R. Sinnakaruppan
Singapore
“In the first place, is the reporting system of the hand, foot and mouth disease cases by the GPs to the Ministry quick enough? Could it be that by the time the Ministry gathered all the data, the disease has already spread?”
“It is, in some ways, like what the Government has done for our university by setting up a private university, the Singapore Management University.”
“Sir, the question I really have is this. While it is very encouraging to see that the Government has started this scheme late last year, I would like to ask whether, in addition to looking at the priority for older estates, there are wards where there are more private estates than public estates.”
“I would also like to ask that this lift upgrading programme, on a pilot scheme that has been planned, can be expanded and more of the mature estates in the city centre can be considered for this upgrading.”
“It must have greater compassion and greater commitment to level up the lower strata of our society. Like the call by Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, it must do much more on public education on what we want to achieve as a nation. It must rally our citizens to help them cope with the impending changes of our economy.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, we welcome this more calibrated approach to killer-litter offences by MND as well as MHA. I would like to ask the Minister whether, in the light of this approach, the Housing and Development Act could be reviewed to raise the maximum penalty from $1,000 to $5,000, same as the penalty imposed by the Town Council, for the n…”
The complete record
Every one of 370 lines we hold for R. Sinnakaruppan, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 1 of 8.
“In the first place, is the reporting system of the hand, foot and mouth disease cases by the GPs to the Ministry quick enough? Could it be that by the time the Ministry gathered all the data, the disease has already spread? I tried to find out some data or information of the disease from the Internet and I got nothing from the Singapore web-page on how to prevent and control the spread of the disease. It shows that some efforts should be put into the web and other media to help the control of the disease. Should we do more in public education so that the people are well aware of the danger of the disease and, when contracted, they know precisely what to do to contain the spread of the disease? 1.15 pm Years ago, when a person contracted a communicable disease, he will be kept in the Communicable Disease Centre to prevent its possible spread. I have not heard about such measure for quite some time. Should we rethink about the matter and see whether it is feasible to confine people contacted with the EV71, hand, foot and mouth disease, as a means to contain that disease?”
“I know that there have been talks that this would not be aesthetically doable by some of the urban planners. But I think if it is functional and it can help many residents, it would certainly be useful. Sir, in particular, I have got several residents who have told me that they have to put up with this for many years and, in fact, they found that their hearing has actually been impaired and they have to get help from doctors. So I think it is a significant problem and I hope the Ministry will look into this. Assoc. Prof. Low Seow Chay: Sir, the topic I wish to talk about is hand, foot and mouth disease. The finding of the recent hand, foot and mouth disease epidemic was related to the EV71 Enterovirus. At the peak of the epidemic, there were more than 400 cases reported a month and some children died of the disease. In October last year, drastic action was taken to break the chain of transmission of the epidemic. After things got back to normal, in late last month and early this month, the disease started again. About 100 cases were reported per month, and two children had died as a result. Sir, EV71 infected hand, foot and mouth disease has proven to be quite lethal. In the outbreak in Malaysia in 1997, 47 deaths were suspected to be due to the hand, foot and mouth disease. In the outbreak in Taiwan in 1998, at least the deaths of 80 children were implicated to be caused by EV71 Enterovirus, and more than 60,000 cases were reported. We were lucky that here the damage due to the EV71 was not as bad as other countries. The re-emergence of the EV71 epidemic in the beginning of this month prompted one to ask whether the measures taken by the Ministry are effective enough to take care of this deadly epidemic.”
“Sir, our expressways cut across many high-rise public and private housing estates in Singapore, especially in the central area. Over the years, traffic has increased in our expressways in the city area and the outlying areas. Also, many residents find that this has caused significant noise problems for them and their families not only in the day time, but also as late as 10.00 pm, 11.00 pm and 12 midnight. Many find that the noise pollution is unbearable. Sir, many of my residents live in flats very close to these expressways. In fact, some of these flats were built way before the expressways, like CTE and PIE, were built. Due to the lack of space for the construction of these expressways, some of these expressways cut very close to the flats. For example, I know of one or two flats in Whampoa Drive area where they do not normally meet the URA's set-back guidelines, for instance, so much so that when one of these flats went through a Main Upgrading Programme, the SAI (space-adding item), which was supposed to be built, could not be built because the expressway is so close. That is how close some of these flats are to the expressways. I would like to ask the Ministry to seriously look into this. Residents, especially living probably six or seven storeys above, are the ones who feel the greatest impact of this noise pollution. I am also aware that those flats which are near the MRT tracks also face this similar problem, although those from the traffic of the expressways is even greater. I understand that countries, like Japan, have built sound barriers at strategic spots in their expressways. I am not asking that these be built across Singapore in all the expressways but at strategic points where the impact of this is felt by most residents.”
