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Tag: Vivian Balakrishnan

  • Vivian Balakrishnan: SDP Policies Will Set Singapore On “Path To Greece”

    Vivian Balakrishnan: SDP Policies Will Set Singapore On “Path To Greece”

    Dr Vivian Balakrishnan (photo) did not mince his words when he warned voters that the policies of his opponents from the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) “will set us on our paths to Greece”.

    He and his People’s Action Party team are up against SDP’s team headed by Dr Chee Soon Juan at the polls for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC.

    Dr Balakrishnan went on the offensive, calling for a press conference at the Holland-Bukit Panjang Town Council at Bangkit Road hours after nominations closed yesterday.

    He said of SDP’s policies: “Tax, spend, cut essential services and investments, including defence, that will put our country at risk and ultimately lead to bankruptcy, and a very big bill being passed to our children, not to mention very high levels of taxation.

    “These are not new ideas, these are ideas cut and copied and pasted from other parts of the world, which have failed.

    “In other words, the SDP will set us on the road to Greece and it’s the duty of my team to awaken Singaporeans to the dangers of such policies.”

     

    Source: www.tnp.sg

  • Vivian Balakrishnan: Don’t Be Seduced By Notion That Politicians Can Work Without Incentives

    Vivian Balakrishnan: Don’t Be Seduced By Notion That Politicians Can Work Without Incentives

    Suggestions that politicians can work without incentives is a seductive notion, especially during an election period, says the Minister of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR), Vivian Balakrishnan.

    The minister was speaking at a National Day Rally public forum organised by the government’s feedback outfit, REACH.

    A participant had questioned the honorarium which Members of Parliament (MP) receive – which is S$16,000 a month, or $192,500 annually.

    If an MP sat for the full parliamentary term of five years, he would have been paid almost a million dollars – S$962,000.

    Ministers receive salaries which run into the millions.

    In his response to the question raised at the forum, Dr Vivian said there are only two kinds of people who would work without incentives – those who are wealthy, and those who are corrupt.

    “Don’t be seduced,” he was quoted by the TODAY newspaper as having said. “The danger with elections is it’s an auction. Everybody would promise you the moon. Everybody would say they don’t need pay on the assumption either they don’t need to deliver, or things will go wrong.”

    The amount of honorarium being paid to MPs and the salaries received by ministers have been hot topics for many years, particularly for MPs whom some see as just a part-time job, given that MPs themselves have their own private careers.

    But REACH chairman, Amy Khor, said that being in the industry would help her to contribute more.

    “You have to look at it more broadly,” said Dr Khor, who is also Senior Minister of State for Manpower and Health. “Is the MP contributing as you expect? In fact, if I can do that, and I still can add value because I have a better understanding of what’s going on outside in the real world. Isn’t that giving you more value?”

    In recent weeks, after an online website published a list of the number of times each MP has spoken in the last parliament (2011 – 2015), some were shocked to learn that some MPs had spoken up in the House for only a handful of times in those four years, and questioned the amount of taxpayers’ money paid to these MPs.

    These included former ministers such as Mah Bow Tan and Wong Kan Seng.

    It was also reported that the former Transport Minister, Raymond Lim, had not made a single parliamentary speech since being replaced as Transport Minister in 2011.

    Mr Lim has since announced that he will be retiring from politics at the upcoming elections.

     

    Source: www.theonlinecitizen.com

  • Makansutra Founder Questions Vivian Balakrishnan For Comments On Hawkers

    Makansutra Founder Questions Vivian Balakrishnan For Comments On Hawkers

    Entrepreneur-photojournalist and Makansutra founder, KF Seetoh had commented on a Facebook post that the Parliamentary speech made by Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan on Tuesday, is wrong on many fronts.

    Mr Seetoh wrote on his Facebook page,

    “I wish his scholarly minders in his MEWR would get their ground facts accurately. This is wrong on so many fronts. Firstly, “ingredients from abt 60% of hawkers cost”, leh yao mo kao chor ah! If your food cost is 60%, eh, you long long close shop liao la. If you cannot do below 30%, go be a highly paid civil servant better la. Also, the “progresseive wages for hawker assistants”.. allo, they are already paid way more than your govt mandated $7+ an hour. No takers. Linda Heng is already offering $100 a day for assistant and take up is sluggish and reluctant. The problem is manpower availability, not just about overpaying them. Mana ada orang kereja !

    And please, do not make turn the hawkers into minions out to do community and political favours, they really need to make money too. No wrong there at all. Getting them to feed the poor with low priced meals is ok, many i know will happitly give out free and even big disocunted cost+ meal to the displaced, but offering it cheap across the board to all and sundry, will invariably attract the rich and kiamsiap who will invariably bitch about quality and comfort. Let market rates dictate what they will do, it’s a Sg meritocracy thingie.

    Sure, there is a big chunk of hawkers paying under $400 for rents, but these are hawkers from the President Devan Nair days still managing the old rental structure. The new stalls in decent places are all hovering at 4 figure rents. (they pay up to $3k at Maxwell). And lets see how these indie operators can “help bring the cost of food down” and make the place viable and relevant.

