Well well, the Singapore General Election is well underway, and as 1 of the voters in my constituency, I have to make a choice to let which team to govern me for the next 5 years. Lets take a look and digest the choices offered, starting with opposition.
NSP manifesto
Economy
Benefits:
• Priority for Singaporeans in Employment. They are advocating protectionism. On the surface, it looks good as more jobs are available for Singaporean, but is it good for the industry as a whole, esp with Singaporean demanding higher pay? Business is about dollars and cents, if they can't make $, they just pack and go. No, giving priority is not the way to go. Let the market forces decide and you have to be worth the price paid to you.
• Higher wages with stricter supply of foreign workers. This is a disaster. They are advocating 25% quota, meaning 25% foreigner and 75% Singaporean, with higher quota for industries not popular with Singaporean. How much higher will the quota be? Nothing said, look at construction and service, can they sustain? I think inflation will rise even higher if they enforce this.
• Focus on industries with jobs suited to Singaporeans. They give an example of training more doctors and therapists, which is as well a joke. Not everyone has the intelligence to be a doctor or therapists.
• Financial support for Local SMEs. They advocate preferential treatment for some government project. You mean you rather choose a B local team than an A overseas team which may be cheaper?
Housing
Benefits:
• Lower prices for first time buyers of new HDB flats. First time buyers to pay slightly above the cost of building the flats plus a discounted land price (which means 30%-40% discount to current price). Result: Good for first time buyers, bad for rest of assets owners as they will see their property value starts dropping. Why? Given the huge profits one stands to gain, everyone will just move in for BTO. Once they can sell the flat, they just cash in at whatever profits they deem reasonable. Before you know it, prices start dropping when sellers undercut each other when the volume of sellers spike.
• More compassionate rules and regulations to avoid homelessness. ok this one is reasonable.
• Upgrading for you no matter which way you vote. Hmm, this one I agree.
Ok, enough about their manifesto at the moment, will post more in my next post if I have the time. I am more concern now with what they propose to do in Tampines should they get elected. Below is an abstract I got from the Straits Times:
THE National Solidarity Party will push for a community hospital to be built in Tampines to cater to the increasing numbers of residents above the age of 60. NSP secretary-general Goh Meng Seng cited this as one of the party's plans, if he and his four team members were elected as MPs for the GRC in the upcoming election. The team would also erect a sound barrier near Tampines MRT station to reduce the noise for residents living nearby, increase the availability of parking lots and improve estate maintenance such as fixing leaking roofs and clearing rubbish in a timely fashion.
1 more community hospital in Tampines? For goodness sake, if you take a look around at our current hospital, they are already severely short-handed. Who is going to mend your new hospital? Besides, we already have our next door Changi General Hospital, is there a better location other than Tampines? I think Punggol will be a better choice.
Next, a sound barrier near Tampines MRT station. Can you show me how you are going to do it given the lack of space already? I don't really like to talk but no concrete action type.
Increase availability of parking lots. Isn't HDB already doing that currently, converting open air car parks into multi storey carparks? Have you done your ground work?
Fixing leaking roofs and clearing rubbish in a timely fashion. Any examples? I thought we already out source the clearing of rubbish to 3rd party and for what I have seen, they are doing a good job, less some inconsiderate resident who anyhow throw rubbish during the night, causing a mess in the morning, which cannot be help. Can you show me some examples where rubbish is not cleared in a timely fashion?
I am not saying PAP is all that good. MBT did a mess of the HDB 2 years ago, freezing the flat supply and causing a problem now, but by the looks of it, looks like I have to make a choice between the lesser of the 2 evils.
4 comments:
Personal opinion, I feel that you should vote for the one who can speak up for you in the parliament instead of letting Mr Mah continue to mess around. o_O
"I don't really like to talk but no concrete action type." I think this is the same for PAP? =)
Well, I guess it all boils down to a choice of the lesser of the 2 evils. Looking at what the NSP advocates, and promises to do in the constituency should they get elected, I am doubtful if they will bring an improvement to my lifestyle.
PAP did make mistakes in some of their policy, for example bringing down the COE price (leading to car congestion), and the HDB issue, but at least they are fixing the problem now.
If the opposition can give me a better alternatives to what the PAP proposes, I will surely support them, but for the case of NSP, they have yet to convince me.
Pap is not fixing the HDB issue...the only way to solve this is to reduce demand...but when 30% of the total population is foreigners, with the numbers still growing, they have no solutions to appease both Singaporeans and FTs...
That is not really true. If you know the law of supply and demand, there are 2 ways to reduce price or at least kurb the rate of price increase. One way is to reduce demand, as you have said, which is drastic, meaning no more FTs or to drive FTs out of Singapore, which in my opinion, is detrimental to Singapore economy. Another solution is to quickly increase the supply of flats and reduce the rate of FT influx. This will appease both groups, but for the effect to be felt, it will take some time, and this is what the government has been doing since last year. This is not what you have said "Pap is not fixing the HDB issue"
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