“It is, in some ways, like what the Government has done for our university by setting up a private university, the Singapore Management University. Sir, the Ministry has begun to introduce greater creativity and put less emphasis on content and greater enrichment modules have been added to the school curriculum, allowing the appropriate private operators to run our schools and produce even more outstanding results in this direction. It is certainly worth experimenting this, and I wonder if the Minister can give this suggestion some consideration. 1.15 pm”
“Sir, our school system has undergone major changes and restructuring over the past two to three decades. Tremendous improvements have been made and great efforts have been put in by the Ministry to prepare our students in recent years for the challenges of a new knowledge-based economy. Over the years, the Ministry of Education has devolved greater autonomy to some schools, some pre-selected schools, using basically two schemes. One is the independent schools, and the other is the autonomous schools. These are indeed steps in the right direction. With greater independence, there has been more creativity and motivation among the administration and teaching staff to serve the students better. Each effort has certainly, in my view, helped students perform better in schools and have also nurtured better all-round development in our students. Sir, as the next step, I wonder if it is the appropriate time to allow private organisations to run some of our schools. I am saying beyond what is practised now, ie, Government-aided schools, allow completely private organisations to run some of our Government schools. In other words, I wonder if it is feasible to privatise some of our schools beyond the concept of independence of our Government-aided schools. While the Ministry should not let go everything, make it laissez-faire, it should set certain preconditions on curriculum, discipline and other basics, and in return for some Government funding. I wonder if it would be interesting to evaluate and perhaps set up a pilot scheme to allow commercial organisations, particularly, educational organisations, either local or foreign, to run some of our schools. Sir, the concept will not be entirely similar.”
“Sir, the question I really have is this. While it is very encouraging to see that the Government has started this scheme late last year, I would like to ask whether, in addition to looking at the priority for older estates, there are wards where there are more private estates than public estates. Can there be greater priority given to the many residents who have been supporting the Government? The two MPs, who are raising this topic, are from Kreta Ayer-Tanglin GRC, and we know that there are a lot more private estates there. I hope that the Government can consider upgrading the flats in this GRC.”
“Sir, I would like to clarify that in the present IUP where there is a budget for upgrading of the lifts, the residents do not have to co-pay. Is that a change in the policy, now that the Minister says there is a need for co-payment?”
“I would also like to ask that this lift upgrading programme, on a pilot scheme that has been planned, can be expanded and more of the mature estates in the city centre can be considered for this upgrading. It is possible to farm it out for the town councils to manage this project because this can be done within a year or so, as opposed to waiting for a MUP which takes a long time. At the same time, there are many in mature estates which have gone through IUP in the first phase, but they did not get their lift upgrading. I hope that this scheme can be introduced for them as quickly as possible.”
“Sir, the HDB's Interim Upgrading Programme and the Main Upgrading Programme have indeed benefited many Singaporean households living in the public estates. Many are anxiously looking forward for their turn to have this upgrading. Sir, I would like to ask what is the status of these upgrading programmes so far, in terms of how many precincts have already undergone Interim Upgrading Programme or the Main Upgrading Programme. Also, I would like to ask how many more precincts are left, based on the revised criteria which would go through the IUP and MUP. In recent times, in the new announcements of precincts for MUP, I notice that in some precincts, for instance, in my constituency, there are two point blocks which are considered for MUP, while there are five or six blocks in the same precinct. By just selecting two point blocks, for instance, does not give the economies of scale. Secondly, it also makes it very difficult for us to explain to the residents of the other blocks within the precinct as to why they are not selected for the upgrading. If there are other plans like SERS or things like that, this should also be announced simultaneously so that unnecessary rumour-mongering can be prevented. The other point is on the lift upgrading programme, as Dr Teo has just mentioned. Many residents find that, whether it is the IUP or MUP, lift upgrading has the most impact on these programmes. We find, especially in the older estates, like in the city centre, Kim Seng, Kampong Glam, Moulmein, and even in Toa Payoh, many residents are senior citizens and they look forward to the MUP, but it takes some time. Therefore, you find that the town councils are not able to provide lift landing on every floor because of the cost.”
“Sir, there have been many calls today, and in the past in this House, for assistance for HDB retail shops. Many of these HDB shop retailers, majority of them, have been suffering in silence for the past few years. Because of the increased competition from big retailers in the nearby estates, as well as the changing shopping habits of Singaporeans, you will find that their pleas have become louder. Today, if you look at the topic, there are 11 MPs who are going to speak on this topic, although I notice that none of the Opposition MPs have thought that it is important enough for them to bring this up. I would like to ask specifically the Minister what his Ministry intends to do on the over-supply of shopkeepers in HDB estates. I would like to also ask how far the PSB's retail scheme will go to train and retrain retailers who may not be proficient in English and whether there will be programmes in other languages, so that they can be trained and retrained to help them seek a new livelihood. Sir, I would like to also ask whether the Government will be prepared to compensate existing tenants if they decide to call it quits, not just to compensate them but whether the Government will also buy back these shops at market price. And I believe that they will sell it at market price but the Government can consider offering an attractive ex-gratia payment, so that shopowners can pursue a new livelihood. Or, alternatively, would the Government allow the conversion of the 99-year old lease to a 30-year old lease at market price plus offering an ex-gratia payment which is attractive enough, so that many of these retailers can tide through the difficult period?”
“Sir, you shall have my cooperation. I will make my speech brief.”
