Aline K. Wong
Singapore
“The ENABLE (Encouraging Achievement and Better Learning) programme gives additional support to those who are not achieving their potential. Our curriculum has given more emphasis to critical and creative thinking skills.”
“Can I just take one more second on the waiting list because Mr Ahmad Magad mentioned that the waiting list is long? There are 18 SPED schools now which cater to about 4,000 children. Of the 18 SPED schools, eight have waiting lists.”
“Sir, I am sure the Member in his meet-the-people sessions has also encountered cases where some families pleaded for priority to be admitted on grounds of, say, the child's sickness, or that the mother is working and is unable to bring the child to school, or that the grandparent cannot manage to take care of so many grandchildren.”
“I think he did not hear what I say. For both of these families, someone who lives within one kilometre or next door and someone who lives right on the border of this one kilometre, or of any delineation you choose to draw, my point is that for both of them, this is their nearest school.”
“Principals, as part of their duties, are always alert to what is happening in the school. They have also been given guidelines, in the Principals' Handbook, on discipline and the code of conduct which is expected of the teachers and staff members. But having said that, all these things are not foolproof.”
“It will continue to stagger the rental increase to market levels for assignment of tenancies, subletting cases and for tenants who are renewing their tenancies for the third time. Shop lessees can also apply to convert to shorter leases to reduce the cost of servicing their mortgage loans.”
The complete record
Every one of 777 lines we hold for Aline K. Wong, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 13 of 16.
“Sir, I beg to move, That the total sum to be allocated for Head M of the Main Estimates be reduced by $100. Sir, since FY83, there have been significant changes in the budget allocation to the different programmes of the Ministry of the Environment. In 1983, the sewerage programme accounted for 43% of the Ministry's total expenditure, while Drainage accounted for only 13%. For FY 88, it is estimated that Drainage's share will go up to 41%, whereas Sewerage will go down to 28%. These shifts are easily understandable in view of the completion of major sewerage schemes and sewage treatment works, while the implementation of major drainage schemes has started since FY85. But what I find somewhat puzzling is the pattern of recurrent expenditure. The relative allocation to the different programmes has remained unchanged over the last five years. The picture presented by the Chart on page 349 of this Budget document shows a very static picture indeed. Maybe the Minister can help to explain this pattern. Normally, the pattern of budget allocation reflects the direction of a Ministry's work. In fact, budget allocations are instruments for promoting a Ministry's work in certain directions. I am particularly interested in the direction in which the Environmental Health Programme is going to take in the future. Sir, it is well known that a rising standard of living will bring an increasing volume of domestic refuse, and also a growing economy will result in increasing volumes of industrial and trade wastes. Apart from volume, it is also a question of the composition of the wastes. Last year, my GPC member, the Member for Boon Teck, raised the question of the composition and the content of the refuse.”
“This can be achieved within 5-7 years. When the Minister for labour made an announcement on the long term of CPF contribution rates, I asked him what is the time span for achieving the long-term target. I think to myself it would be 5-7 years. This gradual increse of CPF contribution rates for both sides has several merits. It would enable the employer to plan properly for the increasing labour cost and take the necessary measures. Secondly, this will also increase the take-home pay of the employees after lower CPF deduction. This may in turn stimulate domestic consumption expenditure. When our economy was in recession, we cut down the employer's contribution rate drastically from 25% to 10%. Yet, when our economy has fully recovered now we still have not made some adjustments towards the employer's original contribution rate. This does not reflect well in terms of kindness or reasonableness. We have told our workers that we were forced to cut down the employer's contribution rate because of recession. Now that our economy is in better shape, we should raise the employer's rate to some extent. This is a matter of our credibility. We should keep our promise to the workers so as to gain their trust on us. The Minister said when the result of the first quarter's economic performance is known, a decision on CPF rate will be made. I would remind the Finance Minister that there are 15 days left and may be after one month we will know the result. So there is very little time. I would stress that the earlier the matter is resolved the better. Thank you.”
“However, we should realize that the regain of our competitiveness is partly because the currencies of Taiwan and South Korea have appreciated against the US dollar. And the dependence of other NICs on the US market has been greater than ours. So we have to ask ourselves why under these circumstances that these other NICs have been able to achieve better economic performance than us in spite of the greater odds against them. Hong Kong had a growth rate of 13%, South Korea 12%, Taiwan 11.6%. Why is it so? From the Budget Statement I can see that our economic development in the future will have these several directions: (A) The question of solving labour problems: This includes policy on foreign labour, increasing labour productivity and quality of labour. (B) The question of wage structure: This pertains to the enhancement of wage flexibility, encouraging more employers to implement a more flexible wage system and thus making our economy more effective and quicker responses to any changing external demand conditions or other exogeneous factors on our economy. (C) Reducing Government sector, statutory bodies and the public enterprises' role in our economy. This is in line with the steps to privatize public enterprises. (D) the divesification of our economy, particularly in the development of services sector and the promotion of overseas investments. All these are deserving of our support. However, there is one point I would like to emphasize is that we should not make use of CPF contribution as stablization tool of our economy. As we already have the long-term objectives for CPF contributions, we should see how should employer's CPF contribution be increased to 20% and that the employees' contribution be lowered to 20% as soon as possible.”
“Now we are in the midst of an anti-smoking campaign, I wonder why the Minister has not given full support to this campaign by raising the tax on tobacco by a large magnitude. I think the increase of levy on foreign workers are for three reasons: (1) to bring close the differential between the wages of the foreign workers and Singaporean workers so as to protect the interest of local workers; (2) to reflect the social and economic costs brought to us by foreign workers; and (3) to gradually decrease our employers' dependence on foreign workers. The Member for Potong Pasir also admitted that there are social problems associated with foreign workers and cautioned that we should not depend on foreign workers in the long run. I do not know why now he is against the increase in levy on foreign workers. These are rather contradictory. I understand that many employers are not also much unhappy about the levy increase on foreign workers although it would be better if there were no increase. What they are not happy about is their applications for additional foreign workers are usually turned down by the Government. This is a question of 'quantity' versus 'price' of foreign workers. Should the Government only interfere with the price or interfere only with the quantity of foreign workers? We can debate further on this when we come to the Committee of Supply on Ministry of Labour. Last year, our economic performance was very good. The growth rate was 8.8% and there were 66,000 jobs being created. The unemployment rate had gone down by 2.8%. Moreover, we have been able to regain our competitiveness vis-a-vis other NIC countries. Compared with them, our unit labour cost had also regained its position of 1981.”
