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Tag: The Workers’ Party

  • Workers’ Party Walkabout Coverage – ST Sabotage?

    Workers’ Party Walkabout Coverage – ST Sabotage?

    Dear SGHardtruth

    When I first saw the report by ST showing Workers Party walkabout at Rivervale Plaza on Sunday morning, my immediate thought was, how can ST purposely show Workers Party going about collecting donation? Isn’t that a smear campaign?

    Video source – ST

    I was infuriated. I mean how can ST, being a national news agency have such an anti-opposition stance? Is ST, like what most people say, a PAP’s mouth piece?

    So, I decided to check out WP’s Facebook to refute ST.

    But when I saw the photo posted by WP, I am speechless. So WP’s walkabout is about…Selling their paper and asking for donations. So this is not the usual walkabout to interact with residents. Because if they are busy selling their newspaper and raising fund, they won’t have time to have a sincere talk with residents isn’t it?

    So disappointing.

    Jim Seow

     

    Source;

  • WP’s Lee Li Lian To Continue To Serve In Punggol East SMC

    WP’s Lee Li Lian To Continue To Serve In Punggol East SMC

    Member of Parliament (MP) for Punggol East Lee Li Lian has said she will continue to serve her residents in the Punggol East Single Member Constituency, in response to queries from Channel NewsAsia following the release of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee report yesterday (July 24).

    She also said that addressing the residents’ concerns is her top priority. Ms Lee was speaking after a tea session with her residents, saying that she was not really shocked at the boundary changes.

    According to the report, the opposition wards including Punggol East were left untouched. Ms Lee also said the Workers’ Party is currently studying the report carefully before making any statements.

    Ms Lee won the Punggol East by-election in 2013 with 54.5 per cent of the vote against People’s Action Party candidate, Dr Koh Poh Koon.

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

  • Workers’ Party Youth Wing Forum SG100 Conference

    Workers’ Party Youth Wing Forum SG100 Conference

    As Singapore celebrates her golden jubilee, the Workers’ Party Youth Wing calls on fellow young Singaporeans to share their dreams and aspirations for the next 50 years. More than a dozen young Singaporeans will offer their personal views on Singapore’s future development in three panel discussions. We hope to create a forum for conversation on alternate paths for Singapore — to paint a shared vision and provide inspiration to shaping Singapore’s future to realise community ownership and citizen participation. We hope to provide the catalyst for deeper discussion on the Singapore we want in 2065 and the roadmap to get there. Together, we can build a nation that we can be proud of calling home for generations to come.

    Venue: The Agora, Midview City, no. 18, Sin Ming Lane
    Date: Saturday, 22nd August
    Time: 1pm to 5pm, registration begins at 12pm, doors will close at 12.55pm
    Enquiries: [email protected]

    This event is open to everyone.

    Pre-registration is required due to limited seating capacity at the venue. Pre-registration begins 20th July. Please check back here.

    Programme

    1pm: Opening Statement by WP Youth Wing President Daniel Goh
    1.10pm: Session 1 – Super Urban Singapore (VISION)
    2pm: Session 2 – Community & Heritage (OWNERSHIP)
    2.50pm: Tea Break Session and Art Competition Voting
    3.20pm: Session 3 – Participating in Our Identity (PARTICIPATION)
    4.20pm: Summation and Q&A
    4.40pm: Closing Remarks

    Information about the panellists and their presentation titles will be made available closer to the date

    Session Abstracts

    Super Urban Singapore

    Several major developments that are being planned for the next few decades will transform Singapore’s cityscape. Paya Lebar Airbase and Keppel Port will be relocated, opening up prime land for redevelopment. The current government projects the population will hit 6.9 million in 2030 and is planning to further build up Singapore to accommodate the influx of migrants. By 2065, the 99-year lease clock would be ticking for many HDB estates, where over 80 per cent of Singapore live. The extensive redevelopment of our old heartland regions beckons, as is already happening in old estates such as Queenstown. Would we see the island dominated by 50-storey HDB flats with sky gardens to match the towering skyscrapers of the downtown district? Would most of us live, work, love and shop underground, turning street-front living into a luxury good? What are the environmental, social, cultural and political implications? What should we do to co-create our vision of a super-urban Singapore?

    Community and Heritage
    We frequently use the term “community” in our public debates to refer to stakeholders in policy and political matters. The government regularly calls upon communities to act on a social problem or for the government to act on, and sometimes both. However, are communities empowered to act or by the government’s action? What forms a community and how can a community be empowered with ownership to realise its social aims and aspirations? SG50 has seen an outpouring of commemoration of Singapore’s heritage, which is seen as intimately connected to communities. The Botanic Gardens was recently inscribed as our first UNESCO world heritage site, a place of significant combined natural-cultural heritage. This island that we call home has more cultural capital than we realise. But are we able to go beyond nostalgia and buildings to value cultural traditions and values as our living heritage and use these cultural assets to foster community ownership as we head to SG100?