“Sir, my response is that we should carefully evaluate the need for both of these demands. Personally, although I am an avid golfer, I feel that we should not build any more golf courses in Singapore as the demands increase in future. Because these demands, as Mr Ong Kian Min has pointed out, can be met from cheaper golf courses in our neighbouring countries. As for parks, we should recognise that many of our parks are under-utilised. For example, I understand from the MP looking after the Jurong area that the Japanese and the Chinese Gardens are grossly under-utilised. Therefore, the provision of 0.8 hectares per thousand persons must be carefully evaluated and reviewed so that precious land can be used for housing or industrial use. Lastly, on the other focus group. It has focused on identity and has made a strong case for preserving our heritage and developing a distinctive identity. In this regard, I would like to just point out that we must try and find ways to reduce the social divide of residents living in our HDB estates. Unwittingly, we may have developed a class system in our HDB estates. We often categorise different households by 1-room, 2-room, 3-room, 4-room or 5-roomers. We have entrenched this by using this to hand out goodies during budgets and for off-budget measures. People do not like this branding. I hope that, as part of this Concept Plan review, the Minister will look into this matter, which is a stigma amongst many lower and middle-income Singaporeans.”
“I also would like to ask the Minister what percentage of the population he expects to live in public housing in the medium term. Sir, next on the work space. The Government seems to have often approached public housing building programmes very much from a supply point of view, rather than from a demand point of view. If more attention is paid to this, I am sure many in the workforce will find it convenient to stay near where they work and find many other conveniences. Sir, the focus group has asked for more housing, particularly public housing, to be built in areas with employment opportunities, especially in the central area and the west region. I think the Government must seriously look into this, as this will have a big impact on the working population so that they can reduce their commuting time to and from work, and there will be an overall reduction in traffic congestions as well as they would be able to save money and their transport cost. 5.15 pm Sir, the 1991 Concept Plan has recommended the decentralisation of commercial centres. The focus group has however asked for a review of the number of locations of regional centres. I call for a reduction in the number of these locations of regional centres. Many of us in this House are aware of the problems faced by our HDB retail shops. Neighbourhood centres and bigger shopping retail outlets compete with the HDB retail shops and target the same customers who are limited by the size of the regional neighbourhood. I think it is very urgent that the Government looks into this. Thirdly, I would talk about green space. There has been much public debate in the media especially on whether there should be more parks or more golf courses built.”
“Sir, first, I would like to commend the Minister for his initiative to develop the Concept Plan using a bottoms up approach, where professionals to grassroots leaders have had the opportunity to air their aspirations, opinions and suggestions on how to shape Singapore's physical and living environment. While I agree with the number of recommendations of both focus groups, I would like to nevertheless comment on several areas. First, housing space. One recommendation is to increase the gross plot ratio to up to 8 for housing in downtown, and they call it Manhattan style. At the same time, it is recommended that the gross floor area per person should also be increased, despite the fact that household size in Singapore has reduced from 4 to 3. The experience of Hong Kong is that while they have increased their gross plot ratio significantly in public and sandwich housing, the gross floor area per person is indeed very much smaller than the present Singapore public housing. Sir, I am not sure if the gross plot ratio should be increased to 8 in downtown and to 3.65 for State land outside the central area. While this will optimise land use, on the other hand, it will create other problems like huge traffic congestions in these areas. Sir, I would like to seek the Minister's response to this recommendation on gross plot ratio. Sir, the focus group has also recommended that we maintain only 7% of low density housing up to 18% medium density housing. Given young Singaporeans' aspirations to own a condominium or a landed property, I wonder whether the 7% for low density housing needs to be increased to, say, 10% over the medium term of the next 10-15 years.”
“It must have greater compassion and greater commitment to level up the lower strata of our society. Like the call by Mrs Lim Hwee Hua, it must do much more on public education on what we want to achieve as a nation. It must rally our citizens to help them cope with the impending changes of our economy. Only then can we stay united as one nation and face the external challenges confronting us.”
“He said that last week he went for a show around for a small contract tender and found that there were more than 40 contractors who had turned up just for a contract that is not worth more than $40,000-$50,000, and there were many big players there as well. He said that this is indeed a bad sign for the industry. Dr Hu had said that the construction industry will turn around this year, but many in the industry that members of my GPC spoke to are sceptical of a turn around, and are very concerned that the Ministry of National Development's expenditure has been reduced and this is going to hurt them even more. The plight of our small enterprises is indeed very worrying. On its part, the Government has done well to allocate significant amounts of money for skills training and lifelong learning. The Ministry of Manpower has done well to unveil a comprehensive Manpower 21 Vision. Many workers have been reached through these schemes. Many more workers, especially vulnerable workers, need to be reached and retrained and reskilled for them to remain employable. Often, the problem is that the most vulnerable workers are often the last ones to be reached and, more often, are the ones who refuse to be trained. We still have more than 500,000 Singaporean workers in our workforce who do not have a secondary education. Of these, approximately 180,000-200,000 do not have a primary education and they are largely aged between 30-49, and therefore they will have to make a living for themselves and their families for many more years to come. As Dr Hu has said, it will take effort and even a fair amount of difficulty to reach that we, as a nation, want to get to. The Government must go beyond providing money for training and giving one-off Budget goodies.”
