog. One crane is needed for each block under construction.

Mr Khaw said crane operators are crucial for prefabrication construction, a productivity-boosting strategy where building components are made in factories and transported to construction sites. They are then hoisted by cranes for assembly.

“This is a good job with attractive remunerations,” said Mr Khaw, noting that the relatively new crane operators can take home $4,000 a month including overtime pay and allowances, with more senior operators getting $6,000 to $7,000 a month.

Crane operators have been known to get up to $8000 a month as far back as 2007, when the nation was afflicted by construction frenzy. It’s easy to be seduced by such numbers to perform what appears to be a high stakes version of the claw-crane arcade game for a living, except that you’re hoisting steel and concrete instead of a plush Angry Bird toy. In the past you didn’t even need a licence or certification to do the job, and these soaring metal titans have become so commonplace a foreign businessman decided to dub them Singapore’s National Bird in the early 80′s, a pun that locals continue to use to death till this day. I believe Singaporeans are better at relaying this joke than remembering what our National Flower, or even what the National Anthem, are called.

And what a nasty Bird of Prey our ubiquitous crane turned out to be. Khaw thinks driving heavy machinery is a ‘good job’ but fails to mention that crane driving comes with its share of hazards aside from long hours alone in a cabin and that you’ll need at least 10 minutes to climb up and down just to take a piss. If you’re not careful, you may crush your fellow workers or innocent bystanders to death by dropping a load, or your entire vehicle may just topple over, maybe destroying someone’s house in the process. In 2008 alone, FIVE such incidents of cranes collapsing occurred, including one fatal accident in NUS. Plummeting to certain death aside, you may even fall head first and fracture your spinal cord after falling less than 2m from a cabin platform.

You’d need good hand to eye coordination, steady hands and plenty of confidence to pull off something deceptively simple 70 over storeys in the air. We don’t want to end up with unemployed men rushing to fill up forms and take up BCA courses upon the urgings of the Minister, only to realise they had acrophobia, claustrophia and sweaty palms all along. I’m also not sure if this is really a veiled attempt to hold HDB flat hopefuls at ransom or a bid to shirk responsibility: No crane operators, so too bad, NO FLAT FOR YOU.

The $6-7K monthly salary is not just there to prevent workers from staging crane protests. It’s a high-risk, lonely, low-prospects job that few young Singaporeans would pick up, and many would consider becoming a cabbie or even a hawker first before even considering construction work. If you tell your date that you’re a crane operator, she’ll be wondering if you wore yellow rubber boots to dinner. Our educational system, of course, is designed to push every kid AWAY from jobs that involve hoisting things on top of executive condos using joysticks. Damn you PSLE and O Levels! If I didn’t pass with flying colours I would have been heeding the ‘Khaw’ for more crane operators and help build someone’s dream BTO by now. Or at least help Spiderman catch some baddies.

Filed under: 1980s, 2000s, 2013, Money, Politicians | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Something is wrong somewhere with EC scheme

Posted on April 27, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Khaw:Something not right with EC scheme’, 27 April 2013, article by Woo Sian Boon, Today

A few months after some super-sized Executive Condominium (EC) units were sold at eye-catching prices, sparking a public debate on whether the EC scheme was being abused, National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan has signalled that the scheme will be tweaked.

Speaking on Thursday evening to participants at an Our Singapore Conversation (OSC) session focused on housing, he said that “something is wrong somewhere” with the scheme. “We cannot carry on the ECs with these current rules,” he said.

 …Referring to the qualifying income ceiling for ECs, Mr Khaw said: “Hence, there is a sense of inequity here. The lower-income groups are getting less subsidies than somebody who is earning S$12,000. So, something is wrong somewhere. Therefore, we cannot carry on the ECs with these current rules.”

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$2 million EC condos aside, Khaw Boon Wan remained a stout defender of the EC scheme up till now. During the Jan Parliament sessions this year, he called it a ‘wonderful’ scheme because it was like giving Singaporeans a ‘Lexus at a Corolla price’. He could have made the same analogy for Nparks purchase of a $2200 Brompton bicycle, except that something did in fact go terribly wrong with the Brompton deal. Chan Chun Sing would refer to buying an EC like eating XO sauce chai tow kuay in Peach Garden.

4 months since the EC grilling by fellow MPs and our MND Minister now realises that something is amiss, not sure WHAT that ‘something’ is and WHERE it is. Your guess is as good as mine, sir, but it’s not very reassuring to hear such U-turns from our leaders. It’s like undergoing emergency amputation surgery while still conscious and hearing your surgeon murmuring ‘ehhh, something’s not quite right’ when your bloody sawn leg is already dangling by its tendons.

Wavering confidence and uncertainty has inflicted many a politician, including LKY himself. At the launch of his book Hard Truths, he said:

The message I want to convey is a simple one: we are a nation in the making. Will we make it? Am I certain we’ll get there? No, we cannot say that. Something may go wrong somewhere and we’ll fall apart.

In response to a horrific rape of a 5 year old child, the Delhi high court said ‘something somewhere is wrong‘. If you hired a plumber to clear your shit-congested toilet bowl and he said ‘something is wrong somewhere’, you’d probably want to flush him down the loo too.

