It is not enough to say that you want to champion transport issues without offering any alternatives. The current government is aware that transportation is a cause of concern and is addressing it through various ways such as buying more buses and experimenting with distributing the peak hour load by offering free services up to a certain time in the morning. One must understand the intricacies of the public transport system and policy here in Singapore and offer alternatives to that model instead of just recognising it as an issue and expect the government to resolve it independently.
It is not enough to say that you do not agree to the population increase and yet do not offer alternatives on how Singapore is to sustain itself as the population is ageing drastically. What plans do you have for Singapore to sustain its growth and ensure that Singaporeans are competitive as compared to citizens of other nations? In regards to foreign workers and talents, what is your stand on it? Should it be stopped completely or should it be left open as before? If you opine that it should be somewhere in the middle, then it’s no different from the government’s stance which seeks to calibrate the influx of foreign workers and talents so as not to upset the economy, especially the SMEs, and ensure that Singaporeans continues to have a job with the presence of the multi-national companies here.
If we want an alternative view in the Parliament, it must credible. In my opinion, that alternative view can come from within the ruling party and not necessarily just opposing for the sake of doing so. Above all, politics is not a game nor a competition. It is a calling – a high and noble one. One must not go into politics with the intention to just overthrow an existing government. What happen nexts? What are your plans? At the heart of politics, it must be about serving the people and if you do not have the people in mind, then your intentions are baseless.
I fear the day that Singapore politics would go down the gutters and end up with a parliament that does not enact new laws but is too absorbed with internal squabbling and fighting amongst parliamentarians. But if that is what Singaporean wants, then there is nothing much we can do but to pray that such a day would not come in our life time.
Sorry i dont agree about ministers to be given high salaries when we citizens who works hard is nt easy to get our pay raise…look at foreigners where goverment have given so many free to them..from education in university n living..
Saya juga sedih bila bangsa melayu kita sendiri boleh sebelahkan goverment tentang hijab! Tak sedar ke dia besok disoal blkg hari??? Tengok harga hdb pula makin lama makin melampau ..dah seperti harga rumah banglo…yg DBSS kecil nk mampus hanya kerana rumah ada balkoni???omg!
Rumah sewa 2bilik pula kenapa mereka tetapkan gaji tidak boleh melebihi $801?????? Ada masuk akal tak ??? Sampai yg ada sanggup cari gaji kecil atau keja kontrak supaya duit sewa bulana tidak melebihi $40-$60+..
Ank sedara saya gaji $1800 duduk rumah 2bilik sewa di marine parade..mempunyai 4org ank..satu sec 1..pri..kindergaten dan bayi..cuba anda kira lah itu $1800 gaji belum lagi ditolak cpf..(tapi hdb ttp kira gaji awak $1800)selepas tolak cpf cuba kiralah..lepas tu hanya kerana gajinya $1800 beliau harus membayar sewa $350 kpd hdb yg tk berhati perut!!!!
Taruklah $1800 lepas potong cpf $1480.. minus $350hdb…balance $1030 aje …bagaimana tuh…3anknya yg sekolah???satu lagi bayi.?? Tak ke terfikir goverment memang selalu MENYUSAHKAN KITA?
A 76-year-old newspaper vendor has sued his 48-year-old son, whom he called “unfilial”, to get back a $1.2 million Hillview Avenue condominium.
In 2000, Mr Chin Kim Yon paid $700,000 for the apartment. It was registered in the names of his son and daughter by his second “wife”, whom he married in customary Chinese rites in 1963.
After daughter Yun Qin died last year at the age of 49, he applied to administer her estate and transferred her half-share of the flat to himself. He sued son Kheng Hai for the other half-share. He said he never meant to give the condo to his children, who were just holding it on trust for him.
Yesterday, on the first day of the trial, Mr Chin testified that he did not intend to will his estate to Kheng Hai. He said he was taking legal action because his son has been unfilial to him.
He singled out a “heartbreaking” 2013 incident in which his son visited him at his Johor Bahru home and tried to hit him with a bottle in anger.
In his affidavit, Mr Chin said that he wanted to “regularise” the ownership of the property to prepare for the administration of his estate after his death.
The Singapore permanent resident has three other children from his first marriage in 1958.
Mr Chin, represented by Mr Winston Quek, said he bought the condo his two children were renting after they said they could not afford the rent, out of “fatherly love” so they can live there rent-free, but he made it clear that it belonged to him. He said he felt “cheated” when they mortgaged the unit for $400,000 but did not use the loan to buy another property as promised.
