Toh See Kiat
Singapore
“Sir, on the issue of transparency, would it not be good for the banks, firstly, to make it very prominent by displaying perhaps on their premises the rules that they have in relation to not just small savers but all savers?”
“By the way, even though I do disagree somewhat with the Minister's reply earlier in this House that IRCs cannot be regulated, I think more education can be given to get parents to know that uncontrolled Internet use by their children can lead to problems and they must actually not use the excuse that they know nothing about Internet and i…”
“I was visiting China some years back and there was this official who actually talked to me about Sentosa's attractions and our tourist attractions and he said to me, "In Singapore, you have nothing to show tourists. And yet you have 7 million of them every year. In China, we have got so much to show them.”
“We are not going to review this part of the policy because the security and financial risks of Internet payments are still not yet fully understood.”
“Will the Ministry of Home Affairs consider making it an obligation for the Internet Service Providers to have some special service which would allow parents to block IRC services, if necessary? Assoc. Prof. Ho Peng Kee: Ultimately, it is a matter of education. We will monitor the situation.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, for the ISPs, because they have this added responsibility of making sure that the users of Internet use it responsibly, would that not be seen as facilitating the offences if they do not block such behaviour? Assoc. Prof. Ho Peng Kee: I think the IRC facilitates many activities.”
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“Sir, I just wanted to make sure that the Minister assures advertisers that if they do use this system, it can be used without being criminalised by the section. But as to users themselves, if they want to stop spaming, they can. There are software mechanisms. They can also tell the ISP. That is not my concern, Sir.”
“I think there is quite a lot of literature on computer spam and even a lot of postings on the Internet which criticise such commercial parties from using spam. But I would say that it is important that we do not close off this avenue completely if it is reasonably and justifiably used. Therefore, a person's lawful excuse, he might say, is, "I'm trying to sell something." I think the Minister should consider whether this is something that the law would prosecute. I have said earlier on that here we are trying to make computer misuse an offence. And we are tackling a new class of criminals who really have no concern for other people, who are anti-social and social misfits, and they have a lingo of their own, a language that they use. When you talk about programs and data, they know what it is. And when you talk about e-mail, they too know what it is. In their lingo, data is not equal to e-mail; e-mail is e-mail, data is data. Under the definitions of the Computer Misuse Act, data actually is wide enough to cover e-mail. Data is defined under the main Act as "representations of information or of concepts that are being prepared or have been prepared in a form suitable for use in a computer". This is wide enough to cover e-mail, and I hope the Minister will clarify that, so that it will no longer be an excuse for a person to say, "Oh, well, what I did was e-mail." And the Computer Misuse Act only protects programs and data on computers.”
“In other words, a person who has access to a computer to commit a wrong thing, like transfer of funds or to switch off a computer in a medical facility so that he causes death, this person can be charged under section 4. If he does the same thing through a computer which is a protected system, he does not get any enhanced penalty. But if he accesses a computer and it is a protected computer, he gets an enhanced penalty under section 6C. I think it is more serious for a person to approach and use a protected computer to either do these offences or under section 6B where he discloses the access code. Sir, again, it is important that we not only protect computers by making sure access codes are not posted on the Net and trafficked and sold for a price and so on, we should also seriously look at the fact that if this is an access code to a protected computer, the penalty must be higher. And if the objection is that this is an enhanced penalty on top of an enhanced penalty, I think that is not a real objection because there are other offences in the Act that already have penalties upon penalties. I would also like to point to another interesting issue which Mr Chuang has alluded to, and that is, in the new section 6A where any person who knowingly and without authority or lawful excuse interferes with a computer. The Minister has mentioned that this covers a situation of what we call spam or e-mail which is sent into a computer to just basically cram it with full of mail messages and then this causes a breakdown or a crash in the e-mail system. Here we need to be careful that we do not make illegal and illegitimate a proper marketing tool which businesses use, and that is, to use the computer to send e-mail to solicit business.”