    Participating in Our Identity
    National identity is represented in the culture, language, traditions, history and politics of the people. It is the sense of the nation as a whole, a description and a proposition expressing a strong sense of belonging and belief amongst the people. Our Singaporean identity has developed strong roots over the past fifty years and continues to evolve. What are the main features of our identity and what foreseeable evolution of our identity in the next fifty years can we expect and should embrace? What challenges to our identity do we face and are there gaps we need to fill? One key foundation for national identities around the world is political culture—the values, institutions and practices associated with governance to keep the country running and secure. Is our political culture solid and stable enough to support our identity? How are we, as citizens, going to participate in the political process and shape our identity?

     

    SG100 Art Comp

     

    Source: http://wpyouth.sg/sg100

  • Workers’ Party: Authorities Should Take More Enforcement Action Against Errant Rail Operators

    Workers’ Party: Authorities Should Take More Enforcement Action Against Errant Rail Operators

    The Workers’ Party is deeply worried over the 3.5 hour disruption of train services along the entire stretch of both the North-South and East-West MRT lines on 7 July 2015. The severe inconvenience caused to an estimated quarter-of-a-million commuters during the evening rush hour makes this the most serious MRT disruption in Singapore’s history.

    The latest breakdown comes on the heels of repeated assurances by both SMRT and the authorities about the improved reliability of our transport system. Yet, the number of significant train delays reached an all-time high of 12 in 2014 and stands at 8 in 2015. This is despite billions of dollars of government funds being pumped into improving the existing MRT infrastructure since 2011.

    Even as the LTA and SMRT work together with their engineers and external consultants to identify the precise cause of the breakdown, we find it particularly troubling that two of our country’s main rail lines can be fully disrupted by what appears to be an electrical fault. This raises questions about our transport system’s resilience, particularly as such a system-wide failure could have repercussions on our nation’s economic and national security interests.

    We call on the authorities to enforce a more rigorous maintenance regime on the rail network, with effective measures in place to ensure that commuters’ interests take precedence over corporate profits. For key performance indicators (KPIs) such as the number of unscheduled train withdrawals per 100,000 train kilometres and the number of service delays exceeding 30 minutes, concrete targets must be set and disclosed to the public.

    In the meantime, engineering and front-line staff should also be provided with proper support by their employers to ensure that they are equipped to handle any similarly challenging situations in the future. Their efforts and tireless work – many working through the night – should be recognised, and we would like to express our appreciation for their hard work.

    THE WORKERS’ PARTY
    9 July 2015

  • Gerald Giam: Caught In The NSEW Line Breakdown

    Gerald Giam: Caught In The NSEW Line Breakdown

    I was caught in the massive breakdown of the North-South and East-West Line (NSEWL) of the MRT yesterday evening as I was heading to a meeting at the WP HQ in Jalan Besar. When I reached Dover station at about 7.05pm, the eastbound train was already at the platform but with all its cabin lights off. I got onto the train anyway, but waited almost 5 minutes before it finally moved off. The westbound train on the opposite track was similarly stalled. My train stopped midway to the next station and all its lights went out again. This pattern was to repeat itself several more times over the next 25 minutes. When I reached Outram Park station at about 7.35pm, the lights in the train went out a final time and we were told to detrain as it was no longer in service.

    The PA system announcements at the station informed us that train service on the entire NSEWL had been suspended and free shuttle buses were available. So I exited the station thinking I could hop onto one of the buses. Big mistake! The street level was packed with people and there were no buses to be seen and no directional signs to guide the stranded commuters. Someone asked me where the buses were. I told him honestly that I had no idea.

    Knowing that it would be pointless to attempt taking a cab, I headed back down to the station, against the flow of the crowd, hoping to get in again and take the North-East Line (NEL). But all the fare gates were closed and I was told by an SMRT staff that I had to exit and walk around the station to get into the NEL entrance. I finally boarded the NEL and arrived at my meeting almost half an hour late.

    I consider myself fortunate that I was able to hop onto the NEL. The guy sitting next to me on the East-West Line train (before it stopped at Outram) said that he was heading to his home in Simei. I think he, like hundreds of thousands of other commuters, probably got home much later than usual.

    This 3.5 hour service disruption, which happened simultaneously on the two busiest MRT lines during the Tuesday evening rush hour, was probably the most serious service disruption ever. I had flashbacks to November 2011, when I had another close shave — I just missed getting on one of the trains from City Hall station that was to eventually stall in the middle of the tunnel.

    According to SMRT and LTA, the outage was due to a power fault. Preliminary investigations found that a faulty train could have caused the power to trip. I find it astonishing that a fault with a single train could cause power to be cut to trains at all 58 stations on the NSEWL. Is there so little redundancy in the system? Or are all the circuits strung together in series like a cheap set of Christmas tree lights?

    As of the time of this writing, it is still unclear if the MRT service will be available in time for the Wednesday morning rush hour. SMRT has already advised commuters to make alternative travel plans. Both the Minister for Transport and LTA have come out to apologise for the breakdown and demanded that the faults be investigated and rectified. That is little comfort for the quarter-of-a-million or so commuters who suffered this massive inconvenience and frustration.

    The Commission of Inquiry (COI) into the November 2011 MRT disruptions had identified maintenance (or lack thereof) as a key cause of the multiple breakdowns then. Now, almost 4 years later, with a new CEO at the helm who promised to focus more on engineering and maintenance capabilities, we seem to be back to square one. What can we expect moving forward? Another COI?

     

    Source: http://geraldgiam.sg