Kheng Hai, represented by Mr Goh Peck San, denies being unable to pay rent. He said his father agreed to buy the condo after they told him the landlord was selling and he had told them that it was for the two of them. He contends that the loan was used to buy a HDB flat in the joint names of his father and sister in 2003.
Rats are still roaming Marina Square mall, and they have claimed their first victims.
At least five eateries – The Corner Place Korean BBQ, Cafe Lady M, Addictions Cafe & Remedy Bar, Brazilian restaurant Carnivore Appetite and Italian Japanese restaurant Nuvo – have put up the shutters since January, when a dead rat was found in a salted vegetable dish at Hotpot Culture, which is on the fourth floor.
An employee at the chain, who did not want to be named, said that Carnivore Appetite shut down in February. “Mainly, it was because of the rat infestation. Customer traffic really fell after that.”
A former Addictions Cafe & Remedy Bar employee, Ms Rachel Doan, 35, said the cafe shut in February, ahead of its lease expiry in November, also due to the rodent problem.
Nuvo shut on Jan 29 with a notice on its Facebook page declaring that it would cease operations “until the situation at Marina Square has been resolved”. It has not reopened.
Lady M shut in January, with The Corner Place Korean BBQ following soon after. Prior to the latter’s closure, a manager was quoted in The Straits Times as saying that customers confused it with Hotpot Culture.
The rodent problem remains, although it has eased.
A spokesman for the National Environment Agency (NEA) said: “Our assessment is that there has been a marked improvement in the rat situation at the mall, as there has been a significant reduction in the number of rats caught.
“However, as dead rats were still being found at the mall as recently as last month, it may still be some time before the ongoing rat control measures take effect fully .”
Chinese restaurant Yechun Xiao Jiang Nan is likely to close when its lease expires at the year end. It is losing $20,000 each month, said managing director Li Jing.
This is despite landlord Marina Centre Holdings’ rental reprieve of up to 30 per cent for July, August and September. Mr Li said the 20 per cent discount he received, off the more than $45,000-a-month rent he is paying, is not enough. He pointed out that other factors, such as road closures soon for National Day and the Formula One race next month, will hit business once again.
At Vietnamese restaurant Lotus Saigon, business has halved since January. Supervisor Jenny Kim, 40, said: “It never returned to normal”.
Meanwhile, Japanese restaurant Hamanoya shut for a month after the rat incident and reopened in March with a new menu.
A Straits Times visit last week found restaurants empty at dinner time. The spaces where Nuvo, Addictions Cafe & Remedy Bar, and Lady M used to be remain vacant. On Carnivore Appetite’s entrance was a notice from the landlord informing the eatery that it had failed to comply with requirements to open daily from 10am to 10pm. “We are entitled to remove any goods… and apply the proceeds of the sales of such goods against the costs and payment incurred and any arrears of rent,” read the letter.
When contacted, Marina Centre Holdings did not comment specifically on how it was addressing the pest problem or how many tenants received rental discounts.
It would only say: “Pest control is an ongoing programme and we continue our vigilant pest control programme with our tenants.”
However, The Straits Times understands NEA has taken enforcement action against the landlord.
Oddly, business at Hotpot Culture is “almost back to normal”, said its owner Wilson Lim. The NEA said over 20 inspections of the eatery after its suspension was lifted in February found “no hygiene lapses or pest infestation”.
Customers, meanwhile, are still giving the mall a miss.
Ms Yeo Yeo Min, 31, said she will return for a meal only when the mall has been declared rat-free.
“It’s just gross. I won’t eat there if I can help it,” said the engineer. “How would you know if the food you are eating is really hygienic?”
Singapore is celebrating 50 years of independence and everywhere you look in the city, there are posters, banners, bus ads and post boxes marking the event.
The government-led brand sums up the jubilee with the acronym SG50.
It is the city state’s biggest and most expensive effort to drum up nationalist fervour.
The celebrations will culminate on 9 August, National Day, the date of Singapore’s independence 50 years ago.
An extravaganza costing nearly $15m (£9.6m) will take place on the historic Padang – the large field in the middle of the city – as well as on a platform that overlooks the picturesque waterfront where 150,000 people are expected to fill the stands and watch from the city centre.