“And this is now the scheme of things as we can see. Sections 3, 4, 5, 6 and 6A all have got a basic penalty for an offence, higher penalty for repeat offence and enhanced penalty for damage caused. Under the new section 6C, which is my next point, we have, you might say, a higher level of enhanced penalties, and this is when a "protected computer" is used to do the crimes that are being committed. So for a protected computer, such as a national defence computer or a computer which is used by the Government for public safety and so on, it is important that we send a clear message that these computers are useful and they affect a lot of lives and we should not play around with them. This is where I support Mr Chuang's view too that we should go out with an education campaign to tell people that these are things that you should not be doing. In a private conversation with Mr Chuang, he in fact claims that some lawyers do not even know the existence of this Act. I leave my mind open to that. But I think it is important that not only do we tell people of the provisions of the law but also that these cases have happened. It is like nobody has heard of this case until the Minister mentioned earlier in his speech that there was this case. And I think it is important for people to be reminded. When these cases are charged in court, the headlines are there. But I think people need to be reminded. I would go on to say that the new section 6C makes it an offence for anybody who commits an offence under sections 3, 5, 6 or 6A, if he does it with a protected computer. But I do believe that this new section 6C does not cover section 4 or section 6B. So what we end up with is an anomaly.”
“And they use this computer to do things that were not authorised. I think in that sort of situation, we really are talking about a person who, having exceeded his authority, is really an unauthorised user, and so we should not add this word "authorised" which has a very serious implication. Moving on from that point, Sir, looking again at this new section 4, I think what we are trying to catch in the Computer Misuse Act is really not the old class of criminals who do things like extortion and blackmailing and so on. But really there is a new class of misusers of computers who have been described in the literature contemptuously as computer nerds, people who are anti-social, people who are social misfits, and perhaps even teenagers out to do mischief. And we are saying, look, computers run everything in our lives, now including our airplanes and control towers and medical facilities. Therefore, we want people to be responsible in the use of computers. Hence, section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act has now been amended to enhance penalties and to add certain new concerns regarding, for example, damage in a way which was never thought of when the first Act was passed. I support that, Sir. But I would urge that when we talk about this new class of criminals who really sometimes may win the sympathy of people who say, "What? But these are teenagers. They know nothing better.", we should really say, yes, they should actually be using the computer for study, for work, and so on, but not to use to do things that will damage other people's lives and property. So when we talk about an offence which is a true misuse of a computer, I am all for making sure repeat offences are penalised even more and if damage is caused, that greater enhanced penalties will be imposed.”
“As a matter of illustration, we do not have a special knife misuse law. Neither do we have a typewriter misuse law. Because it is actually the result of that misuse that we criminalise, whether it be extortion, murder or causing hurt. This is where I support Prof. Chin, ie, where we create new criminal offences, we have got to be particularly careful that we do not go overboard. In the Computer Misuse (Amendment) Bill, the new section 4 talks about authorised use of the computer to commit an offence. If there is an offence of stealing or misappropriation of funds, I think that itself is chargeable under existing law. It is good, of course, if we can say that if you use a computer because of the way the computer works, how fast it is, and how difficult it is to detect that we enhance the penalties, I am supportive of that. But I do want to take note, as Prof. Chin has urged Members and the Minister to do, that if we criminalise something that is "authorised", then basically we are talking of a situation where you have a transfer of funds, somebody is authorised to use the computer to transfer funds, for example, he is using an authorised instrument, an authorised tool, to do an unauthorised thing. If it is indeed the concern of the company that there should not be such unauthorised transfers, then I think the moment a person who has use of a computer does an unauthorised thing, then he already is using a computer in an unauthorised manner and therefore misusing it, and therefore there is no need to add the word "authorised". I am aware that the drafters of this new section probably took a look at cases elsewhere. There is indeed a case in UK where policemen, for example, use a police computer. They were authorised to do so.