Synopsis
In the May 2006 General Election, in order to win back opposition wards the ruling party’s ballyhoo was a promise to throw out hundred millions dollars to upgrade the public-housing in the wards to impinge on the constituents to vote them. The upgrading projects include face-lift, improved amenities and lifts to stop on each floor. The oppositions were ostracized for not having the wherewithal to fund the projects. They clamored vehemently the ruling party’s repugnant “hanging carrots” strategy by tying upgrading with election to vitiate their chance, claiming the ruling party using tax payers’ money to achieve political advantage and upbraided the ruling party that their constituents also paying tax why resorted to discriminate people in Singapore between opposition and ruling party camps. In the election, the unrapacious two opposition wards’ constituents were disenchanted by the blandishments. They foiled the “carrot” plot and annexation by the ruling party. It panned out that of the entire voting constituents, 66.6% chose the ruling party. After the election, the PM hailed to close ranks that got rave review.
Soon after, the minister in charge of upgrading housing projects pronounced the ruling party wards will be ahead of opposition wards on upgrading, and regardless of party concern, all public-housing upgrading projects in Singapore will be completed in 2015. This aroused the oppositions and concerned Singaporeans writing to the paper, leery of the capricious government on the one hand, hailing close ranks, and the other harboring divisive inclination.
In his reply, the minister claimed the government in deed had taken care of basic needs, and upgrading was something premium to these needs, and funded out of Budget surpluses generated by the ruling party. He insisted to fulfill the promise of those voted for the ruling party, and with the HDB-priority policy, Singaporeans’ votes would make a difference to their own lives in the HDB estates. “Only then can our system of democracy work. Only then can we stay together, and move ahead.”(The Straits Times/Forum 17 June 2006).
Paradox 1 -the benefits of upgrading
The benefits of upgrading are always inordinately overblown. There is no qualm about an upgraded estate valued more than those not upgraded. There are two kinds of benefit associated with external upgrading. First, it is the ambience benefit, gardening of the surrounding morphing a soothing realm; exercise ground for residents to upkeep their health; Children playground to exhaust the ebullient kids; Shelter to provide cover for rain and sunshine. The second benefit is pecuniary, making a windfall in a reselling market or upgrade to private property.
Let examine first the second benefit. Unless you are deft at investment like one of my friends held two properties and made a fortune and now lives in semi-detached house. The up in value probably concern you little if you have to live in it and you cannot afford to upgrade to more prestigious. My friend’s fortune was also on condition that he purchased in the very early day when public-housing was heavily subsidized. And now most public-housing are pegged to the market value. The latter incumbents gain measly little in price differential when pondering to upgrade. Secondly, in the boom day of late nineties, dint of upgrading as “carrot” to attract legion of followers is propitious. But now the residential and shop house of HDB property supplies are in excess, the so-called advantage is rather creaky.
As to the external ambience benefit, the time and frequency you spend in it is in tandem with the benefit you received. I am doubtful working adults grade this as primary benefit. Building the shelter in the estate is good; the big fluff is the design does not offer egress hitching to the external network such as to the bus stop. It is fudge. You get the aesthetics but not practicality.
For lift to stop on every floor is a double-edged sword, it gives the convenience especially to old folks and handicapped; however, unlike commercial buildings cater many lifts for passenger use, the building owners can afford to weave the lifts into a complex system incorporating intelligent functions to achieve spontaneous, flexible and optimal sense and response.
At present, the intractable problem is we do not have such smart lift in public-housing; you find it is a gnawing and frustrating experience early in the morning if you are living at 20 floor. When you are going for work; perversely, everyone is rushing for work at the same time, the lift stops at every floor. The lift door opens and closes at every floor until you reach first floor. This frustrating experience dampens your mood when you reach office. I hope this is an extreme case. My own experience of the tardy response is when I press button outside at 12 floor; the lift at nine floor cannot choose to pick me up at the most adjacent landing floor because the stupid lift responded first to the insider calling.
We had our upgrading a year ago, surprisingly; the lifts were not changed to stop on every floor. Do we have to pay again for the second upgrading because lift to stop at every floor was oblivious a year ago? It is enigma of pivotal project likes this, the accounts of upgrading projects were not elucidated to the public whether the balance is in excess or deficit; presumably the Audit General has taken care of this job. Transparency minimizes surprise when something untoward sporadically crop up.