The show has been put together by 12,000 participants and crew – among the highlights will be 20 fighter jets forming the number 50 in the sky.
Fighter jets were rehearsing their formation ahead of the big day
National Day ‘fun packs’ are being sent to 1.5m households
Companies have also piled in, desperate to be associated with the “feel-good” factor.
Honav Singapore is one small firm hoping to do this. They’ve produced around 300,000 flag-themed temporary tattoos, as well as more than a million mini Singapore flags, erasers and games for the National Day ‘fun packs’.
Around 1.5m of these packs are being distributed free to households and to spectators of the national day parade rehearsal shows over the last few weeks. The fun packs are estimated to have cost the government around $7m, though part of this cost is picked up by sponsors such as Honav Singapore.
Marketing director Marilyn Lim says it’s a chance too for her firm to get more exposure and be associated with a ‘memorable once in a lifetime event’.
SG50 planes, cars and whisky
Jubilee branding has also turned up on Singapore Airline’s A380 planes. Two of these have been flying the globe since July, flanked in the red and white colours of the Singaporean flag with SG50 on the turbochargers of its wings.
Singapore Airlines, who were the first to fly the A380 planes when they debuted in 2007, says one of these flag themed planes will be flying past over the parade on the day.
The airline says that its growth has been so closely linked to the development of Singapore that having the special Singapore-flag themed livery would be a ‘unique way to help celebrate Singapore’s 50th birthday’.
Singapore airlines put the SG50 logo on two of its A380 planes
Even supermarkets are in nationalistic overdrive, trying to sell shoppers everything from 50 grams more bacon and fishcakes shaped in the number 50 for their noodles.
It’s not just Singaporean companies, the fervour has hit big multi-national firms too.
Real patriots can order a bespoke SG50 Rolls Royce. The car company says it is the first time anywhere in the world Rolls-Royce has commissioned a car to commemorate the anniversary of a country.
Price is upon application for the one of a kind Ghost Series II which has hand painted details of Singapore’s famous Merlion – a creature with a lion’s head and fish body .
According to Paul Harris, the regional director of Rolls Royce Motor Cars, they did this because Singapore is an important market for the firm. It had its first Asian dealership there and it is where most of their regional employees are based.
It is one of the “top five markets in Asia for the Ghost Series II” and has a “loyal base of customers dedicated to the brand”, he adds.
The Merlion turns up too on Johnny Walker’s high end Blue Label whisky. Diageo has commissioned 888 gold silk screen printed bottles for the nation’s jubilee. The number 8 is considered a lucky number in Chinese culture as it sounds like the word for ‘wealth’. Gold printing them is an intricate process involving a dedicated staff of up to 10 and curing for 48 hours before it’s shipped off for sale.
The president of Diageo for the region, Sam Fischer, also says that Singapore is an important base for them. It’s where their regional and logistical headquarters is based.
Singapore has “logistics efficiency” and “manufacturing excellence” he says.
“It’s such an important part of Diageo and we felt the need to commemorate such an important occasion for Singapore.”
The true patriot’s dram – Johnny Walker’s special SG50 whisky
Nation branding
But does this sort of patriotic branding work? Brand expert Samir Dixit, managing director of Brand Finance Asia Pacific, says the jury is out.
“Looking at our economic analysis, there’s nothing to suggest that the companies will see any benefit. There’s nothing to say that if they put the SG50 logo on the product, that they will sell more than before or if they are not using it, they will sell less.”
Just how much is too much? SG50 has become so ubiquitous that it’s spawned web sites mocking these efforts.
Search the acronym and you’ll uncover them, including one called ‘Simi Sai, also SG50’ which describes the latest SG50 branding effort and tries to get online users to rate them as ‘sai’ (which translates as ‘rubbish’) or ‘not sai’ (not rubbish).
Singaporeans, too, feel that these SG50 marketing campaigns are aimed not so much at playing up their patriotism, but parting them from their cash.
‘Overdone’ and ‘over the top’ are what most of them said when asked about SG50. Yet many admit that it’s a special time to look back at the nation’s progress as one of the great economic successes of the 20th century.
While the effect on businesses may be limited, there may be some benefit for the nation.
“Events like this put the country through a rejuvenation mode, so that may be good going forward in the next two or three years,” admits Mr Dixit. But he says those economic effects can only accurately be measured after the fact.
So the impact of Singapore’s golden jubilee will most likely only be felt long after the last SG50 signs are taken down.