“The form of supervision they need is actually minimal. We understand actually the schools are also under some kind of financial guidelines. So they could not even afford jagas to open the school fields for use by community centres and such like. But here we suggest that actually the Finance Minister could help the Ministry of Education to engage some retired teachers who might be willing to take up this minimal task of supervising children in some empty classrooms in the schools, students who are entrusted with care by their parents for that special purpose. I think RC centres can also be opened in the day-time where qualified paid personnel can provide such supervision to the children also. These and other kinds of programmes can be financially supported from the money collected for the foreign maid levy. And so in this way, the budget of the Ministry of Community Development for developing child care centres which have already been committed to them should not be taken away. I think this money can also be used to help the Institute of Education to really train large numbers of qualified child care centre staff so that, in fact, when the infrastructure is ready, we will also have the manpower. Dr Ow Chin Hock (Leng Kee)( In Mandarin): Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, I fully support the Motion by the Minister for Finance. Some people say that the Budget is not exciting enough. But I hope every year the Budget will be as dull. Others say sthe budget is a painless one, apart from taxes on tobacco and levy on foreign workers, there is no other increase in taxes. The impact on smokers is minimal as tobacco companies will be able to absorb the small margin of increase.”
“It used to be said that the real, long-term solution to help working mothers with young children is to have more child care centres. I suggest that the need for more child care centres is immediate, because women find themselves in a real dilemma. And I believe the Government understands the women's dilemma. The Finance Minister is even considerate enough not to have raised the foreign maid levy this year,although many people expressed their concern before the announcement of the Budget that they thought the levy might be raised. However, the amount of foreign maid levy, even at the present rate, collected by the Government must amount to a staggering $4.8 million every month, assuming that a great majority of the 40,000 maids are subject to the $120 levy. This money should be put to good use. Use it for expanding the child care support services which are far better solutions. One of the suggestions by the SCWO is that the foreign maid levy should be specifically targetted at providing such services, just in the same way as the 3% cess for food and beverages is earmarked for tourism promotion. It is not good enough that this money should disappear into the Consolidated Fund. Earmark it for the development of child care support services to show the Government's commitment. Child care support services are not confined to the setting up of creches alone. Here I would like to come to my final point. I think there should be a full range of programmes. One example is providing supervision and care to schooling children before and after school hours. Before all the schools can be converted to full day schools, we have this problem of giving the children some form of supervision and care before and after the school hours while their parents are still at work.”
“As indicated in the Ministry of Labour's reply to a letter in the Forum page of the Straits Times, on 8th March 1988 there are almost as many maids here as in Hong Kong which has more than double our population. This year, Sir, when I was marking my first year Sociology students' examination scripts, I found to my great shock that in every single answer to a question on the changing functions of the family, a reference was made to the use of maids for child care. This may simply mean that the students are aware of the presence of foreign maids who are, after all, easily identifiable, are seen about, and in fact are often the focus of social conversation among adults. But if this represents the young people's expectation of relying on maids when they themselves become parents, Sir, I think we would be in deep trouble. It used to be only a small minority of rich families could afford to have and did have maids. Now, the middle class and the lower middle class are able to afford foreign maids. In itself, there is nothing wrong with more and more people being able to afford maids, and many cases of appeal brought to us in our meet-the-people sessions for work permits to be given to foreign maids are cases of genuine need. What is problematic is the fact that having large number of foreign maids in our midst may bring all kinds of social problems in future, if not at present already. Families which have maids become easily dependent, physically and psychologically, on maids for doing those things which used to be performed by the family members for themselves and which helped to bind the family members emotionally closer to each other. I think the problem involved is obvious and I do not need to belabour this point.”
“The people who were sent to take this course were again sponsored either by their companies or by NTUC. Only in these cases are the companies or NTUC entitled to have the grants given out by the SDF. So the question is: if housewives, full-time mothers, want to re-enter the labour force, how can they benefit from this scheme? I would urge the Finance Minister to think of innovative methods whereby housewives, women who spend full-time taking care of children could be encouraged to come back to the labour force. For working women, adequate child care arrangement is not easy to solve. Given the fact that most grandparents now live some distance away from the couple, the carting of children back and forth to grandparents every day and on schedule poses a tremendous strain on the child and the parents. One popular method resorted to among young couples is to foster out their young children either to the grandparents or to an unrelated person over the entire week, or sometimes over the entire year for several years. This has a tremendous impact on the child's development as well as on the parent-child relationship. In fact, one of my GPC members raised a question for oral answer by the Acting Minister for Health on whether any study had been done on the effect of fostering out children on their emotional and mental health. We also know that child abuse is associated with the parents' difficulty in re-adjusting to children who have been fostered out for a long time. Many parents, as a matter of preference, and if they can afford to, now turn to employing maids. But this brings other kinds of problems, Sir. The question of having 40,000 foreign maids working and living in our midst is a serious one.”