The upgrading of wet market is another botch up, the wet market in our precinct; old market was demolished to make way for the new one. The lethal blow was many stallholders of the old market could not continue their businesses, because the rental for the new market was too high to make a living. It is satire even those who eked out with their businesses, have stopped now. The whole new market has closed down now for a month for unknown reason. Probably cannot afford the rental hike. No wonder when I read the election news, the hawkers in the opposition ward did not want to upgrade, they knew the conundrum well that upgrading meant rental hike. Their small business margin will be completely wiped out for the sharp rise of rental. The morass is it is difficult to pass the hike to consumer, because residents may go to other near-by wet markets.
Paradox 2- Budget surplus
It is an old adage in any organization, “Spend your entire budget surplus or to your disadvantage”. In the traditional budgeting system, someone with sanity likes to build slacks into the budgeting system. First, it has to get through the first cut from the Comptroller. Second, why makes own life difficult? It is not your own money, who care? I learnt these pitfalls twenty years ago when I studied management Accounting. The improved budgeting system many leading MNCs are using now is also palliative, not a panacea.
Public sector budgeting system is large in size, and operating in the same theory and malleable to the same behavioral problem. But I am quite perplexed as to who own the surplus? In the private sector, anything not spent will become shareholder equity. There is little nuance to the meaning of this residue for public sector.
The controversies arose from the evolvement of the ideology of the ruling party. Way back decades ago, if you are not oblivious, after the second generation political leader took over office, the first generation political leader did not want his successor to splurge the huge surpluses he accumulated. Understandably, he erected a framework to restrict the use of the reserves. The second generation political leader vowed not to use it and only spent the surpluses out of his tenure. These surpluses became annual give-away for the past few years when the economy was in the doldrums. And his successor the third generation leader even generous handed out progress-package of more than two billion dollars before the election. The opposition derided the so-called progress package tantamount to obsequious, pandering to the voters. The ruling party denied profusely. Few Singaporeans really rejected this quick money. The answer to who own these surpluses is if it is owned by the people of Singapore, the progress package can be construed as special dividends return to the shareholders in private sector’s sense? The real substance is the redistribution of wealth.
The big question now is the minister claimed that the surplus is “earned” by the ruling party and they have the final say how to spend it. The claim is the continued evolvement of the ideology of surpluses accumulated under whose own bat; and a step further ensnared in the web of party origin. I am not quite convinced by the frailty logic. The government pegs the ministerial pay akin to private sector; certainly we want to benchmark against the private sector. Can management tell shareholders that they have “earned” a budget surplus; therefore they have the final say what to use of the fund? I have not heard of any cases like that.
To avoid management derelict of duty, secretly spend away the surplus and motivate management to achieve greater efficiency, a best practice company is willing to share this surplus with the management in terms of higher compensation. The shareholder probably says, “I compensate you adequately. Thanks for managing the budget for me. You cannot shirk your responsibilities to pare down the expenditures.” By any of the peer standard in the world, our ministerial pay is among the top five, can I suffice to say the cabinet is adequately compensated and it is their duty rather basking in bargaining or negotiating of the residual money they saved. Besides rewarding, other reliable tools include mimicking the private sector’s resounding corporate governance practice appeal to individual integrity, professional ethics and checks and balances.
I appreciate government adopting efficiency measures, such as share services. I think most governments in developed countries are doing the same--adopting best practices in public services. Among the most successful public services are the e-services, achieving good ranking in the world.
Nowadays, to achieve budget surplus, is much easier than before. In the early days (In the sixties and seventies), our economy pie was small, the first generation political leaders ran many heavily subsidized basic need services to the public; such as HDB flats, medical services. All these ate into government budgets. Much older generation Singaporeans scrimp and save from rags to riches are stoical, enamored to show their gratitude to the first generation political leaders. The bond ties with their hardship.
And now Singaporean is more affluent than in the old days. Mindsets have changed. Though the corporate tax and personal income tax rate have reduced, the broader based GST which based on consumption largely compensated for the shortfall. The goal of the government mutates into running the country like a large corporation. Price the services and goods to the market; such as pegging the housing price with the private estates; reduced subsidies for medical services. Lop off community services to the public; All things being equal, if the economy pies grow, so do the budget surpluses.