‘Something is wrong somewhere’ is the kind of doubt any lay Singaporean may express, and it’s a flaw we knew all along from the moment someone decides to build fountains and presidential suites for executive condos, or sells off a Queenstown 5-room for $1 million. We don’t need to hear this coming from an authority who’s supposed to be finding and fixing the problem. If they can’t, well, then there’s ‘something wrong somewhere’ with the kind of pay they’re getting to do the job.

Yet, there’s one thing that Khaw seems to be dead confident about: That the government loses ‘hundreds of millions’ of dollars just to build HDB flats.  It explains why you never hear reports of HDB making tidy profits these days, it’s like a monk announcing that he won first prize in the lottery. Not so in the past. In 1970, someone calculated that the HDB made an ‘enormous profit’ from rental of flats and shops. In 1982 it was reported that the board made a $7 million windfall off carparks. In 2002, they made reportedly $87 million from carpark operations, half of that from fines.

How HDB manages its finances today remains a mystery, though our ministers would love to brag about how the government is constantly in the red to justify its noble mission of ‘public housing’. I suppose with all this ‘deficit accounting’ to deal with, it’s only fair that HDB gives its staff the occasional treat, like a Dinner and Dance at MBS with Daniel Ong as MC, for example (more proof of that ever happening here). Did the government subsidise THAT as well?

Filed under: 2013, HDB, Money, Politicians | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Having a National Referendum for a 6.9 million population

Posted on January 31, 2013 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Hold referendum on population growth’, 31 Jan 2013, ST Forum

(Kelvin Quek): AS A born and bred Singaporean, it is my right to have a say in the size and composition of the population (“Population could hit 6.9m by 2030“; yesterday). Unlike measures like the certificate of entitlement, Electronic Road Pricing or goods and services tax, population policies have an impact that cannot be reversed in one or two generations.

It is all the more worrying since Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong himself recently admitted that the Government does not have 20/20 foresight and finds it difficult to predict economic changes, the property cycle, population trends and the number of homes needed (“PM throws light on what led to infrastructure strain”; Tuesday).

So let the citizens have a real say. Let us hold a national referendum to see if Singaporeans are supportive of having a population of six million by 2020 and 6.9 million by 2030. The referendum can be carefully crafted to present various choices to Singaporeans, including the scenario of very low economic growth or even economic stagnation if we cap the population at 5.5 million or six million. If more than two-thirds of Singaporeans are against having a population size as projected by the White Paper, then the Government should plan for an alternative scenario.

If a large majority agree with the White Paper’s conclusions, then at least we know that we share collective responsibility for the consequences.

The chance of a National Referendum happening to let Singaporeans vote for or against the 2030 population crunch is as likely as a tsunami sweeping us of our feet. The first (and maybe LAST) ever NR was in fact held before we even gained our Independence in 1962, when we had to decide what flag to use in our merger with Malaysia among other stuff like citizenship and language policies . This was like Polling Day, except that instead of ticking for a party, you voted for various scenarios. The people chose the Lee Kuan Yew-backed ‘Alternative A’, which granted Singapore control over labour and education, despite us having to convert our identities to become Malaysians. The decision to merge was already a done deal, and the whole referendum process appeared to be a cosmetic matter of going through the motions, or in commonspeak ‘wayang’. You could say the same thing about our National Conversation, which has probably expended the amount of Post-It pads equivalent to a stack of White Papers as tall as the Singapore Flyer.

The reason why the PAP is generally reluctant to hold such resource-intensive opinion polls is because asking Singaporeans if they would prefer to live in a state of 7 million people is a no-brainer. We were already upset when you were talking about 6 million people. It’s a stupid question to ask, yet the obvious answer is not one they want to hear, because they’d know better. So it’s likely that our government will trudge ahead, telling us how their  expert-endorsed, concise ‘Land Use Plan’ would achieve a SWEET SPOT.  If there were ever a poll on the matter it would be asking us if we’d like to turn Pulau Ubin from a nature spot to a hub of seaside executive condos or a ring of luxury hotels. It’s like a grubby sommelier asking if you’d prefer the red or white wine after already putting you on tab. I’m not sure if the people who sort our land resources out are actual population experts, or a bunch of nerds addicted to Simcity.

Why, in our 48 years of nation-building, have we stalled on referenda? According to Goh Chok Tong, he did not ‘believe’ in such things because referenda should only be held on ‘life and death’ issues, and not something like say the elected presidency for example. In 1987, when he rejected calls to vote for the ‘Team MP’ or now known as the GRC system, he said the consent of voters would only be needed if the proposed legislation brought about ‘fundamental changes’ to the Constitution and our Sovereignty as an independent nation. Turning our once idyllic fishing village into a gambling haven also didn’t seem to warrant a Referendum in 2004, yet it remains uncertain these days if the Government had made the right choice about casinos without consulting the general public, with so much investment in damage control and prevention. In fact, I think the National Conversation system was set up PRECISELY to ward off any suggestion of the more decisive Referendum. If you deliver a dud platform for airy-fairy topics of discussion, you provide citizens the illusion of ‘ownership’, when it’s really a distraction from your actual powers as a citizen. It’s like a desperate father giving his kid a digital watch to play with instead of an iPad.