“Again, although a person can claim some income tax exemption for course fees, such exemption is granted only for courses related to existing business, trade, or employment, as specified in the income tax returns. So the point is quite clear. Ways and means must be found to encourage women who dropped out from the labour force to re-enter. The question of company sponsorship must be re-considered and the definition of skills training must also be revised. With regard to this issue of skills training, let me again talk about the problem of the women who stay out of the workforce for a number of years - and this may take up to anything between 8 and 10 years if a woman has three children. The problems that these women face are not only in terms of skills and experience, but they face a substantial barrier, a psychological barrier. They lack the self-confidence, they lack the kind of communication skills that would enable them to even succeed in going for an interview and getting and holding on to a job. Last year, the National Productivity Board conducted a course called "Core Skills for Effectiveness and Change", the acronym of which is COSEC. It was supposed to be a pilot course and it contained six modules, ranging from such topics as communication skills, computer literacy, training in concepts of quality, excellence and productivity. On the surface, this kind of course would seem to be very suitable for women who lack the kind of self-confidence and who face this psychological barrier that I was talking about. If they take this course, they might be able to feel encouraged to go back to the labour force. But the same problem appears here as in other courses sponsored by the SDF fund.”
“But in my view, the sick child leave could be increased to, say, 7 days a year if it is shared out among the husband and wife who work in Government service. As compared to extending paternity leave to men, I believe that the extension of sick child leave, especially when it is shared out between men and women, would not be so prohibitive in terms of costs, while it would be a step in the right direction to encourage joint responsibilities in child-caring between husbands and wives, fathers and mothers. Another important point brought out by the SCWO is that most of the present population incentives are directed at working women. What about the full-time mothers who stay home to give full-time care to the children? No doubt, they are able to benefit from such things as the normal child relief, priority school registration for the third child and HDB priority for bigger flats, yet the opportunity costs to women who give up their jobs to take care of their children are not recognized. And when these women want to re-enter the labour force after years of child-raising, they face tremendous problems in finding employers. They would have missed out not only in terms of job experience, but also in terms of opportunities for skills upgrading. The point is obvious when we consider the conditions for training and retraining presently provided by the Skills Development Fund. Under the present rules, workers must be sponsored by the company to take courses which are eligible for the SDF grants. But since full-time housewives, by definition, are not working, how can they benefit from such schemes?”
“It is time we think in terms of joint-parenting rather than solo-mothering. Children need both parents and fathers should be involved in bringing up their children as much as their wives. So I agree with the women's groups that Home Economics should be taught to both boys and girls. I am glad to learn that the Ministry of Education has recently made known - I think it was reported in the press - that now there are enough teachers of Home Economics to cater to girls. So the next step is we should have more teachers of Home Economics to cater to boys. Apart from the question of promoting the idea of joint responsibility, some practical measures are necessary to enable the men to share childcare responsibilities with their wives. One such practical measure, as suggested in the SCWO paper, is the extension of the sick child leave scheme which is now available to female civil servants but which can be extended to include men in the Civil Service as well. Since the sick child leave scheme for working mothers is considered to be disruptive by heads of personnel departments - I have heard feedback on this sort of opinion - this scheme is seen to be disruptive even though the costs of such leave are borne by the Government. So it is likely to put female employees at a disadvantage, as far as hiring and promotion are concerned. But if this scheme is extended to both men and women, then the departments are not doubly inconvenienced because it is unlikely that husbands and wives work in the same department. As to the financial implications or the question of how this can be arranged administratively, I could leave this very well to the Minister.”
“There simply are not many part-time jobs available, and these schemes have not really got off to any start. And our employers also seem to prefer to hire younger women, rather than older women. But, Sir, at the same time, we are encouraging women to have more children when childcare centres are still insufficient to meet demand and school is still run as half-day sessions. So how is it possible for women to heed both sets of policy objectives? Last year's Budget was most interesting because a substantial part of it dealt with the new population policy. We had implemented last year a comprehensive set of population incentive measures; but I believe still more needs to be done, and more can still be done. Here, let me refer to several suggestions given in a position paper drawn up by the Singapore Council of Women's Organizations (SCWO) which was submitted recently to the Feedback Unit in January this year, with copies to the three woman MPs. Their views represent women's perspective on the population question, and I believe some of theirsuggestions deserve the Government's serious attention. I would pass a copy of this paper to the Minister for Finance afterwards. But here let me expand on several of the suggestions which have fiscal implications. Earlier on, I mentioned that if strong supportive services are not extended, then certain social changes which have occurred in relation to women's economic acti- vities outside the home have begun to have some undesirable consequences on the family. But from the women's point of view, we feel that women should not be the sole target of your population policies. It is high time we begin to promote the idea that child-raising is a joint responsibility of both parents.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, allow me to take up the point about encouraging more women to enter the labour force, as mentioned by the Member for Yuhua. Sir, we have faced the labour shortage problem since the late 1970s and, unhappy though we are over our depend ence on foreign workers, it is very difficult for us to get rid of this dependence because, on the one hand, we have the problem of declining birth rates which means slower growth rates in our labour force and, on the other hand, we have a growing economy which we want to keep growing. Since women constitute a vast pool of reserve labour, one of the obvious solutions to our labour shortage is to encourage women to enter and stay in the workforce. I remember sometime back a target for a 50% female labour force participation rate was set. At present, our rate is 47% which is highly comparable to that obtained in Taiwan and in Hong Kong where the rates are, respectively, 46.3% and 48.9% for 1986. Our rate is only 1-2% behind that of Japan at 48.6% for them, and 5-6% behind that in the United States where the rate is 52.7%. In my opinion, our target of 50% may be attainable, but we are beginning to see social changes associated with women's work outside the home which impact on the structure and the functions of the family already. So unless some very strong support is provided through social services and changes are made to the present system of work schedules or work organization, not only will women buckle under the burden of the "double day", but family relationships will suffer also. In countries such as the United States, United Kingdom or Japan, their higher FLFP rates include many married women who work part-time, whereas our rate pertains mainly to women working full-time.”
“Sir, in view of the severe shortage of nurses in the current situation, up to about 19% of the established posts, how long is the Acting Minister prepared to wait for an appropriate response from the Ministry of Finance before he will consider more drastic action? Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: Mr Speaker, Sir, I think we are close to getting a decision from the Ministry of Finance, and we are quite hopeful that the decision would be fairly attractive.”