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, when I was studying in America, I took the opportunity to visit Harvard University where there is a museum of all the first computers, and I saw this computer made in 1943, a huge room-size thing, which seems to have hundreds of metres of wires in it. And I am told that such a computer actually has less power than one of our little desktop things we have today. The use of computers has become so pervasive that everything we have either has a computer operating it or a micro-chip which is as good as a computer, such as in our watches, microwave ovens, cars, and washing machines. As a matter of fact, under the definition of this Act, microwave ovens and washing machines being programmable devices are actually also computers. So if you misuse them, you also get charged. But, Sir, jokes aside, I think the subject is serious enough when we talk about computers per se. In other words, it is important that when we use computers, being so pervasive these days, we should be careful how people use and misuse them. I think it would have been actually incomprehensible even for the computer makers in the early 80s, for example, to expect that computers would be so well used. In fact, in 1980, a CEO of one of the computer makers dismissed the idea that there would actually be a computer in every house. But look at where we are today. Sir, I think it is important that we catch up with the time and make misuse of computers something that people must take note of and prevent when we can with the law. I have always been of the view that where computers are used to commit an offence and other offences, for example, extortion, blackmailing or stealing something from employers or the company and so on, there is actually an ultimate offence that can be chargeable.”
“I know that the EC Policy Committee has argued that this combining of two different laws into one would aid retrieval and reference, but I think, with respect, this is not a strong argument because digital signature is a state of art set of words and people who want to look for laws on digital signatures can look for them under that title. And if they are looking for laws on electronic commerce, I suspect there are not too many laws in our statute books that have got an electronic title, and I do not think therefore it is going to be so difficult to chase. Nonetheless, if they become two Bills, they could cross refer to each other and, ultimately, electronic searches are possible in Singapore, since we have statutes on CD-ROMs. Then, a good search engine is really all that you need. Sir, I would agree that we cannot burden an electronic transaction Bill with all these technical provisions, but it is now a fact and I would hope that eventually we can rethink this and in the next set of rules, try to separate the technical from the clearly conceptual and the legal principles. I think this is possible and I look forward to that day.”
“We hope that if the model laws are adopted all around the world, then the fact that ours is the first Act in this area, it is not going to be too significant. On the other point of harmonisation, I have argued that the electronic commerce provisions of the Electronic Transactions Bill are separate from the digital signature provisions. I have argued that the two sets of provisions should be kept separate as two separate pieces of legislation. Prof. Chin has earlier on alluded to some of the difficulties in this: Because of all the digital signature provisions, this Bill has become very technical and loaded down with details which should not be there. I feel that in the spirit of the United Nations model laws, for example, they have two separate model laws; one for electronic commerce and one for digital signature. Because when you talk about contractual principles and rules of communication, you are talking about concepts. You are talking about principles and you are not bogged down by the technology and it does not matter what technology is used as long as the procedures are there. Firstly, the technology itself is going to change very fast and very soon digital signatures within three to five years might actually be obsolete. And we should not entrench these provisions into a general Bill. Secondly, the contractual rule gives rise to civil liability, but most of the digital signature framework gives rise to regulatory and prescriptive provisions, a breach of which gives rise to criminal liability, and this is really trying to mix everything and be all things to all men, which is not very good for clarity.”
“Several Members have raised this point that it is good and fine for us to have a law which deals with electronic commerce. But as with all laws, it is territorial in nature. It can only apply to Singapore transactions and to transactions in which the parties stipulate the use of Singapore law. When you have a cross-border transaction as e-commerce is wont to be, then it is difficult to say that Singapore law applies and therefore the consumer must not be lulled into thinking that now he can trade on all these cyber stores in the United States, Germany or Italy with clear laws. The whole idea of tracking international laws and developments in this area, especially the United Nations Commission for International Trade Law model provisions, is that we are able to achieve total harmonisation of the laws when all countries in the world accept the model laws. This is different from a United Nations Convention where all the signatory parties would sign and the law is immediately effective once the different Parliaments pass domestic legislation to accept those laws. But the model law is meant to be something that you can follow at your own pace, at your own time. And so we have actually followed some of the provisions but not all of them. It is important for consumers and business dealings all around the world, across borders, that there must be maximum harmonisation of laws in different countries, just as there is harmonisation of laws for letters of credit. The International Chamber of Commerce has a set of model provisions which are incorporated into letters of credit contracts by bankers and traders all around the world. And different courts, even though they have different ways of looking at these model provisions, nonetheless, have adopted similar approaches.”