I would argue that overloading our tiny island with new citizens IS in fact a ‘life and death’ issue. You could have people losing their careers and minds in the heat of competition. You’d have the weak and elderly fainting, wheezing, getting heart attacks or beating each other silly from the sheer stress of taking public transport. Not to mention the spread of re-emerging Third World diseases that we’re struggling to contain even today like influenza, dengue and TB. You’d have the national identity diluted by foreign invaders, hence the ‘sovereignty’ of being Singaporean. Ministers like Khaw Boon Wan and DPM Teo are convinced that things will go according to plan, telling us ‘not to worry’ like singing a lullaby while shaking the baby. There’s a reason why they call it the population ‘bomb’ and not the ‘sweet spot’, an embarrassingly corporeal catchphrase that brings to mind the brink of an orgasm or releasing a long-suppressed fart rather than what should be better simplified as ‘balance’. But why feed us with boring energy bars when you can spin candy floss, and all this sugarcoating of a serious, even dangerous, logistic nightmare is giving me the cavities in addition to the heebie-jeebies.

For subjecting Singaporeans to the terror of squeezing and squirming our way through every facet of our lives, the White paper is not so much a predictive model of an economically sustainable wunderkind nation, but really a user’s manual titled ‘How to Live in a Box and Still Call Your Nation a Liveable City’.  When the country bursts at its seams and the Government hangs the WHITE flag, it’s already too late giving them the RED card for the WHITE paper. I’d like to see our President do something really, if only to stop the masses, the foreign labour and jobless hobos from camping on Istana grounds when they have no place left to live. You don’t have to be a crowded nation to be successful. You just need smart leaders, you know, with 20/20 foresight.

Postscript: Khaw Boon Wan later clarified (2 Feb 2013) that 6.9 M was the ‘WORST CASE SCENARIO’ and that hoped that the actual figure would be turned out to be ‘much lower’. So what’s the ideal population for Singapore then? Just a few days back, he said a ‘high quality of life’ was still possible for 6.9 M people and that we shouldn’t ‘worry’ about a thing. Now it’s not so much a population explosion that I’m ‘worried’ about. I’m worried if the Government knows what exactly it’s doing with the White Paper forecast. This concession after all the comforting and confidence seems like a forced U-turn to me.

Filed under: 1960s, 2013, Environment, Politicians | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

$2 million for an EC Presidential Penthouse Suite

Posted on November 24, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Khaw to developers: Don’t forget intent of ECs’, 24 Nov 2012, article by Esther Teo, ST

DEVELOPERS have been warned not to forget the fundamental premise of an executive condominium (EC) even as they fall over themselves to offer luxurious finishings to attract buyers. National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan said they should remember the policy intent of ECs: to help Singaporean families earning $12,000 or less a month buy a condo for a price under the market rate.

In a blog post yesterday, Mr Khaw reminded developers that land prices for ECs are lower than prices of private condo land. This is done through the zoning and tendering out of the land earmarked for EC projects. Mr Khaw’s post came on the back of reports about a string of ECs sold at sky-high prices. A 2,845 sq ft penthouse at Heron Bay in Upper Serangoon Road, for instance, was sold for $1.77 million last month. And the upcoming CityLife @ Tampines will offer a 4,349 sq ft “presidential penthouse suite” that is likely to cost more than $2 million.

“I expect the developer to have done his calculations, to ensure that the unit will be affordable for the targeted EC applicants,” Mr Khaw said. While EC developers have flexibility in designing and pricing their units, they “must be mindful that flexibility must be exercised in keeping with the intent and spirit of the EC policy”, he warned.

Introduced in 1995, the ‘fundamental premise’ of the EC scheme was to meet the aspirations of the ‘sandwiched class’ who cannot afford private condos but do not qualify for public housing due to income ceiling requirements or wish to upgrade to a semi-luxurious apartment. If you consider the ‘intent and spirit’ of public housing in general, according to the HDB vision statement, it is to ‘provide affordable homes of quality and value‘. Just recently a Queenstown flat was sold for almost the same price as a EC penthouse at slightly more than $1 million. Khaw Boon Wan not only didn’t wag his stern finger at such resale pricing then, but coolly told buyers not to be ‘traumatised’ by the million dollar price tag of a HDB flat.  In the early 2000s, ECs were considered good investments, and with the first-timer $30,000 grant you could snare pseudo-condo living for $390,000. Can the ‘sandwiched class’ even afford million dollar HDB flats these days, not to mention ECs?

According to an ST feature on CityLife@Tampines’ presidential suite, it could easily accommodate four 5-room HDB apartments, which is almost twice the size of the Heron Bay’s five-bedroom penthouse worth 1.5-1.6 million. The latter was touted as the ‘first’ for an EC development. But you could also live in the lap of luxury simply by sprucing up your HDB flat into a ‘penthouse maisonette’, sell it for more than a million and get a landed property bypassing the EC route altogether. The million dollar EC is nothing new. In fact, $1.1 million was paid for a Pinevale EC in 1997. That’s TWO years after ECs were launched.