“It is therefore very important that we must listen, continue to listen, and of course we have listened. We have listened throughout the last year during our Feedback sessions, during our National Agenda discussion. But it is very, very important that the people must be convinced that what they tell us have been taken into consideration, that the suggestions that they have given us have been carefully considered, one by one, and what we have now, what we propose now, is the best of the alternatives and still it is necessary to let people speak on the Bill as it is now sitting before us. Give them every opportunity to come to the Select Committee and say their piece. But if they do not say so, they will have missed the chance and they have nobody to blame but themselves.”
“To suggest that multi-racial representation means racialism is to stir the darker emotions and to vilify the good intentions of the Government. May I ask the Member for Potong Pasir, if it not not clear -”
“But how can this be true where in Singapore all the ethnic groups are equal before the law? How can this be the case when educational and occupational advancement is based on merit and, in addition, all the ethnic groups use the same housing, medical care, social and cultural amenities?”
“That is not splitting hairs. Because what I find in the Member for Potong Pasir's statement that "we are enshrining racialism" a very insidious intention. Racialism implies that instead of treating everybody on an equal basis, we are treating people based on the biological make-up.”
“In ordinary language, we often use race and ethnic group interchangeably. But this is actually not accurate. "Race" refers to differences based on biologically inherited traits or genetic make-up, whereas ethnic group refers to differences in social characteristics such as language, religion, birth place and culture.”
“We should continue every effort to help Singaporeans feel Singaporean first and foremost. But 22 years of nation building have not obliteratedour cultural differences. The member of Potong Pasir mentioned something about mixed marriages as a good method or an indicator of improving ethnic relations. I would like to remind the House that for the last 20-25 years, the rate of ethnic inter-marriage or inter-racial marriage in Singapore has not increased. In fact, it just remained within 6%. There has been no trend of increase whatever. Now, of this 6%, half,or 50%, actually come in terms of inter-ethnic marriages among Muslims only. These differences have not been obliterated. I want to make the point that neither do we want to obliterate our cultural differences. In fact, we want all Singaporeans to retain as much as possible their cultural roots. Our policies on bilingual education and our policies on art and culture are geared towards instilling in our young people's minds a consciousness of the cultural roots. It is important to stress that a national identity is not at odds with a cultural identity. At times the two objectives may pose some strains in our policy. But this is a dilemma posed by the fact of a multi-ethnic mix. This is a dilemma which we must live with and no simple solution can be found. Next, I want to move to his point of enshrining racialism. Sir, I react very strongly to the word, or his use of the word, "racialism".”
“Sir, I think it is important for us, before we go into the details of the various clauses of the Bill, to sort out the more fundamental question of why this Bill is necessary as well as to answer some of the points, in my view rather serious points, made by the Member for Potong Pasir. Unless these questions are settled in our minds, I think the public may be confused over details. I would like to put my position across from the beginning. I support this Bill and my position is simply this, that the multi-ethnic mix of our population is a fact of life. By institutionalizing multi-racial representation we are no more than giving a recognition to the differences that exist among our different ethnic groups, not only in terms of language, religion, cultural values, but also in terms of the different levels of achievement. To me it is also a rational step, not just logical but also rational, because it is far better to discuss these differences and how Government policies affect the different ethnic groups in an open, rational manner than to pretend that such differences do not exist. And what better ways to hear these differences out than to let representatives from the different ethnic groups speak from the perspective of their own communities. So I support this Bill. I would like to address the two points which have been repeatedly harped upon by the Member of Potong Pasir and which, in my mind, are serious and must be answered. First, he said that by institutionalizing multi-racial representation we are heightening the racial consciousness of Singaporeans and therefore we may be doing away with, completely demolishing, the 22 years of nation building efforts that we have made. I do not dispute that building a Singaporean identity is very important.”
“Sir, I would like to ask the Minister for the Environment that if it is impossible to eradicate dengue fever, how was it possible that malaria was eradicated and what were the differences involved?”
“To ask the Acting Minister for Health (a) what is the cost per dose of the Hepatitis B vaccine used in government hospitals and outpatient clinics; and (b) whether he will consider charging the vaccinations only at cost so as to make them more widely affordable.”
“To ask the Acting Minister for Health (a) what is the type of Hepatitis B vaccine used in government hospitals and out-patient clinics; and (b) whether there is any known long-term side effect of this vaccine. HEPATITIS B IMMUNIZATION PROGRAMME (Plasma-based vaccine) 21.”
“To ask the Acting Minister for Health what are the reasons for (i) not making immunization of babies against Hepatitis B compulsory in order to break the chain of infection, and (ii) not allowing Medisave to be used for vaccination in private clinics.”
“In some underdeveloped countries, church groups in their eagerness to play a socially relevant role by addressing the problem of poverty have turned to radical theologies and social agitation. Although in Singapore we do not have that kind of extreme poverty to breed radical theologies, still we must remember that the politicization of religion in our multi-racial and multi-religious context runs into the very real danger of bringing about confrontation between different socio-economic and ethnic groups. Hence the Government has to take a very stern view of the non-religious activities of any church group. It is unfortunate that some members of the present group of political activists have come from the Christian churches. The Christian churches must be feeling uncomfortable because of this unwanted attention. But I think we should realize that political infiltration knows no religious boundaries. When some people are determined to subvert the system, they can take cover under any type of religious organization. Political extremism under the cloak of various religions is known throughout the world. And it has led to constant communal strife and endless bloodshed. Let this affair therefore be an occasion for all of us to reflect on where the bottom line must be drawn. Let me conclude by emphasising that the greater majority of Singaporeans are level-headed. They will carry on expressing social concerns through legitimate activities. The action that the Government has taken should by no means be construed to mean an interference with religion nor of the social work carried out by religious groups. We should carry on and think positively. I believe religion has a role to play in fostering integrated community. Religion has a role to play in nation building.”