“These are like a little bonus to many households, as it will help in some measure to reduce their household expenditure. But beyond that, their happiness will wane soon, as their worries of a long-term livelihood will take root. Families whose household income is between $2,000-$3,000 or less comprise many unskilled workers working in MNCs or SMEs, many shopowners, hawkers, sole proprietors of small service companies, small contractors and so on. With a stronger dollar and higher wage cost, more and more MNCs are going to move their manufacturing plants to other lower cost countries in the region. As Dr Vasoo has pointed out, retrenchments are becoming a regular feature for the lower skilled workers, especially those working in the MNCs. Nearly half of our workers work in the SMEs. Many of them work for companies with less than 10 people. A lot of them work for 2-men, 3-men or 4-5 men companies. These workers are largely unskilled and often do not have the opportunity or the urge to go for skills training or retraining. Many such companies have not been doing well in the past few years since the economic crisis. Many Members of this House have spoken about the plight of the HDB shop retailers. But what about the many provision shopkeepers in non-HDB shophouses? What about the many sole proprietors owning small service outlets? What about the hawkers, the market stallholders and the small contractors? These people's livelihood are at stake too. A small contractor told me at the meet-the-people session this week that the construction industry is indeed in a bad shape.”
“Therefore, the personal income tax reduction, the rebates and other goodies announced in this Budget are the best ways for the Government to satisfy both employers and workers. While the 2% across-the-board reduction in income tax is most welcome, there are concerns in many quarters as to whether this 2% reduction is a prelude to an increase in GST of, say, 2% perhaps by the end of next year. Sir, the corporate tax reduction, coupled with the tax exemption, will help SMEs who are marginally profitable to thrive and to help them expand their businesses. This is certainly welcome as, in the past, many foreign companies were indeed the beneficiaries of tax holidays and tax exemptions, and only a select few local companies benefitted. These changes will help many SMEs who would find that their effective tax rates would be significantly lower. Sir, at the same time, it is possible that the tax exemption scheme would lead to more associate companies being set up to split incomes. Is there a concern for the Government, as the Budget Statement has been quite silent on this? Sir, the Government's robust 1% corporate tax reduction comes at a time when many of our regional competitors have also been reducing their tax rates in order to attract foreign direct investments. This reduction by Government seems to signal a change in the Government's past thinking of not making Singapore a tax haven. In this regard, I would like to ask the Finance Minister what is Singapore's medium term target at which the corporate tax will be set at. On the second group of measures, the one-off goodies that have been given this year, have indeed been most generous. Many Singaporeans have expressed their happiness in this regard.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, thank you for allowing me to join in this debate. Sir, the penultimate paragraph of Dr Richard Hu's Statement describes succinctly the intent of his Budget and I quote: 'There is a place for everyone in Singapore, and everyone will benefit from good governance. It will take effort and even a fair amount of difficulty to reach where we, as a nation, want to get to. This Budget serves to encourage everyone to stay united and succeed together.' Sir, certainly, Dr Hu's Budget has been well received and certainly they have seen that good governance indeed means greater surplus, and greater surplus is shared and distributed amongst all Singaporeans. But, certainly, the Government must take much greater effort to bring all Singaporeans to reach where we want to achieve as a nation. I will touch on this later in my speech. Dr Hu's Budget can really be divided into two categories: one, a group of tax measures that will fundamentally restructure the approach to the tax regime; the other is a group of measures that are one-off in nature that benefit a wide cross-section of Singaporeans. On the first category, significant changes have been made to the personal income tax, corporate tax and the employee stock option scheme. The changes in personal income tax are a recognition by the Government to reward individual effort and sacrifice, and sacrifice during the economic crisis where CPF contribution had been reduced. Despite a sterling 9.9% growth last year, many in the private sector feel that the recovery is patchy and therefore the CPF restoration should be more gradual. On the other hand, workers cannot understand why the Government is slow to restore the CPF.”
“Mrs Lim Hwee Hua asked the Deputy Prime Minister, should a conflict of interests arise for the Singapore Exchange in its role as both a regulator and operator of securities trading, what measures are in place to ensure that the public good is not compromised.”
“I would like to ask the Senior Parliamentary Secretary why HDB does not provide a fire sprinkler system, especially for single-storey wet markets? Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: Mr Speaker, Sir, these markets were designed in the 60s and 70s. We have not been building markets in the last 10 years and these were old design standards. In the new design standards, under the upgrading programme, we would certainly incorporate all these fire fighting features. But still within each market, we have made sure that there are enough facilities to fight small fires. We have provided enough fire extinguishers; we have organised civil defence campaigns; we have suggested to grassroots leaders to go round the market and advise them. In many markets, like in my market in Tiong Bahru, the committee hires a security guard to patrol the market day and night. So that is something the market committee and the grassroots organisations should do. HDB and ENV will provide assistance where it is needed. Assoc. Prof. Toh See Kiat: Sir, the Senior Parliamentary Secretary misheard my question. My question was not whether the grassroots organisations should co-pay. My question was a follow-up of Mr Noris Ong's question: whether the Senior Parliamentary Secretary feels that the town councils do not have the mandate to do a co-payment and therefore they should be left out of the picture. Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: We are leaving the town councils out of the picture. Town councils are not part of the grassroots organisations. The town council is an agent whose job is to manage the common areas. We are saying that the co-payment would come from grassroots organisations other than the town councils. SINGAPORE EXCHANGE (Conflict of interests) 6.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, we welcome this more calibrated approach to killer-litter offences by MND as well as MHA. I would like to ask the Minister whether, in the light of this approach, the Housing and Development Act could be reviewed to raise the maximum penalty from $1,000 to $5,000, same as the penalty imposed by the Town Council, for the non-penal offences.”