So just how massive is 4349 square feet, or about 404 sq meters of ‘presidential’ penthouse living in City@Tampines? Here’s a comparison:

 With skyhigh pricing narrowing the gap between public and private housing, is the ‘spirit’ of ECs still relevant? In 2002, calls to scrap the scheme by the ERC were rejected by then MND Mah Bow Tan. 10 years later some Singaporeans remain unconvinced that the ECs were really being purchased by their intended targets, or that using taxpayers’ money to subsidise these buyers would be put to better use helping the disadvantaged or those just looking for a roof over their heads rather than a private jacuzzi or having an address with a fancy @ symbol or a description of a body of water in it (Bay-, Sea-, Water-). The Heron Bay penthouse was reportedly bought by a ‘young couple’ who are also first-time property buyers. Considering that the household income cap is $12,000, the only logical conclusion is that these people come from wealthy families, and having a $30,000 subsidy helps too.  Sandwiched class? The kind of sandwich with prime Wagyu beef and foie gras, perhaps. Maybe the Ministry should review the the ‘intent and spirit’ of basic HDB housing first, before turning their attention towards profiteering EC developers.

Why buy an expensive sandwich when you can have a proper burger

Postscript: ($2m Tampines EC penthouse sold in two hours, 30 Dec 2012, Sunday Times) Tampines’ Citylife penthouse eventually sold for 2.05 million to a certain Ms C.Koh, who together with massive chipping in from her businessman father, bought the suite for her brother and wife. The whole family of 7 intends to move in. When questioned about the debate on EC prices, she said: “Why is there controversy? We’re just a middle-class family.” I’m not sure if this equates to being ‘sandwich’ class, but anyone who is a beneficiary of family finances and already an owner of a ‘presidential penthouse’ before 30 belongs to a WEALTHY family in my opinion, ‘middle-class’ or not. Also, no one is going to say “We’re from a high-income family’ on the national paper. It’s either a case of overbearing modesty, or a different interpretation of the term ‘middle-class’.

In 2008, ex NMP Siew Kum Hong defined the middle class as the ‘middle 60% of the population by income’, which ranges from the ‘lower’ middle class earning $2590 monthly (in 2005) to the top one-third earning $6575. The father of the penthouse owner himself admitted that his ‘son can’t afford it, he’s only a salaried employee’. Therein lies the ‘controversy’; that you’re entitled to HDB grants as long as you fall within the income bracket, when you could jolly well own private property so long as your rich Daddy helps out. And where do grants come from? Taxpayers who can’t afford condo living, that’s where. Is the EC system targetting the right ‘class’, or just offering discount savings for people who can easily own bungalows instead?

Filed under: 2012, HDB, Money, Politicians | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

$1 million HDB flat nothing to be traumatised over

Posted on September 9, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Khaw eases fears over $1m flat price’, 9 Sept 2012, article by Rachel Chang, Sunday Times.

News of a Housing Board flat being sold for a record $1 million may be swirling, but National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan urged Singaporeans not to be “traumatised”. There will always be “units with fantastic views that fetch fantastic prices“, he said of the sale of the executive maisonette in Queenstown, which is still in the works. The price includes a cash over valuation (COV) of $195,000.

“More important is the larger picture,” Mr Khaw said at a dialogue with Sembawang grassroots leaders. “Are prices affordable generally for most units? I think we have largely achieved that in the last few months with the pricing of the new Build-to-Order flats.”

At the same time, he noted that the record resale price was indicative of the fact that “in public housing, we can get very good living conditions“. For example, when the Pinnacle@Duxton flats come onto the resale market in a few years, “there will be many millionaires there”, he noted.

In 2010, a couple of property experts made the following prediction about HDB pricing, when quizzed about the chances of it exceeding the million dollar mark.

(Eric Cheng, ECG Property): ‘Generally, most HDB flats will not go beyond $750,000. I doubt any flats will cross the $1 million mark, at least not for the next two to three years…For $1 million, one can buy a condo unit, or even a small landed property in the Sin Ming area. The valuation for a top-end HDB flat is around $700,000, and who can cough up the $200,000 (COV)?’

(Albert Li, C&H Realty): ‘I think the $1 million mark will take a while to reach. HDB prices may rise, but not so fast.

The above was in response to a Bishan maisonette with roof terrace being sold for a ‘staggering’ $950,ooo to a Singaporean businessman. In the space of 2 years, that record looks set to be broken, the culmination of a series of record sales of public housing that the latest $1 million price tag wouldn’t strike anyone as ‘traumatising’ anymore. Khaw, of course, has a flair for justifying ridiculously priced items, whether it’s Brompton bicycles or designer chairs. Someone could mark up bottled water to $10 and he could explain it away using such high-horse Khaw-conomics. Here, the ‘fantastic’ view, and the breeding of HDB millionaires are in his opinion ‘value for money’ reasons. No wonder Prince William and Kate are paying Queenstown a visit. Residents there can relate to royalty like no other heartlander can. After all, some of them live in ‘very good living conditions’. Fit for a queen, I might add.

Here’s a quick look at astounding 5-room HDB sales over the past few years to explain why our jaws aren’t dropping anymore. If there’s anything that needs to be tranquilised it’s this spell of spiralling prices.

5 room/executive flats

June 2007 – Jalan Membina,  5 room, $675,000, buyer unknown.