“They might be Marxists but they are not necessarily the group of sinister Communists that we fear. To this, I would like to reply that intellectual debate about Marxism is one thing but engaging in subversive activity is another. And what this group was doing was playing with fire. Even the Member for Potong Pasir agrees that Singapore is very vulnerable. So I presume that he also agrees that the Government's response was prompt and necessary. I search my mind as to what valid reason can there be for this group of well-educated, perhaps well-meaning people, to have emerged from among our midst. Is there really so much extreme poverty, so much deprivation and exploitation in Singapore that one needs to resort to revolutionary means to change the system altogether? Have we not achieved economic progress, and have the basic needs of Singaporeans not been met within the last 20 years? It would appear that at least some of this group of people, being young and idealistic, have been hopelessly misguided in their thinking. They have been manipulated by others behind the scene for their own political motives. For this reason, I support the amendment motion moved by the Member for Clementi - that the Government should consider this case, review them periodically, give these young people a chance to be reintegrated into the main-stream of society once they have gone through the necessary rehabilitation. The Member for Potong Pasir also said that religion was not an issue in this case, that there was no cause for concern about religious involvement of these people. If we take a broader perspective of the circumstances surrounding the arrests, I think we have to still ask the question about those who seek revolution under the cloak of religion.”
“Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, for allowing me to say a few words. Many Singaporeans felt quite shocked when they first heard about the news of the arrests. They were also very surprised to learn that the Communist threat has taken on a new face and gone under a new cover. Of equally serious concern was the fact that the Communist form of revolution was now being espoused by a group of young, well-educated people who have themselves been the chief beneficiaries of the peace and prosperity that we have built up in the last 20 years. Sir, it is understandable that many law-abiding Singaporeans were initially disturbed and felt a kind of disbelief. But as the Ministry of Home Affairs has been releasing the fuller details of the individuals involved, of their backgrounds, activities, designs and intentions, I am sure those with a discerning mind would agree that this group is not really as innocent as it first appeared to be. The Member for Potong Pasir asked the question: do the activities of this group amount to a serious threat to our national security? Has the Government over-reacted? Just now the Member for Chua Chu Kang took us back into our recent history of the period of turbulence of the 50's and 60's. Would the activities of this specific group develop to such an extent that we would be faced with a replay of what happened in the 50's and 60's? In a sense, since the group has already been identified and their activities contained, there is probably no sure way of our telling whether such developments will indeed lead us into that direction. But here, even the sceptics would agree that in matters of security, no government can afford to take any risks. Again, the Member for Potong Pasir says that this group of people are harmless intellectuals.”
“Yet the sentiment of the relatives must be handled with the greatest care. Death from accidents is sudden, violent death. The trauma suffered by relatives cannot be over-stated. So at the moment of grief and shock, we must extend every emotional and psychological support to the relatives. It has been suggested that some form of public appreciation should be extended to both the donor and his relatives. This idea is worth pursuing. It would help to spread the message that kidney donation is a magnanimous gift of life. Public recognition which brings psychological rewards is perhaps a better form of appreciation than a scheme of medical benefits extended to members of the immediate family of the donor. Whatever it is, Singaporeans will learn that kidney donation is one great form of giving and caring for other fellow human being. Sir, we support the Bill and let us get on with it.”
“We are very happy that the Bill has gained the general support of the Muslim community and the individual Muslims can donate their kidneys under section 3 of the Medical (Therapy Education and Research) Act. The Ministry officials should now assure the Muslim donors that the conditions as mentioned by the representatives of MUIS to the Select Committee will be scrupulously adhered to. The Acting Minister has repeatedly given his assurance before in this House and outside that this Bill is meant for kidney donation to save lives only. Unfortunately, there is still a lingering fear among some people that this Bill is only the beginning of more types of organ donation to come. In this respect, the GPC members note that the word "organ" is defined as the kidney of a human body except for the purposes of Part IV of this Bill. In Part IV which prohibits the trading in organs and blood, the term "organ" means any organ of a human body. So to those people who fear that the Bill is only the beginning of some more things to come, Part IV does seem to confirm or support their suspicion. This is very unfortunate. It is not feasible of course to change the title of the Bill to that of, say, the Human Kidney Transplant Bill because of the presence of Part IV. But we wish to emphasize that in future if the Bill is to be extended to cover other kinds of organ transplant, every single bit of extension must be fully scrutinized and debated, just as in the case of kidney transplants. Otherwise we would be betraying the trust of the public in the verbal assurances given by the Minister. A final word on the role of the relatives. Although the Bill is based on the principle of individual consent and hence the consent of relatives need not be obtained for the removal of the kidney.”
“Even though this is expensive and only a temporary treatment, yet to those who suffer from the illness and are awaiting donors, the availability of dialysis treatment is still and is very importantly a life saving provision. So it is our opinion that the Ministry should still spare no effort in finding ways and means to help victims of kidney disease including, apart from dialysis treatment, looking at the possibility of allowing them to use Medisave for their regular treatment and their payments. In a way, this Bill can be looked at as a Bill protecting the rights of those who object to kidney donation for personal, religious or other reasons. It is therefore crucial that every possible means must be taken to make it easy and convenient for the objectors to register their objection. Registration forms should be made widely available through community centres, RC centres and other public places and proper acknowledgment must be made. We must not repeat the mistake made in the past where some people who pledged to donate their kidneys failed to receive the donor cards. I can speak from personal experience. Several years back the computer was not used for registering the donors and some administrative slip-ups might have occurred. Now we must take great care with the list of objectors because the principle of the law is based on presumed consent. And even though we are now using the computer, the computer may still fail us occasionally. The Register of Objectors must also be kept strictly confidential so that those who object need not fear stigmatization which should not occur at all.”