“The Town Councils Act says that the penalty could be $5,000. The question is: Who will enforce it? Will both bodies enforce the same offence and could Town Councils enforce it up to $5,000 when the Housing and Development Act only says that the maximum fine is $2,000?”
“Yes, Sir. There is a seeming inconsistency between the Housing and Development Act and the Town Councils Act because, as he pointed out, section 63(2) says that there is a maximum penalty of $2,000 and it also says in the Town Councils Act ---”
“Sir, I thank the Minister for his answer and I agree that it is ultimately the civic responsibility of the tenants of these flats who have to understand the importance of this legislation. While I agree with the Minister that most parts of the legislation are in place, there are certain anomalies that may not be clear.”
“But taken overall, I think there is no question that they have enabled lower income Singaporeans to enjoy significant improvements in their standard of living in addition to what they have been able to get because wages have been generally going up from year to year.”
“I would like to ask the Deputy Prime Minister whether there is a possibility of giving off-Budget measures, such as helping the lower-income group. He has just said that the inflation rate might go up from 1% to 2% and, as it has been in the past, for the lower-income workers who I have looked after in the trade unions, their increments are very marginal. So 1% increase in inflation rate could have a serious impact. I would like to know whether there could be a possibility of some off-Budget measures. BG Lee Hsien Loong: Mr Speaker, Sir, I think we had better understand that we are living in an unnaturally calm state of affairs right now. Inflation of 1-2% is actually, by historical standards, quite low. In Singapore, that is what we have been able to achieve for many years but internationally 3%, 4%, sometimes even 5%, inflation in the developed countries has been quite normal. Maybe the world has changed. The central banks have been careful, governments have been running smaller deficits and, in some cases, surpluses. Inflation has generally come down round the world, also helped by lower oil prices until fairly recently. Because of that backdrop and also because of our prudent policies in Singapore, we have been able to keep our inflation to 1-2%. Despite this, every year, during the Budget, because we have some surpluses, the Finance Minister has been able to scatter confetti all around. We have got utilities rebates, service and conservancy rebates, CPF top-ups. As I have said, they all add up to a significant sum of money for the lower income group. They are not meant to offset and make up totally for inflation, dollar for dollar. That is not possible.”
“Sir, I would just like to find out whether in the civil service or the statutory boards, there is a directive or feeling among the heads of the various Government departments that the then POSBank, and now DBS, should be the only bank that should be used to bank in the salaries of the staff. The reason is that in the past, it was captive and some of these services were free. Now that it has changed, and given the Government's liberalisation of the banking sector, is there a directive? Secondly, if an employee from the civil service wishes to choose the bank that the salary should be banked into, is he or she able to do so? BG Lee Hsien Loong: Sir, as far as I know, there is no directive and an employee can be paid his salary to any bank he wants.”
“What about the percentage of private households as against the total households in the ward? Is that a criterion? Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: We are open to suggestions. We will look at the nominations, and then we will prioritise them.”
“May I ask which are these two areas that will be in the pilot project? Is it appropriate to announce now? Assoc. Prof. Koo Tsai Kee: We want to invite Members of the House to put in their nominations, and then we will rank them based on our criteria. One of the important criteria, of course, is age. There will be other criteria like people factor, cleanliness, etc. On people factor, the people must want these upgrading projects in their private estates.”
“95%. Definitely, he needs consideration, Sir.”
“Otherwise, maybe use the community centres, allocate some rooms, but there is already competition for rooms in the community centres. My third point is this. I think Mr Inderjit Singh asked who would be the coordinating agency for these projects. It could be the town council, but I think there are considerations that we have to take into account, because town councils already embark on a number of other areas. I am not sure whether the Town Councils Act allows this extension of duties. So do we have to find an agency? And it has to be balanced with the needs of the town council itself. My last point is what Mr Lew Syn Pau also made. Who would be in the pilot scheme? It is not for us to say but I would like my constituency to be first and so on. And if we take the HDB pilot scheme for MUP, let me be very careful here, it was the choice areas that were selected for a pilot scheme. But I hope that when we consider the pilot scheme for the private estates, it should first have geographical distribution and age, as Mr Lew Syn Pau has mentioned, but please also consider the total percentage of private households as against the total households in a constituency. And if it is more than 50% or if there is a high figure, give them the priority, because we really need your help in this, especially those areas like Mr Lew Syn Pau has got almost 90% of private estates.”
“Sir, I would like to thank the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for announcing last week that the private estates will be upgraded, and I join my two colleagues here to make a similar appeal. First, on the point that the GPC Chairman, Mr Lew Syn Pau, made. What is the benchmark budget per household? Is it the IUP $4,000? It should be at least the IUP amount of $4,000 per unit. The problem is this. There will be no economies of scale because if we take my Novena Estate in Kreta Ayer-Tanglin GRC, for example, we have about 100 over units in that particular estate. If we go by $4,000 per unit, we get slightly over $40,000. This is hardly enough for a playground, let alone many other things. The point is to try and pool together the budgets of LTA, ENV and other agencies, maybe NParks and so on, to get more money, maybe at least $1/2 million to $1 million for an estate size of 100-200 units, so that there is sufficient money to do at least the very basic minimum that is required for upgrading of an estate. Otherwise, it will be a half measure and it will be counter productive, and the private estate residents are going to be unhappy and it will reflect in our votes. The second point I want to make is that RCs have meeting rooms in the HDB estates. What about the NCs? Of course, the People's Association will have to look into it jointly with MND, but this is something that we need to look at. We cannot look forward to the lofty club house idea. It will be expensive, I am aware, but at least try and look at the old schools that are not being used for the time being, renovate them and let the NCs use them until such time that the buildings are knocked down or an ultimate use is found. This will really help.”