June 2007 – Kim Tian Place, 29th floor, $720,000, buyer unknown.

Nov 2007 – Marine Parade, sea view, 18th floor, $730,000, buyer unknown.

Jan 2008 – Queenstown, Mei Ling street, 21st floor, $890, 000, buyer unknown.

April 2010: Bishan maisonette, 24th floor, $900,000, to an Indian Singaporean couple.

Sept 2012: Queenstown, Mei Ling Street, a possible $1 million, buyer unknown.

So in the space of 5 years, top-dollar flats have increased in value by almost half a million dollars. But it’s not just these penthouse wannabes that are getting pricier, they are epicentres sending ripples of escalating prices throughout the neighbourhood. The median resale price of Queenstown flats is currently half a million dollars, something beyond most first-time buyers. Khaw is busy ignoring the ‘halo’ effect of ridiculously expensive housing, while acting like he has one hovering above his head.

Even 4 room flats are catching the fever:

4 room flats:

Nov 2009 – Queenstown, Strathmore Ave, 4 room, 40th floor, sold for $653,000, to an Indonesian PR and Singaporean woman.

March 2010: Bras Basah 4 room flat, 25th floor, in Bain Street sold for $650,000 to a Taiwanese PR couple.

But wait, there’s more. In 2010, a TWO ROOM flat in Chinatown was sold for $245,000, which cost more than a Punggol 4 room flat at the time. We wouldn’t bat an eyelid anymore if the same 2-room can hit the half million mark by the end of this decade. The exceptionally lucky few would benefit from such skyrocketing prices, while the rest of us still staying in Khaw’s majority of ‘affordable’ housing away from these hot districts watch our dreams of upgrading slowly fade away while prices swing wildly beyond our reach and PR tycoons snap up these spots like nobody’s business.

No I’m not traumatised at all, but perhaps the next generation of Singaporeans would, when they realise that while their peers have become instant millionaires overnight from selling the million-dollar flat they inherited from their parents to snap up  condos or landed property, they’re struggling to cope with the mortgage for their 2-room broom closet, which could very well cost as much as a 4-room in Ang Mo Kio today. It would also be a terrible time to get married and settle down, and if the government is serious about promoting family and babies, they should staunch this bloodletting right away, before this becomes not so much property boom as a national DOOM. Maybe a ‘national conversation’ is not as important as PAP’s ministries actually talking to each other for change. Yes, MND (Khaw) and MSF (Chan Chun Sing), I’m referring to you guys. Go cycling together and make friends or something.

Filed under: 2010, 2012, HDB, Money, Politicians | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

$2,200 Brompton bikes value for money

Posted on July 7, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Seeking clarity over $2200 bike purchase’, ST Forum, 8 July 2012

(Tan Buck Yam): AS A taxpayer for the past 34 years and an avid cyclist, I find it hard to comprehend how the National Parks Board’s (NParks) bulk bicycle purchase was value for money (‘Khaw okay with NParks’ purchase of $2,200 bikes’; Thursday).

I agree that NParks officers need bicycles for their field duties, which are demanding. However, to acquire foldable bicycles at $2,200 each may not reflect well on the Government’s call for prudence and austerity. I own four bicycles – a hybrid costing $420, two mountain bikes at about $200 each and a foldable 20-inch bicycle at $98. All were purchased from Carrefour supermarket.

…What were these requirements that resulted in Brompton bicycles being the cheapest and most prudent purchase? What was the process of scrutiny by senior management? Perhaps the public could be shown a comparison of a similar purchase by the police, who recently acquired bicycles for their officers to patrol neighbourhoods. What was the cost of these bicycles?

I hardly see the police on bicycles, but I doubt they would pedal more than 40km a day, at least according to NParks in their justification for luxury biking. Taking the quality of a Brompton at face value, you can purchase more than 20 Carrefour bikes as spares for the same price. According to Khaw Boon Wan, who thinks paying spending more than $50K on 26 bicycles is a good deal:

…It offers us maximum operational flexibility in terms of usage and deployment. It enables our staff to get to the field sites directly and individually rather than needing an office van to transport them and their bikes to the various sites. This is a significant factor in raising productivity all round – manpower, time, vehicle

This coming from someone who paid $8 upfront for a bypass. Khaw went on to clarify that the only reason why the Brompton was picked was that only one vendor responded to the Gebiz tender, and that it was bought at a discounted rate. Which is pretty much the typical Singaporean response to expensive stuff at a sale, buying things you don’t really need but providing self-justification that you made a wise decision on hindsight. In March last year, our National Development Minister also sang praises of Herman Miller chairs, which MOM purchased at $575 a pop, supposedly a ‘steal’. A total of 475 of such ergonomic branded chairs were bought then, and it remains to be seen how a comfortable butt and SPOILING staff has improved civil servants’ productivity. An orthopedic surgeon remarked that ‘you don’t need an expensive chair to prevent back problems’. Ironically, if your chair is TOO comfortable, you may be spared from neck, shoulder and back pains, but subject yourself to a higher risk of cardiac mortality for prolonged sitting down.