“Sir, members of my GPC are in full support of the Bill. We are very gratified indeed to see that the Ministry has taken so much trouble, proceeded with so much care and given full consideration to the feelings, values and beliefs of the different sectors of the population. We also agree with the views of the Select Committee that the representations made actually have already been taken care of within the Bill. So we look forward to the implementation of the law which indeed represents a ray of hope for the unfortunate victims of chronic renal failure. Here I just wish to reiterate a few points which are worth repeating as they have been repeatedly put to us by members of the public. In implementing the law, the Ministry needs to bear in mind that it has to keep up with the publicity, educating the public on the purposes of the law, and also as to the provisions for the freedom of choice of individuals who might wish to object to donate their kidneys. If the publicity on this law is not kept up, I am afraid that in due course, with the passage of time, the public may forget about the intents and purposes of the law. It is also imperative for the Ministry to make special efforts each year to inform those who will be reaching 21 years of age of their right to choose to donate their kidney or to opt out. Another point is that the Ministry must still try to find all kinds of methods to help the victims of chronic renal failure. Even though now many more kidneys may be available for transplants, people still hope that the Ministry will spare no effort in providing dialysis treatment on as wide a scale as possible.”
“At the same time, perhaps the Ministry could look at helping the private contractors to upgrade both the equipment, vehicles, raise productivity and to ensure the adherence to environmental public health standards. However, we feel that the upgrading process should be given some time to complete so that the private contractors, especially the smaller ones, could find reasonable ways to comply and to adjust. Sir, with this, I would leave the debate to other members of the GPC and my other colleagues to continue on other aspects of the Bill.”
“So the costs of illegal dump- ing are hidden and because of these hidden costs we may not be totally aware of the seriousness of the problem. Suffice it to say, as far as the Ministry is concerned, we think that the problem of illegal dumping calls for a three-prong approach - enforcement, stiffer fines or penalties, and lower dumping fees. It is timely to examine the schedule of fees again. Of course, the Government has to recover the cost of the land, at least its opportunity cost, but at the same time its fees actually include the element of scarcity rent as well as monopoly rent. But how to arrive at the schedule of fees which make it possible for the Government to maintain its operations, recover some of its development and operational costs but at the same time be affordable to the operators? My GPC proposes to discuss this point further with the Ministry. It may take some time. We may need the help of economists. But we would like really to look into this matter together with the Ministry further and we would assure the public that whatever changes that may be required or may be recommended will be fair to both the big and the small operators engaged in refuse removal. The GPC, in general, also supports the provision of clause 31 which requires the licensing of the refuse removal businesses. We feel that this will help the Ministry to exercise better control, ensuring proper environmental health standards in a situation where up to one-third of the total amount annually of refuse collected is done by the private contractors. To be exact, in 1985, it was 34.3%. In 1986, it was 34.9%. Since licences are a means of livelihood, they can act as effective methods of making sure that refuse disposal is done properly by private contractors.”
“Sir, it is necessary to make the penalties stiff for illegal dumping. On the other hand, we believe that the Ministry needs to re-examine its own schedule of charges for the dumping grounds or incineration plants. It is not just a matter of convenience that people dump illegally. In fact, in a couple of the places I visited, they were no more than 3-4 km away from the Government dumping ground. While distance and time are money, the direct costs of having to pay dumping fees are very important in the consideration of private contractors engaged in refuse disposal. If the dumping fees are seen to be too high, it is so much more tempting to just unload when no one is watching. Just imagine the savings to the contractors or to the individual operator when with one big lorry-load of 10-12 tons of refuse, he pays between $150 and $180 to the Ministry at $15 per ton, whereas if he succeeds in dumping illegally he pays very little or none at all. And trucks make several trips a day. So the temptation is that much bigger for him to dump illegally. But what is savings to these private contractors is cost to the Government. In fact, the Minister himself also pointed this out, because the Government later has to clear up the refuse from such places. My friends told me an even more serious story. I believe it is somewhat exaggerated. They said that actually when the Government clears up one illegal dump for development of the land, it engages private contractors to remove the refuse. But what some of these private contractors do is to remove the refuse to other illegal dumps which later have to be cleared by the Government again when development comes along.”
“Another way is to fine the driver of the vehicle as well, as in clause 20(10). Also, those people who have hitherto allowed their vacant lands to be used as illegal dumping grounds would now be brought under the law, as per clauses 20 and 23. Sir, illegal dumping grounds exist. Some are pieces of private land left vacant. Others are lands acquired already by public authorities but are awaiting clearance and development. As such, these illegal dumps shift from one clearance site to another. But private contractors engaged in the removal of refuse know where to go. I was brought by some friends recently to some of these places. It was a Sunday. What I saw did not amuse me. Not only was there a steady stream of trucks carrying refuse into such grounds and coming out empty but there were also suspicious characters hanging around the dump sites watching and, I was told, profiting from the activities. In some cases, these individuals are watchmen of the vacant lands and their activities are not known to the employers or the owners of the land. In other cases, these individuals are shifty hooligans who just pounce on every chance to make illegal money. I am not suggesting that the above forms are the predominant forms of illegal dumping. I would suspect that in the majority of cases it is the isolated individuals who dump in all sorts of places, even along expressways, when nobody is watching, especially in the dark of night. This brings me to wonder why people choose to run the risk and dump illegally in spite of the risks and in spite of the fact that there are two Government dumping grounds, and in spite of the fact that for small loads of rubbish under one ton the Government does not charge any dumping fees at all.”
“It is very difficult for me to produce statistics or hard evidence to show that a certain kind of psychological impact has been produced by stiff penalties such as this that can cost to the public. We do not know for sure whether as a result directly attributable to stiff laws, rules and regulations that Singaporeans may harbour a certain sense of resentment against the strong arm of the law that covers so many aspects of their lives. We are prepared, as members of the GPC, to accept the new fines for spitting and littering, accept them as they are meant as strong deterrents only. Still, I think it will do us good to reflect upon the possible impact on popular sentiments and psychology associated with the raising of these stiff fines. Let me come to the question of illegal dumping. At first, it does not seem right to treat a person who has unloaded a whole truck-load of refuse in a public place equally with a person who spits or drops a piece of paper on a pavement. The only similarity between the two types of offences is that they are both difficult to catch. But the cost to the Government and therefore cost to the tax-paying public in clearing up one truck-load of refuse is many more times than in cleaning up litter or spittle in the streets and for all you know, as the Minister also mentioned, some loads that may have been dumped on vacant lands and deserted areas may contain materials harmful to human health. Therefore, as compared to spitting and littering, stiffer penalties should be considered for illegal dumping. We see that this is actually provided for in the Bill in clause 20(3) of the Bill which allows for the seizure and forfeiture of vehicles involved in illegal dumping. This is one way.”