“(b) It can refer to the fact that it is foreseeable that a relier on a digital signature should also go on to check the validity of the certificate issued, failing which he would be held to be negligent. Which meaning is it (a) or (b)? Or perhaps the law is speaking with a forked tongue! We should be more precise in this respect. Mrs Lim has mentioned a problem with clause 39. It is the same problem with clause 40 also. Here, the subscriber has got certain obligations, eg, to keep the keys safe and to inform the certification authority (CA) when the private key has been compromised. There is no clear provision in these two clauses as to whether a breach of this is a criminal offence or it gives rise to civil liability. Mrs Lim seems to think that clause 56 applies because it is a criminal offence, but I do not think it is all that clear. On the subject of offences, are the penalties for violation of clauses 25, 26 and 42 sufficient? Cheating under sections 419 and 420 of the Penal Code are subject to penalties of up to three to seven years in jail respectively. Under clauses 25, 26 and 42, the penalties are not that serious. Should electronic cheating warrant any less protection? As has been pointed out by Prof. Chin, the instances of consumers being cheated on the Net would be immense, and immensely possible too. The fourth guiding principle that the Minister has mentioned about this Bill is that it hopes to track global developments in this area, and there are many model laws, for example, that have been drafted by different countries. Some of these are already existing legislation. And I do know that the committee in drafting this Bill referred to provisions as varied as the Utah Digital Signature Act, the Illinois Act, German Act and so on.”
“And what if I have my professional card and my CASE card and they both designate different e-mail addresses, as they do, can a document binding on my law firm, in this case, be sent to my CASE e-mail address? This is not satisfactory. I hope the Minister can also clarify this. The neatest rule in an electronic system is really to have a rule which requires actual receipt. This can mean in most cases the actual retrieving or opening of the message by the recipient, and it is up to the sender to stipulate to the recipient that arrival in the latter's mail box is sufficient by prior arrangement or by agreement, if that is what he wants. This is the same as the rules for receipt of messages by fax or telex, except that in situations where a mail box is expressly stipulated as a place of receipt of legally binding documents, then this express designation moves the time of actual receipt to the time when the message is deposited or is capable of being retrieved from the designated mail box. And so I would hope that in future there is a clarification, and mail box can be defined as referring to the server or the system on which the mail service is run. Moving on to clause 23, there is, I think, a need to have more direct language in this provision. As it stands, the clause can mean one of two things. (a) It can mean that it is foreseeable that a relier on digital signature will also rely on a valid certificate. And hence, if the issuer has issued a false certificate, there is negligence straightaway without further proof, as foreseeability is a test of the existence of a duty of care.”
“In other words, does it cover parents, child, siblings, in-laws? Or is it wider than that, covering legal relationships, such as employer/employee, licenser/licensee, landlord/tenant? I think this can be clarified. Clause 13(4)(c) says that it may be unconscionable to rely on an electronic record. This is a big word. What is the meaning of "unconscionable"? Perhaps the Minister could clarify this too. Clause 15(1) deals with despatch and it says: `. despatch of an electronic record occurs when it enters an information system outside the control of the originator .' This is not applicable obviously when an Intranet owner or a service provider sends messages to its own subscribers, because everything is within its control. It does not go out of its control. So, what rules of sending and receipt would apply in this case? Clause 15(2)(a) says that there is a designated information system that you can send documents to. Should this designated information system be expressly designated? If not, is the mere mention of an e-mail address on my name card sufficient to designate that I intended to receive contractually binding documents at that mail box? This cannot be so, as I could well mean it as a means of social communication only. I give you my e-mail address to chit chat with me, not to send me a contract. In addition, I may not necessarily be indicating an "information system", but essentially a messaging system. Again, there is this question of designated information system designated by whom and to whom. If I tell X my e-mail address and Z comes along and takes that address from X without my knowledge and consent, am I designating to Z? What if I have it on my name card which I give only to X without intending and not expecting that he should pass it on to Z?”