“Thank you, Sir. The Minister said that if you consider family size, then how are we going to determine for one-child, two-child, three-child families. I think we have already in the pricing, looked at location, floor level, and at the type and size of a flat. So I do not see why in terms of subsidy, we cannot have different scales, ie, 1, 2, 3. Suppose if this is not possible, then the other simpler approach is to look at the 40% magic formula and try and reduce it to, say, 30% in light of some of these. I think that will be a more simpler formula to look at. That is point one. Point two is on land sales which I talked about. I did not quite get an answer, maybe because my points did not come out across clearly. My point is that we need a more transparent and a more medium term planning so that prices will not have to fluctuate or go through a roller-coaster ride within a year. It picks up before the announcement and then comes down after the announcement, or vice versa. I think we need a more long-term and a more gradual increase in prices, and not 33% in one year and so on. So we need that policy to be looked at. The last point, Sir, is HDB 2. I think some years ago we said that MRT would be the monopoly, but today we have competitors. I hope at some point of time we will have HDB 2.”
“Sir, may I have a point of clarification? The Chairman: Yes.”
“Let us take a three-child family. In addition to the family income, let us take the kind of expenditure for a three-child family and use that as a benchmark, and then purely using 40% of household income. Because, for a young couple with no children versus three children, it is going to mean different things when we talk about affordability. And that is the problem we face in the constituency when we tell constituents that the Minister says it is affordable. But the people with three kids say no.”
“If not the lifestyle, we should particularly consider the family size in deciding this because the households with school going children face a lot of middle class squeeze, whether to send their child to the childcare centre or whether it is the PCF childcare centre which is available, if not, some church or other private childcare centre. It is the same with kindergartens, whether to send them to the normal schools, the autonomous or the independent schools, which are a bit more costly, and so on. The list goes on. We have to take into consideration some of these facts because, whether you like it or not, when your neighbour's kids or the child's classmate comes with $2 or $3 pocket money, you also have to give your child that $2 or $3. Where does the money come from? These are the nuts and bolts issue that many middle class families face in Singapore. We should, in particular, if not the lifestyle, take into consideration the number of children in the house in determining affordability. So I would like to ask the Minister to seriously review the definition of "affordability" in this context.”
“I would like to touch on affordability of HDB flats for Singaporeans. I think the Government defines affordability in relation to household income. The Government has also come out with various indexes, for example, new flat affordability index, which is based on a ratio of targetted percentile household income to the minimum qualifying income needed to buy flats based on an affordable loan instalment pegged at about 40% of household income. Very often we have heard in this House from the present Minister and the past Minister, Mr Lim Hng Kiang, that Singapore's HDB flats are affordable. Yet, when we have our constituency dialogues with residents, many young couples, middle income families, always disagree with this point of view, and they say that they are finding it very difficult to afford the flat that they have or aspired to upgrade slightly. The question is where is this gap of understanding. If you look at it from a broader perspective, it is not sufficient to just define affordability by household income. I think we have moved from the 60s, 70s, to 80s and 90s where, to some extent, the lifestyle changes and family size have to be taken into cognizance. Because if you have two or three school going children, sometimes you find that, just taking a household income per se for a husband and wife versus somebody with three or four, or like Mr Ong Kian Min who has five children, it is going to be very difficult. It is very difficult to therefore just base on household income. We are, on the one hand, encouraging our middle income families to have more children. Yesterday, Mrs Yu-Foo Yee Shoon said that our reproduction rates are not sufficiently high as before.”
“In a similar way for building HDB flats, we could split it out and spin off two companies which compete head on under similar rules set by Government. This will make the building of public housing much more efficient through competition, where quality of designs will improve and they will benchmark themselves with the best in the private housing. The two companies, if set up, will look critically at the building cost and continually find ways to reduce these costs, just like the way that the computer industry is driving down prices every day. We may not be seeing price reductions every day, but I am sure that the prices will come down. Overall, the bottomline is that the Singapore citizens will be much happier that the price does not go up too much, too soon. On that note, I would like to call for a review of this public housing policy. One other point I want to add here is regarding the upgrading scheme that we have. The Main Upgrading Programme (MUP) is an excellent scheme but it is time to review how we address this space adding item (SAI), particularly for the 4-and 5-roomers. Maybe, we have to do away with this scheme for 4- and 5-roomers and concentrate it on the 3-roomers. The other point is that we now only do certain items for the MUP. I would like to propose that as long as it has anything to do with the facade of the building, we should change it completely. For example, we do the painting, but we do not change the windows. I think it will be useful if the MUP includes the changing of windows or the grilles so that when it is all done, it looks as good as a new flat. I hope the Minister will take these points into consideration.”