I think the same applies to NParks officers, doing whatever they do on their rounds. You don’t need an expensive ‘Bomb-ton’ bicycle to chase down wild boars. In fact, knowing that you’re sitting on a $2200 luxury good means you’re less likely to hurtle headlong into a forest to perform your huntsman duties in fear of damaging standard issue equipment and writing statements.  Interestingly, I also stumbled upon this Youtube UOB ad and 8 days feature while trying to find out how much a Brompton is selling here (according to a forum fan, you can get it for less than 2K for some models). These feature sometime eco-warrior Howard Shaw, recently charged for sex with an underaged prostitute, riding a BROMPTON. Second thoughts, NParks?

Note how UOB uses the slogan ‘The Sustainable Energy of Howard Shaw’. I think we all know what ‘energy’ they’re referring to now. 8 days also once labelled Shaw as our generation’s CAPTAIN PLANET, which explains his affinity for kids then.

Howard Shaw, Singapore’s Captain Planet, rides a Brompton.

Filed under: 2011, 2012, Cyclists, Money, Police officers, Politicians | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

Khaw Boon Wan hammers WP’s sudden U-turn

Posted on February 16, 2012 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Come clean with the people, WP: Khaw’, 16 Feb 2012, article by Wong Jiahui Alicia, Today

Shortly after the Workers’ Party (WP) announced its decision to expel Mr Yaw Shin Leong, People’s Action Party (PAP) chairman Khaw Boon Wan turned up the heat on the opposition party yesterday, questioning its “sudden U-turn” on the allegations of infidelity against Mr Yaw.

Speaking to reporters, Mr Khaw noted that, only last Saturday – when the WP held its Chinese New Year dinner – the party’s leadership stood “shoulder to shoulder in solidarity” with Mr Yaw. On Mr Yaw’s expulsion, Mr Khaw said: “Is this an attempt at trying to conceal something they knew, first through silence, and then when they found it is not possible, then they get rid of the liability and blame everything on him?”

Calling on the WP to “come clean with the people”, Mr Khaw asked why the WP took “so long to investigate” the rumours of its Hougang Member of Parliament’s (MP) indiscretions and “what new information have they discovered”. If the WP had certain information about Mr Yaw prior to the May General Election, why did they field him, pressed Mr Khaw, who is also Minister for National Development.

“It’s sad that voters have been misled by the WP. I think as a responsible party, integrity is a key point,” said Mr Khaw. “This is a matter that no doubt concerns Mr Yaw, but it also concerns the party where he came from,” he added. Responding, WP chief Low Thia Khiang said: “I don’t know when (Mr Khaw) started to know we had a change in attitude. Is he our party member? Is he sure of our internal party matters?”

Many may feel some disappointment in Yaw for his reaction to the allegations and the WP for this sudden booting, but has anyone been inconvenienced or emotionally scarred by this other than Yaw’s immediate family and friends?  In what sense were voters ‘misled’ or ‘deceived’ since the WP, despite behaving erratically,  did not technically LIE about the whole incident?

The PAP were themselves silent about the rumours when they first emerged, yet pounced on the Opposition the moment they saw a crack in the WP ranks, like a vulture swooping in to burrow its face into a weeping gash on a wounded gazelle. The ruling party, of course, is no stranger to ‘about-turns’, some of which had more drastic effects on the fate of the citizenry as a whole, not just Hougang, than a fracas over some WP guy suspected of having a series of affairs within his own party.

In 2006, WP chief himself Low Thia Khiang accused the Government of ‘U-turning’ budget deficits into vote-getting give-outs, citing the 2004 increase in GST to 5% after New Singapore Shares were happily given out just before the 2001 GE. No U-turn stings more than allowing your donkey to nibble on a juicy carrot and then cutting its daily hay by half after the treat. In the same year, the Government took a ‘U-turn’ under pressure to lift the ban on 22 activists from entering the country  for the IMF meeting after initially barring 27, which was not so much a loosening of its nanny grip on protest laws but rather a one-off tendency to cave in to outsiders, while clamping down on locals for performing the exact same activity.

In 2003, Minister of State Chan Soo Sen said it was ‘Better to make a U-turn, than try to save face’, after the Government reversed a decision to raise fees at sports facilities. Catherine Lim, in her 1994 commentary ‘One Government, Two Styles’, lamented that the ‘consultative, consensual approach which the (Goh Chok Tong) Government had promised…is being abandoned in favour of the authoritarian style of its predecessors’,  with the ‘Catherine Lim Affair’ prompting Sumiko Tan to follow up with an article titled ‘Hard to Believe PM Has Made U-Turn in Open Govt Promise‘(20 Nov 1994, Sunday Review). In 1981, a ST Forum writer complained about the Ministry of National Development’s U-turn in reversing their decision to allow singles to use CPF to pay for HUDC flats right after the elections, ruining the hopes of many who already submitted applications.

Empty PAP promises, of course, is staple Opposition rhetoric. When it comes to ‘sudden U-turns’ then, Singaporeans have continued to support and endure the ruling party in spite of them being equally, if not more guilty, of flip-flopping on their policies, what more the WP for being a little temperamental on their treatment of Yaw Shin Leong.