The party’s right to the surpluses is rather mendacity. If it is true, the president of the United States Mr George W. Bush is basking in Mr Bill Clinton favour-- the budget surplus he leftover, or in a strictest sense, the Republican in the US owes the Democrat the budget surplus Mr Bill Clinton Government left behind. Bush government is overweening, does not know to accumulate surplus in good times. He proposed permanent tax cut coupled with the ballooning expenses of the Iraq war now hit a snag with no end in sight; certainly the budget deficit will snowball. When the business cycle turn the corner, i.e. passes its peak, the systemic risks will be looming large. Current account deficit is pertaining to trading and investment. Although it is unhealthy is still sustainable in the short run, because there are factors underpinning the deficit which cannot change in a short time frame. Budget deficit is contagious, breaching the bulwark of every element in the economy and precipitating the business cycle. The only help in current account deficit to budget deficit is government bonds which stave off the needs to printing monies. It is even propitious but not without risk if the bond holding parties are foreign governments. When the US sneezes, the world catches cold. Back to the discourse, I am leery of the assertion that any country in the world claims party’s rights to budget surplus.
Paradox 3-the “premium” theory
It is again a very controversial topic as there is no precedent; or it must be a doubtful provenance that government divides their services into basic need services and premium services. “Everyone will get basic need services and only those voted for the ruling party will get premium services, and that is called “democracy” . My God! It is a hidebound view. The underlying assumption of this warped judgment is no one else knows except me how to provide these services and therefore are proprietary rather than the fact of who is controlling the distribution of the resources and have the final say. The worst scenario I think is bad for Singapore is a aggrandizing, impervious to criticisms, brash, intransigent ruling party (too strong and complacent), too weak the opposition party and too dependent the Singaporean. The so called premium is brittle. Many best practices we borrowed from other countries we diligently do it to consummate is a cinch, is imitable. This kind of value creation is not sustainable in long term. So, the so-called upgrading as premium services only befogged me.
Paradox 4--statistics puzzle
The statistical puzzle is about the eligible voter voted for ruling party was 66.6%. I might be wrong I scored a C grade only for Business statistics 25 years ago. Of the 56.48% voting constituents in Singapore 66.6% voted for ruling party. It means 56.48% multiples by 66.6%. I get only about 37.28% of the voting population voted yes to ruling party. The rest of the 43.52% walk-over population is unknown statistically their voting inclination. I think it is seriously inaccurate to take a portion of the voting population as a national whole. My wild conjecture for the national wide voter supporting the ruling party is in the range of 55% to 70%. It is apposite to say that if not some unpopular and repellent events cropped up damaging the public image of the ruling party, probably the percentage of the supporters to the ruling party would be higher. Percentage wise is a representation, the pliable people’s moods could have a wild swing in the last minute even most received the progress package. Tough talk and aggressiveness could be construed as assertive, do it at the right time, right place, for the right reason and saying it rightly could yield tremendous results. Certainly the election results reflected otherwise.
Paradox 5- the talents search
My constituency was a walk-over, if I have a choice to vote, I am not sure I will vote for the ruling party? What truly concern me most is to back to the work force. I still can’t find a job after the economy recovered. Only know how to write this freebie benefit those earning million dollars “act blur parties”. The author evinces imbecile, isn’t it?
Our estate has upgraded, but it doesn’t change my life very much, because it is external uplift. I continue to burnish and upgrade myself to the minute to provide prospective employers bonus service. If I can think better, why there is none really appreciating my talent? Our society cannot move forward, because everyone is craving only to draw the same round pie, not any bigger (more value-added). Taking upgrading as an issue reflect this deterministic mindset. They look for what have been done, decided before and taking people who can draw even rounder pie.
I read “Forced Ranking” (published by Harvard Business School Press) with interest. The author advocates talent management using force ranking, categorizing talents in the organization into A, B and C. For those with the C grade, it is either buck up or get out. It seems ruthless. The inner competition in the organization is very keen, everyone stretches to their utmost to achieve good grade probably matches American individualistic society. And I think it too, will improve organization performance .But the crucial part of it is the yardsticks to categorize people reflecting deterministic or dynamic, forward looking component that decide the real success of the organization.