“Sir, I join the GPC Chairman in making a similar point, but from a different angle. If we look at the last decade or more, the Government has moved from regulatory statutory boards to make them corporatised, and then to private particularly for some of the monopolies that exist in Singapore. I will give three examples. First is the SIM group which took over TCS to become several companies who compete with each other. We have got TCS, TV12 and so on. Second is the transport structure in Singapore. For the bus services, we now not only have SBS but TIBS as well, competing in some areas. Then the MRT. We are going to have a new competitor to run MRT. For telecommunications, we have liberalised. StarHub is coming in and competition will be there. I think the key word is competition. Sir, if you look at public housing today in Singapore, HDB is the monopoly. I have served as a board member in HDB and I would say that HDB is doing an excellent job, particularly under its CEO, Mr Tan Guong Ching and his team and their productivity is extremely high, their buildability excellent by international standards and we have gone to Hong Kong to compare what we are doing, and we have come up tops. And we learnt from Hong Kong in the 1960s. Sir, the point that I would like to make is that it may be time to look at an alternative to HDB, that is, to have two companies that do public housing. I do not completely agree with the idea that we should push everything to the private sector because for public housing, there are certain things that the Government should still have control. The one better way would be to split HDB, just like the way that we have run town councils and their services. It was all done by HDB, but now the town councils are running it.”
“Because it does not make either the property developers or those who have aspired to buy properties happy. Just look at what had happened in the last year. The residential property prices went up 33% in 1999. And many of the constituents that I spoke to, felt it was far too much in too short a period of time, ie, 33% in a year. When I spoke to some of these developers, they told me that "Well, it is still 27% lower than it was in the second quarter of 1996." So the question is: how do we balance this expectation? The important point is that, in the last 10-15 years, many corporate companies, bus companies, for instance, have gone into property. So have many other entirely different business focused companies gone into property. This gold rush towards property development where you can make all your money must change. The mindsets of Singaporeans must change. While we want property prices to be stabilised, it should not be accelerating too much, too fast. We should use this Internet boom, where everybody is now rushing towards the Internet, to move away from the focus towards property and try to stabilise property prices in Singapore so that we do not get pushed by just the developers but, more importantly, we cater to the needs of the silent majority of Singaporeans who aspire to own property. Sir, on that note, I hope that the Minister will look into all these points in this review.”
“Given all these developments, together with the attraction of foreign talents into Singapore to build our knowledge-based economy, I would like to find out what the review that the GPC Chairman talked about Concept 2001 would be and whether some fundamental review would be done to take into account some of these factors. The Minister of State for MTI, Mr Lim Swee Say, last week mentioned that his Ministry will be looking into increasing the optimum use of land in Singapore for industrial use by building more multi-storey factories, and so on. I would like to find out how the commercial angle would be looked at from the MND's point of view and whether we would also be pulling down those one storey commercial developments and try to make greater optimum use of the commercial land that we have in Singapore, and how the present tenants would be compensated for this. On the residential side, I would like to know whether we will move from this 18% upwards to a higher percentage so that more of the younger Singaporeans can afford a private home. Also, like what Mr Ong Kian Min mentioned, whether there will be greater developments in downtown, particularly in the Marina South that we have heard about, whether land has already been released fully, if not, when would this downtown development be completed. Sir, I hope all these answers would be in the review that the Ministry is planning to undertake. Before I end, I just want to mention something about the land sales which are of great importance to a lot of people in this House and outside. Sir, the Government has a reasonably good approach to land sales in Singapore which, on the one hand, looks good on paper, but in practice, it is much more complicated to implement.”
“Sir, there was a debate where the topic was really whether our success was due to our small size or because of our leaders. Needless to say, the team that said the leaders, despite the size, won, not just because it is biased towards the leadership in Singapore, but because of the points they put forward. Sir, the point I want to make here is that one of them suggested that, suppose we had a big space, say, of Batam or Bintan size, in addition to what we have, and whether we would have done it. It remains a hypothetical question. But it brings me to this topic today. If you look at the last few years, various things had happened in Singapore. We had gone through various policies to curtail the property bubble and we did the right things ahead of time in 1996 that, today we have come out of this potentially big bubble from bursting, as it has happened in some of the neighbouring countries. Secondly, in the last decade or so, many of the young Singaporeans have aspired to own a private property and we have done reasonably well to increase the percentage of private homes in Singapore from 14% in 1990 to the current 18%. And more and more younger Singaporeans still aspire to own private residence. Thirdly, we have been always referred to as a fine city by many foreigners (I think we have 7 million tourists every year) and, as our PM said at the National Day Rally last year, we should also try to become a fun city. All this means that, as our population grows, and I do not know what is the optimum population, I would like to ask the Minister what is the target over the next 10-20 years that Singapore can target for so that living in Singapore would be more comfortable and it would not be as congested as it is in, say, Hong Kong.”
“Sir, I want to correct what the Minister had said. I did not ask for a change of the Speaker's name. I only ask for a change for the Clerk of Parliament. I would like to thank the Minister and although his answer is not very encouraging, I would like to withdraw my amendment.”