Filed under: 1980s, 2000s, 2012, Politicians | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Bhutanese are not all happy people

Posted on October 20, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Bhutan is not Shangri-La on Earth’, 20 Oct 2011, article in ST

(Khaw Boon Wan, National Development Minister): ‘BHUTAN was mentioned several times in this House. I visited Bhutan a few years ago, and met a good cross-section of the people, from the prime minister, the chief monk, to civil servants and ordinary folks. I am not an expert on Bhutan, but the Westerners’ romanticised version of this ancient kingdom does not fit the reality of what I saw. Bhutan is not Shangri-La on earth.

…I saw Bhutan children enjoying the river like all children do. They had no sandals in their hands for they could not afford any. They seemed happy, with angelic innocence, without any worry. I met and heard about foreigners who volunteered in Bhutan: Singaporean retired teachers (taking) IT to the schools, doctors providing immunisation and eye care for the villagers. They were happy as they found meaning in what they were doing. But most of the time, I saw unhappy people, toiling in the field, worried about the next harvest and whether there would be buyers for their products. The health minister asked me to help get ambulances and medicine for their villagers.

The happiest king, maybe even MAN, in the world right now

The only places that are truly heaven on earth are, alas, those without people. Khaw’s Bhutan anectode was in response to Sylvia Lim’s Parliamentary curve-ball for the ruling party to consider the ‘happiness’ of Singaporeans when drafting policies, even throwing up the idea of making it a national index. I don’t know if Sylvia has been to Bhutan herself but  as dampening as Khaw’s remarks are, they could also very well be true. And it’s not just Bhutan though, we city people are prone to regard not just nomadic yak-rearing mountain people as ‘happier’ than us, but even kampong folks of our own past, basically anyone with a more intimate relationship with the earth and live among a community who sing and dance around campfires playing handmade instruments. And then they wake up at 5 am the next morning to shovel ox manure. It’s the ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ effect at work, or perhaps it’s all ‘Eat, Pray, Love”s fault.

This romantic mystique of the ‘Enchanted Third World’ has blinded us to the harsh everyday realities that rural Bhutanese or anyone like them have to face that we urban folk have long taken for granted, like a reliable water and electricity supply, an internet connection or a 24 hour convenience store for all your urgent, personal needs. Happiness, of course, is a concept few of us can really hope to master, with what ‘happy’ people claim to be feeling most of the time really more like a temporary emotion, or expression of ‘joy’, ‘pleasure’ or ‘contentment’. What’s happiness to the Bhutanese could very well be tedious monotony to most Singaporeans, like a monk tending to flowers in a temple for example. It also ties in to the kind of expectations that each country has of its government. For one with a formidable track record and constantly pats itself on the back for providing its citizens with an enviable standard of living, I would expect a whole lot more from the PAP than the Bhutan cabinet i.e it’s harder, and more costly, to make a typical Singaporean happy than please a Bhutanese. For instance, if the government gives us a bonus handout which was less than previous years’ most people would be probably less than ‘happy’ about it, even complain if need be, but for the Bhutanese any handout is manna from heaven (Oh wait, they ARE already in heaven). You also can’t make some people ‘happy’ without upsetting others, say, granting a 4 month paternity leave (bosses), or even extended year-end holidays (shift workers), which means dealing with dicey utilitarianism issues about calculating the ‘greatest good’ for the ‘greatest number’. So before you cast a ‘happiness index’ in stone, it’s probably prudent to first define what happiness means to a Singaporean. And that itself would take up the whole proceedings of Parliament already. If there’s anything we should learn from Bhutan it’s how they keep their carbon footprint low, or maybe eco-tourism,  not merely what puts a smile on our faces. Otherwise, time to move on.

Bhutan is not the first, and won’t be the last, of a list of countries that Singaporeans have sought to emulate, a case of fumbling around in the dark for what we really envision ourselves to be. Japan probably ranks near the top of the list, with the most citations picked up from my quick research.

1. Japan (1978, Ong Teng Cheong) for her rich culture. Earlier this year in the wake of the tsunami, Goh Chok Tong also wished we were as stoic as the Japanese. Recent ST Forum letters have also compared our toilets to those in Tokyo.

2. Switzerland (1970), for her ‘standard of living’

3. Bangalore (2005, LKY), for it’s Silicon-Vally-ness

4. Greece (2004), for winning the Euro cup.

5. Australia/New Zealand (1966), in reference to cross-straits ties and ‘neighbourliness’. 20 years later, Lee Hsien Loong urged us to be more like the Japanese again, and NOT to follow the Australian model.

6. South Korea (1979), as an ‘economic miracle’

7. West Germany (1977, NTUC) for technology, what else. It was even suggested that German be studied in schools.

8. America (2006, LKY), for her spirit of ‘self-help’. More recently, LKY urged us to speak and write American English too.

9. Hong Kong (2006), for her service standards

It’s cold comfort to know that in our green-eyed pursuit to be like everyone else at the same time, we end up being like none of the above at all. Or, as Lim Swee Say would say if he had the chance to speak on this matter of copying philosophies of good governance from other countries – Utter ‘rojak’. Not to say that Singapore has nothing worth emulating herself (some developing African and Middle Eastern nations are particularly interested) with our education system, multiracial harmony and infrastructure to brag about, but countries seeking to make their citizens ‘happier’ and more ‘civic conscious’ might as well dump antidepressants and mind-control drugs into their reservoirs than waste time looking this way.