“If the intention is only to cover ISPs, then I think it is too narrow because there are certain commercial operations like this that also need that protection from defamation and copyright infringement for things that they cannot control, unless the Minister says that this particular clause is a provision only limited to protection of ISPs from hackers and non-subscribers. If so, this is a very restrictive protection and does not give much comfort for e-commerce. Clause 10(3) deals with third parties over which the service provider has "no effective control". What does this mean? Most service providers can put in their service contracts that the subscribers must not use the service to post illegal or offensive material. They can reserve the rights to terminate services and pull out or block objectionable content and they can indemnify themselves from the consequences of the subscribers' breaches of contract. They can also add, if they so wish, a clause to prohibit the subscribers from defaming others but they cannot prevent such people from deliberately breaching the rules and the agreement. They can only do so by a lengthy court proceeding. This, however, may still be seen to be "effective control" and thus the service provider's immunity would be removed, and that is why I say this provision would only protect the service provider against incursions by hackers and non-subscribers. If this is not the case, I wish the Minister could clarify that. Going on to clause 13(3)(b), it deals with relationships and it says that if the relationship to the originator of a message is close enough, then it is the message of the originator. Is this relationship contractual, social or fiduciary? Does it mean a degree of proximity as in marriage, in kinship?”
“Again, as I said, because it has been an issue on which I have been out-voted, I wish to emphasise again that consumer transactions, for example, such as those dealing with guarantees, money lending, hire purchase and even the provisions of the Unfair Contract Terms Act, which Prof. Chin has alluded to, should be included in the list of exclusions in clause 4. And obviously, the Minister has got the power in the subsidiary legislation to introduce this if he is so minded. Clause 4 too deals with documents of title. This is a clause which is one thing to businessmen and another thing to lawyers because the meaning differs. It is probably useful to clarify that the meaning here is that of law, which means that essentially title deeds which are documents of title to land and negotiable bills of lading which are truly in law only quasi-negotiable and these would have to be specially and specifically covered. Clause 10 is another clause needing certainty. Prof. Chin has said that this is a clause which is too wide because network service providers cover the whole world. Sir, I beg to differ and because I beg to differ, maybe it is not clear after all. I think this clause is too narrow in scope. Seemingly, it covers only Internet service providers (ISPs). It does not cover resellers of network services, such as Singapore Network Services, for example, or America Online. And it does not cover operators of cybermalls, such as, perhaps, locally, we have Silk Route ventures. It does not cover search engine operators, such as Yahoo and Alta Vista, and other providers of services or networks whose service may be used to disseminate defamatory and infringing works of copyright even when these are beyond their control.”
“But the average businessman is still not sure if his contractual documents and other papers, such as invoices, for which he needs to verify his tax liability, can be paperless till the taxmen say so. And this means nobody would convert his papers to electronic records with clear confidence. So you have the regulation, but I think the proviso in clause 9(1)(d) has gone too far. Perhaps, the Minister could take the opportunity to clarify that the Government agencies fully support the use of IT, document processing systems and e-commerce systems and will not place unnecessary burdens in the way of businesses which wish to execute and convert electronic documents, especially if these documents are electronic from the outset of the creation. Otherwise, businessmen would be asked impliedly to maintain two separate systems, ie, paper and electronic. In terms of certainty and transparency, great efforts have been made to clarify. But like what they say on the Internet websites, "This site is under construction." I would say that this Act is under construction. It is still something which needs to be further worked on. Mention has been made to clause 4. Clause 4 says that we are trying to do some incremental changes here and we should not be too broad and sweep out all the paper immediately. There are some things that still require paper, for example, as Prof. Chin has pointed out, consumer transactions. We need to protect the consumers, we need to keep certain seriousness and certain warning procedures inside contracts that deal with consumers. At various stages, I have actually raised this issue.”