“Sir, I would like to propose that we look at this Committee model so that we can be much more efficient and at the same time give more time for speakers to put their points forward. The other point is on the $100 cuts. Mr Chiam has put in many $10 cuts. Maybe he is following the rules very correctly, but maybe he is just putting in his name so that his name appears in many places and not be given a chance to speak because most MPs now put $100 cut. Maybe we should get away with that. Sir, the last point is, I do not want to say anything about the Speaker's title because although he does not speak much here, the Speaker is a distinguished title that we should still keep it. It is an honorary title. But for the Clerk of Parliament, in today's context in Singapore, (Mr P O Ram is about to retire from civil service) if we try to get younger people to come, nobody would want to be the Clerk of Parliament because everybody thinks that it is a clerk's job. P. O. Ram is a senior civil servant. Many younger people will not come. Even an insurance agent is called an insurance consultant. I think we should look at all these points and perhaps call for a review of our Standing Orders by our Standing Orders Committee.”
“Can I just be allowed two minutes more, Sir?”
“Certainly. I want to move on to the Committee of Supply. With many substantive issues to be discussed in this House and the number of Budget cuts increasing by the year and records being broken every year, I would like to propose something practised by Westminster, ie, to divide the House into at least two Committees. If you look at the Budget book on page 11, the financial expenditure is divided by various sectors. We have got security, social and community services, economic and infrastructural development and general services. The first two categories are really more for Defence and Home Affairs, Civil Defence, Education, Health, MCD and Sports, MITA, Environment, and so on. Infrastructural development will include many of the business areas: National Development, MCIT and so on. We can divide the House into two and find a way to organise the MPs, either they sit in one group or the other, or use our professors in the University to find out how they schedule their student programmes, where they go through various modules and combinations. I know there are expert systems that are available for universities to use, and we can use it for a few days, I am sure.”
“When the Straits Times has come out with an article, we have to wait seven days to ask the same Question, which does not really look right and current. I know the civil servants and, to some extent, the Frontbench have to work a little bit harder if it is two or three days' notice, but I think it is worth it for the benefit of all Singaporeans who want to get the updated position of the Government. The other point on Question Time is that we only have one hour for Question Time. We have so many Questions. In the past, many Questions cannot be answered. Something could be done, occasionally for the Speaker or the Leader of the House to decide that we extend Question Time by another half an hour to clear most of the Questions, and this can be done with the discretion of the two gentlemen of the House. Sir, as regards time limit for Backbenchers, you may be very, very happy, Sir. At present, we allow 30 minutes for speeches by Backbenchers. I would like to propose maybe we cut it down to 15 or 20 minutes, simply because some of us here are very tired of hearing old gramophone records of speeches and points made by some persons on such topic as lack of democracy in Singapore or lack of rule of law in Singapore, and so on. Sir, certainly, we do not want to put up with this. I do not know whether Dr Vasoo agrees with me. 4.00 pm”
“Sir, I beg to move, That the total sum to be allocated for Head F of the Main Estimates be reduced by $100. Sir, our new Parliament House is a new icon for all of us in Singapore. It is a new hardware that we are all very pleased and proud of. Thanks to you, Sir, as Speaker, and all those who have been involved in this development. However, I think that it is an opportune time to review the software - the Standing Orders and other related matters. I would like to touch on a few points. First, the sitting times. The sitting time of this House should perhaps be extended from the present time in the Standing Orders of 4.30 pm to, say, 6.30 pm. The reason is that in the last 81/2 years or so that I have been in this House, I have seen, almost at every sitting day, the Leader of the House had to stand up and ask for an extension. I think it is not fair to impose it on him, and I think that we should extend it to 6.30 pm. If we finish early, he can stand up occasionally to say, "Let us adjourn." That will be a better arrangement. Second, the notice for Oral Questions. Presently, we need to give seven days' notice, and I would like to propose that with all these Internet speeches being made, we should move to a more Internet time of maybe two or three days' notice. I know that some countries like the UK has got 10 days' notice. In the US, they hardly give any notice. They go through the committees. There are various models. For every country that we can find to say it is seven or eight days, we can find countries, which like Uganda, have three days' notice. So there is no right or wrong model, but let us look at what is suitable for us. This will make us more relevant and not dated in putting our Questions forward.”
“Sir, I am talking about the 45, 50, 60, and the 70-year olds who, to them, touching a computer gives them a fear, apprehension, a certain psyche that even with the $25 million that MCIT has started to put forward, which is a very good first step, but I think a lot more needs to be done. We cannot leave this to a statutory board to just provide the facilities and hope that the 70-year olds will pick up computers. Mr Lee Kuan Yew, our Senior Minister, picked up computer at the age of 72. He is not the norm but an exception, a leader that we hope many other older citizens will follow his fine example. But, Sir, to ensure that we give sufficient attention to this bigger problem, which is not just purely economic but much more social and, to a larger extent, political, we need to set up a unit under perhaps the PMO to address this problem. And we have done this before. Pollution control in the 70s or 80s was under the PMO. The SDU was under the PMO before. All these got relegated to the various Ministries once the strategies took off to an operational level. Sir, I call for the setting up of this unit, a multi-agency unit, under the PMO, which could be driven by IDA and perhaps the People's Association. Ultimately, perhaps a Ministerial committee should be set up to address this problem of digital divide because the larger portion of our population deserves attention. Today, if you look at Singapore, about 20% will be called relatively poor. Our fear is that this 20% will accentuate in terms of percentage and number as our population grows. And I think it is timely that the Prime Minister himself paid significant attention, because we want to remain as one people, one nation, one Singapore.”