Filed under: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 2011, Money, Politicians | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

Khaw Boon Wan wants us to save for a rainy day

Posted on August 9, 2011 by gdy2shoez

From ‘Save for a rainy day, advises Khaw’, 8 Aug 2011, article by Alicia Wong in sg yahoo news

Amidst the financial turmoil plaguing America and Europe, National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan has reminded Singaporeans to save for a rainy day.

“Sometimes you get fine weather, sometimes rainy. But if you have always saved for the rainy day, you’ll be pretty steady and safe,” he was quoted as saying by The Straits Times.

…Minister Khaw also pointed out the need for political leaders to have foresight and “tell people what is unpleasant sometimes”.

…”To lead, you must be able to see first further, and tell people what is unpleasant sometimes,” he said. “I try to say what’s right,” he added. “Pleasant or unpleasant to me, is not as important as what is right, what is rational.”

There’s a reason why the PAP logo has a bolt of lightning in it, and that’s because our ministers like to frighten us with stale cliches of rainy days and stormy weather. I won’t go into how patronising this piece of advice is, since it’s stating the obvious that Singaporeans have to ‘tighten their purse-strings’ during this difficult  period and ‘ride out the stormy seas’, though some of us have been subject to ‘rough weather’ for the longest time.  It’s easier to tell people to brace for ‘dark clouds on the horizon’ than promise ‘clear skies’ and ‘sunny days’. After all, hiding behind the ‘weather’ analogy is ideal because it’s the only unpredictable, uncontrollable element that everyone can relate to, suggestive of an act of God which the government can’t possibly be responsible for. No minister is going to use quantum physics to describe economic turbulence because it’s too deep, nor the unpleasant word ‘chaos’ because it’s too apocalyptic. ‘Weather’ seems perfectly fine, even if it’s centuries old.

As a leader, other than ‘telling us like it is’, Mr Khaw and rest of the PAP should also lead by example and tell us how they’re going to put taxpayers’ money to more prudent use, or whether there’ll be any tapping of the national reserves (saved for rainy days like these according to our PM, see below) to help us ‘weather the storm’, instead of just reminding us of what we already know from our parents. Telling us what is ‘rational’ or ‘right’ doesn’t make it timely, appropriate, or in this case, even necessary. So much sunshine was dispensed during the last elections that it’s telling how gloomy the weather forecasts have suddenly become, especially in the wake of public transport fee hikes which makes this piece of advice as helpful as a teaspoon in a flood survival kit.

Here’s a sampling for how the PAP’s favourite platitude has been tossed about like a ‘buoy on a stormy ocean’ for the past half a century, which makes you wonder if this country is really ‘Singapura, sunny island set in the sea’.

S Rajaratnam (Raja: Watch out for storms in changing world, 25 Dec 1967, ST): As far as Singapore is concerned, the problem is one of making certain that we survive until the advent of sunnier, calmer weather. We cannot control the weather but if we have the tenacity, intelligence and resilence we can ride the storm.

Dr Ang Kok Peng, Minister of State(Communications) (Don’t spend on luxuries, Ang tells youth, 19 Feb 1973, ST): The young should be taught to practise self-discipline and to save not for only a rainy day but also for building up the economic resources of Singapore.

Lee Kuan Yew (PM:Let’s find that niche, 18 Aug 1980, ST): And we got to get it into the heads of our younger generation that life is not a bed of roses. This generation has never known unemployment but if we run into stormy weather, they will get a dose of it in the 80s.

Dr Tony Tan (Rough times ahead, 16 May 1982, ST) : ‘The lower rate of growth in the first quarter of this year is a warning to us that, while we hope for an uplift in the US and the world economy, we must be prepared if necessary, to face rough weather. To avoid sinking, we must tighten up the hatches. We must cut out unnecessary spending and avoid wastage.

Goh Chok Tong (How elders can help young to weather hard times, 6 March 1983, ST) : It would also mean taking advantage of the slack period to improve ourselves to acquire knowledge and skills which we can use when the stormy weather blows over

Goh Chok Tong (A nation of cynics,  24 Aug 2002, Today): Fair weather Singaporeans who, having benefited from Singapore, will pack their bags and take flight when our country runs into a little storm.

Lee Hsien Loong (Brace for tough times: PM, 23 Feb 2009, Today): ‘For one, the reserves will not only tide Singaporeans over on a ‘very rainy day‘, but also provide confidence to investors that ‘the economy has resources, is strong, and the Singapore dollar is strong’

Postscript:Hot on the heels of Khaw’s worldly advice is none other than Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew’s uncanny carbon copy of the ‘rainy day’ analogy (Economic storms may affect Singapore: Lui Tuck Yew, 13 Aug 2011, ST)

…Singapore can weather the turbulence if the government and people all came together to face squarely the challenges and make tough decisions as a nation.

He added that there are measures in place to help needy residents and Singaporeans can also prepare for the gloomy financial forecast by saving for a rainy day.

It appears that fine weather is as rare as a politician telling us something new.

Filed under: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, 2011, Money, Politicians, Weather | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

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