“Then in 1984 there was a public campaign against spitting and the number of cases prosecuted rose sharply to 128 that year followed by 139 in 1985, after which it dropped to 81 in 1986. Now, it is, of course, inconceivable that in 1982 to 1983 there were so few people who actually committed this offence. But it is highly probable that in 1986, two years after the campaign, the number of offenders effectively dropped. Thus with anti-social habits such as spitting, both public education and the level of enforcement will help to keep down the number of offences. The same with littering. In 1984 the number of cases of littering prosecuted saw a steep rise from 11,560 of the previous year to 28,026. The greatest majority of these cases were apprehended in HDB estates. There was a massive campaign against littering in general and against killer litter, in particular. After 1984 the number of cases declined again. Would this new law, would a doubling of the fines produce a doubling of the deterrent effect? Interestingly, the raising of the fine for spitting and littering, although it has already been publicized in the press, has not aroused much public uproar so far. Is it because Singaporeans are now well-off that they can afford to pay such stiff fines for indulging in careless anti-social acts? Or is it because Singaporeans have now grown accustomed to stiff fines and to shake them out of their complacency one needs to shock them? One standing joke among foreigners and locals alike about our clean city, Sir, is that Singapore is a "fine" city. Such comments are not complimentary to us at all.”
“However, we also believe that the rise in the number of prosecutions had to do with the fact that the Ministry's officials actually stepped up enforcement action during those two years as was reported in the press. The point is the Ministry cannot rely simply on stiffer fines. It has to maintain vigorous enforcement if the problem of illegal hawking is to be contained effectively. Of course it is very difficult to catch the illegal hawkers. They literally run. And public sympathy always goes towards those illegal hawkers who are particularly in financial hardship. But the point I want to make is, again, that the problem cannot be contained based on stiffer fines alone. There could be other measures in addition to these. When it comes to offences in respect of uncleanliness in public places, clause 21 of the Bill would appear to lump together illegal dumping, spitting and littering, with the penalty for all three types of offences being uniformly set at $1,000 for the first conviction and $2,000 for subsequent convictions. But the seriousness of the three types of offences is actually quite different. Sir, spitting and littering are anti-social habits which must be curtailed if our efforts to keep Singapore clean are not to be obliterated. But let us recognize that social habits take a long time to correct and a lot of public education is called for. Again, if we look at the number of prosecution for spitting and littering in the past five years, we would see that public education and campaigns do indeed play an important part in containing such anti-social habits. For spitting, the number of cases prosecuted by the Ministry in 1982 was only two cases, 1983 one.”
“By this Bill, under clause 42(1), hawkers who infringe on public health requirements and hawkers who operate without a licence would now be liable upon conviction to a fine of $1,000 for a first offence and $4,000 or three months of imprisonment or both for subsequent offences. As such, these fines are very stiff, although they are meant to be maximum penalties and therefore are meant to be deterrents. Even the present fine of $500 to us is already quite stiff. It is stiff because up to 1981 to 1982 the median gross monthly income of employed persons in Singapore was around $500, according to the Annual Labour Force survey. Beginning in 1982, this median gross monthly income started to rise above $500 to $511 in 1983 to $667 in 1986. Is that the reason then for the Ministry to raise the fine to $1,000 in order to keep up with the rise in income? If it is a matter of inflation, it cannot be because we have had very low rates of inflation in the past few years. In fact, for a couple of years we have had negative inflation. If we take a look at the number of illegal hawkers prosecuted over the past five years (these figures were given to us by the Senior Parliamentary Secretary on March 4 at the last sitting) we note that the number has gone up from 4,915 in 1982 to 6,441 in 1984, and then 8,032 in 1985 and 8,670 in 1986. There was a sharp rise in the number of cases prosecuted for 1985 and 1986. No doubt this could have been due to the fact that those two years were recession years and therefore there could be many more people who were engaged in illegal hawking because of unemployment or because of reduction in incomes.”
“Mr Deputy Speaker, Sir, on behalf of the GPC on Health and Environment, I would like to comment on the Bill before this House. As pointed out by the Minister, the purpose of the Bill is to bring about a more effective control of the environment and to incorporate some of the new advances in the field of environmental public health so that all of us will continue to enjoy a safe and clean environment. The Bill itself, as the Minister has outlined, covers so many areas that it is not possible to summarize many of the points that the GPC have discussed. But here let me just go over one common area of concern, while other Members may want to talk about other aspects of the Bill. This common area of concern pertains to the stiff penalties imposed on illegal hawking, spitting, littering and illegal dumping. Illegal hawking. According to a recent profile done by the Ministry's officials on illegal hawkers, it was shown that about 82% of them are under 50 years of age. In fact about 50% are between 20 and 40 years. In other words, these are able-bodied men and women who could be working in factories, in the services or in the construction sector where for certain types of jobs there is still a labour shortage. So why do they go into illegal hawking? Is it because they are too choosy, preferring flexible hours and possibly sizeable earnings to manual work, shift work, or say work as beauty saloon assistants? Or is it because people want to strike out on their own and be their own bosses? Or is it because, as some officials believe, that the present fines for illegal hawking are too low and therefore the hawkers dare to flout the law?”
“Singapore General Hospital (10) That the sum to be allocated for Head P be reduced by $10 in respect of Subhead PD-01-1210 of the Main Estimates.”