    I am very sad to see the marginalisation of our beloved food culture struggling to grow in our food centres.”

    Mr Seetoh noted that while there is a large number of hawkers paying under $400 for their stall rent, but that is due to the rental structure offered to them during the days of President Devan Nair. He added that the new stalls in prime location are all hovering at 4 figure rents, such as Maxwell food centre at figures up to $3,000.

    He also questions how the new food centre operators can “help bring the cost of food down” for diners, make the place viable and relevant for hawkers.

    Dr Vivian had said in parliament that over 85% of Singapore hawkers today pay less than $1,500 per month in rent, 41% (2,400) of them are paying subsidised rental ranging from $160 to $384. Half of the successful bids are now below 85% of the assessed market rent and that the tendered rentals have been falling and fell by about 3.4% in 2014, and the lowest successful tendered rental is now $1 a month.

    Two appointed hawker operator, NTUC Foodfare and Fei Siong will offer discounted bulk purchasing of ingredients to help hawkers to reduce the cost of raw material. Dr Vivian noted that it is a fact that the cost of ingredients and raw materials is the biggest cost driver for hawkers stalls, not rentals.

    Dr Vivian’s full speech posted on his own Facebook account.

     

    Source: www.theonlinecitizen.com

  • Vivian Balakrishnan Callous To Difficulties Of Ordinary Singaporeans

    Vivian Balakrishnan Callous To Difficulties Of Ordinary Singaporeans

    Dr Vivian Balakrishnan’s response to a complaint by a hawker clearly demonstrated the Minister’s lack of empathy for the difficulties that ordinary Singaporeans face.

    Mr Douglas Ng, a young hawker who sold fishball noodles, had complained about the PAP government setting ceiling prices for hawker food at NTUC-run stalls.

    Mr Ng said that it is unfair to cap prices as basic ingredients are expensive. He wrote in his Facebook: “How can we expect hawkers to make a decent living?”

    But instead of helping him resolve the problem, Dr Balakrishnan said that rental rates of hawker stalls are low. He ignores other costs.

    For example, Mr Ng’s noodle supplier has to pay high rent for his shop (the landlord, by the way, is probably the PAP government) and he is going to pass the cost on to Mr Ng. And what about utilities? Electricity tariffs was raised in June this year and gas tariffs just went up today. Then there is transportation cost. Hawkers and other small businesses need vehicles to ferry their goods and supplies. With COEs at the current rate, how does one run a business and make it profitable?

    To be absolutely clear, these problems are all PAP made.

    And yet, Dr Balakrishnan avoids mentioning them, choosing to tell the young hawker that his rent is low. How does this help Mr Ng who still faces the problem of trying to make a living from hawking?

    Businesses, especially small businesses, are finding it hard to survive because of high shop-rent – much of which is collected by Government-owned real estate conglomerates like MapleTree and CapitaLand.

    The cost from the high rentals is then passed on to the consumer. This is why Singapore has become the most expensive city in the world.

    Yet, we have ministers who live in a world of their own, unable to understand the hardships of the average Singaporean.

    In 2007, for example, when PAP MP Dr Lily Neo pointed out that meals at hawker centres were too expensive for the poor, Dr Balakrishnan haughtily replied: “How much do you want? Do you want three meals in a hawker centre, food court or restaurant? ”

    His colleague Minister for Social and Family Development Mr Tan Chuan Jin mused that some of our elderly poor collected cardboard because they wanted to “exercise”.

    To top it off, Mr Lee Hsien Loong said that Singapore needed “natural aristocrats” without which society would fail. On another occasion, he said it was “not fun”to be poor.

    All these are indicative of the mindset of PAP ministers who, with their astronomical salaries, have become out of touch with – and even callous to – the everyday problems that ordinary Singaporeans face.

    Singapore needs a government that cares.

     

    Source: http://yoursdp.org

  • Residents To Clean Own Neighbourhood On Cleaners’ Day Off

    Residents To Clean Own Neighbourhood On Cleaners’ Day Off

    Cleaners with various town councils this year will be given a day off, with residents instead mobilised to clean up their own neighbourhoods, as part of fresh efforts to tackle the littering scourge.

    The standard of cleanliness in Singapore has fallen, with surveys showing that from 2006 to 2010, the number of litter items collected almost doubling, said Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan in Parliament today (March 11).

    He joined Members of Parliament who spoke at his Ministry’s Committee of Supply debate in calling for greater civic consciousness, as he signalled his resolve to reduce the littering menace.

    Hougang MP Png Eng Huat called for public cleanliness posters, jingles and banners of decades past to be “recycled” this Jubilee year to drive home the message to the community to keep their surroundings clean.

    Dr Balakrishnan said campaigns have never stopped. “I think what has changed is behaviour and perhaps our propensity to enforce in the past. But now that we have changed onto a higher enforcement posture, and with more volunteers and with everyone being prepared to exert peer pressure, I’m determined to make a difference on the ground as far as littering is concerned,” he said.

    Several new ways to address the littering problem here include equipping enforcement officers with body-worn cameras to document abusive behaviour of litterbugs, providing more training to volunteers, and encouraging organisers to involve participants in cleaning up after major events.

     

    Source: www.todayonline.com