“In view of the fact that the Ministry of Health really needs a budget of $462 million to start its work for the next year, I think I would withdraw my amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. The time allotted for Head P having expired, the following amendments were not proceeded with:-”
“Sir, I really admire the patience of the Acting Minister for Health in having given us two lengthy lessons ranging from ---”
“But let me end on a final note on the problem of the health needs of an ageing population. Mr Chairman, the year 2000 is only 13 years away. Very soon we shall come face to face with the health care needs of a large proportion of aged people. No doubt the Home Nursing Foundation has already been set up and a programme of senior citizens' health care centres is being implemented. These schemes, however, depend to a large extent on community participation, including finance and manpower. But my question is: is community support going to be adequate to meet the increasing health care needs of the aged? What further support will the Ministry provide, especially for those aged sick who require hospitalization? It seems that the Government must begin to think along the line of planning for specialized hospital care for the aged sick as well as in terms of training specialists in geriatric care. All these take long-term plans and the planning, we believe, must start now. We would appreciate replies from the Acting Minister on the above seven questions. We have given him a lot of questions to answer but he can be assured that Members of my Committee are extremely interested in the work of his Ministry.”
“In connection with the question of manpower in the Government service, we not only need to look at the ways of improving the terms of service, the workload and career prospects for the medical officers, but we should also look at ways of providing them with further training. The need for continuous medical education is also imperative for private practitioners. For unless private practitioners and medical officers keep up with the latest knowledge and technology, they would remain stagnant and this would be detrimental not only to their career advancement but also to their job satisfaction, self-esteem and ultimately the quality of their service. So can the Acting Minister inform the House as to what steps are being taken to expand the programme of continuous medical education presently available only on a limited scale? Bearing in mind that the National University Hospital is our premier hospital, much public attention has been focused on this symbol of medical excellence. While its operation as a private hospital seems to have been accepted by the public, there is some concern among the medical profession as to how NUH is able to balance its role of providing excellent service against its other role of being a teaching and research hospital. So could the Minister clarify on what mechanisms there are which ensure that the NUH does not become over-zealous in achieving financial viability to the possible neglect of its teaching and research functions? Sir, some members of my Committee may want to touch on other issues such as the possibility of Medisave for use in private hospitals leading to over-investigation and over-charging by doctors and therefore raising medical costs as well as creating demand.”
“This is in the right direction to reduce the future cost of health care to the nation because if the population stays healthy and fit, its need for medical care will be correspondingly reduced. But to what extent is the Ministry following this policy emphasis? It seems to us that the Ministry is still giving a lot more priority to hospital services and we think that its current efforts at improving the physical infrastructure must not be such as to neglect its manpower requirements within the primary health care services. At the moment there is a shortage of doctors in the public sector, whereas in the private sector a point of saturation has been reached and this situation would be made worse very soon. Because the past few years of expansion in enrolment of medical students will soon bear fruit and we will see many more doctors coming out to practise. Will this situation lead to the under-employment of private practitioners? And if so, would this not mean a waste of national resources? So may we ask the Acting Minister what plans does he have to better coordinate and utilize the manpower available in the private sector? How can the resources of the private sector be better tapped to cater to the health needs of the entire population? As for the future, the Government has set a goal of achieving a doctor to population ratio of 1 to 700 by the year 2000. May we ask how is this target derived? Is this goal realistic in terms of catering to a population growth as well as achieving our aim of medical excellence? Specifically, what would the balance be like between doctors who are general practitioners and doctors who are specialists?”
“Thus, as the Government is implementing its policy of gradually reducing the extent or the rate of subsidies for medical care, the restructuring of hospitals has been taken to mean the same thing as raising charges. In a way this is similar to the problem of people's perception of the issue of independent schools. But here the problem of the public's perception is compounded by the timing of the policy of developing Singapore into a Centre of Medical Excellence. The recommendations of the Economic Committee on the growth potentials of the health industry, on its role in generating GNP, unfortunately led the people to jump to the conclusion that from now on medical services would not only be costly but also that a large part of them would be catered to foreigners who can afford to come and stay in hospitals dressed up like hotels. Sir, such misunderstandings must be corrected and apprehensions put to rest. Otherwise our people will feel neglected. It is not only that the right message must be put across but that we ourselves must have the right objectives to begin with. We believe that our goals should be to provide excellent medical services to our citizens first and foremost. After we have developed the capability to render excellent services, then other people, for example, our neighbours, will recognize our capability and then they may wish to avail themselves of our resources and expertise. And they would be most welcomed. But let us be clear that this should be only a secondary outcome of our primary objectives. Sir, the National Health Plan drawn up in 1983 places a great deal of emphasis on primary health care, preventive medicine and health education.”
“Sir, I beg to move, That the sum to be allocated for Head P be reduced by $10 in respect of Subhead PA-01-1100 of the Main Estimates*. On behalf of the members of my GPC, I would like to touch on several major policy issues while the other members may take up more specific problematic areas later. Sir, as our population grows and ages, the demand for health care services will inevitably rise. With more education and higher income, people's expectations of better quality services also go up. But on the other hand, medical care is highly personalized, is labour intensive and modern medicine uses expensive technology. Therefore, the cost of medical services will also go up in future. So the two major challenges facing the Health Ministry are: (1) How to provide a comprehensive, modern and efficient health care system at prices affordable to the population. (2) How to plan and coordinate the development of the public and private health sectors so that Singapore can become a Centre of Medical Excellence. Sir, we feel that it is important that the public should have a clear, correct understanding of what the goal of developing Singapore into a Centre of Medical Excellence means. A lot of misunderstanding as well as apprehension has been generated in the past because the word "privatization" has been used to describe the process of restructuring Government hospitals. The restructuring of Government hospitals primarily is to give hospital administrators more autonomy to develop a more efficient, more flexible and responsive system of delivery of services. Unfortunately, people's attention tends to focus on costs rather than the quality of service.”
“Feedback Services (18) That the sum to be allocated for Head J be reduced by $10 in respect of Subhead JJ-03-1210 of the Main Estimates.”