“Chin has reservations in that if we make this too wide, it could cover a lot of transactions that should not be on paper yet, like consumer transactions, for example. Again, I will raise that in a while. But clause 9 has this intention that if the law allows for an electronic record, then the Electronic Transactions Bill should carry on with it. But where the law is silent, the intention is that this Bill will make it possible. The proviso, however, I feel is like giving with one hand and taking away with the other. We say that it is possible to have electronic records provided the approval of the department or ministry of the Government, organ of State or the statutory corporation, which has supervision over the requirement for the retention of such records, is mandatory. Sir, I would like to ask the Minister how would a businessman who wants to do e-commerce know whose approval he needs from the thousands of Government agencies around. Most would of course clear with the known regulators, like the MAS, IRAS, Customs and Excise, RCB and the Stock Exchange of Singapore Ltd (SES). What if, after clearing all these points with the agencies involved, one fine day down the road, some obscure Government agency says, "Hey, you didn't check with me and therefore the whole record is invalid." This proviso should be removed in future. This proviso in clause 9(1)(d), particularly, should be tolerated temporarily to give Government agencies time to put in place the control and security measures. As an illustration, a quick reading of the Companies Act would give confidence that company books, accounts and registers are expressly permitted to be electronic, for example, sections 199 and 395 of the Companies Act.”
“And, fourthly, it must track the global developments in this area: Because if Singapore tries to run too far ahead of the crowd, it could say that it is a leader but there is no point in being a leader when it turns back and see that the rest of the field has actually turned off or sidetracked and gone off in a different direction. I will now address the specific points of these four guiding principles. First of all, I do share some reservations about its total neutrality, as Prof. Chin mentioned earlier. There is, for example, in clause 3, an over-emphasis on the word "electronic". Clause 3 talks about electronic records, electronic communications, etc. The medium of electronic communications is not the only communication channel for e-commerce, particularly if technology in optical communications and radio wave communications is considered. Like Prof. Chin, I think it appears to be a Bill which gives overdue treatment to the digital signature. I have raised this several times throughout the course of this drafting and I know that efforts have been put in to make sure that there is a set: the electronic signature - which means any procedure that you can have, it is technology neutral. And with digital signature, it is meant only to be a sub-set which gives the law certainty. The intention is good and it is there but, as I will point out later in my speech, does not come through all that well. The second point, which is a guiding principle, is that it must be light regulation. In other words, we should try and be as sparing with new rules as we can until we are sure that these are necessary. In this context, I would like to highlight clause 9 which aims to make all electronic records generally recognised in law. Prof.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, let me first declare my interest. I am the Chairman of CommerceNet Singapore Limited which is a grouping of commercial companies that has been set up to promote e-commerce, to set standards, to provide feedback on laws and policies to the Government, and as a self-regulatory business association. Mr Speaker, I have to say too that I have been involved from the early days of this Bill because I was fortunate to have been invited on the Drafting Committee and I have also given my feedback at various times to the various agencies involved in this. Still, as with all committees, there are certain things which of course I feel have to be addressed but were not addressed satisfactorily or, as with committees, I get out-voted. Sir, I wish to raise these issues publicly in this House for clarification and also to have these aired so that others can join in the debate. As has been evident from the speeches of the Members earlier on before the break, there are many, many more issues which have to be addressed and these may have to be taken up at a different time. This is why even though I was minded to move some amendments to this Bill, I have decided that we should not put barriers in the path of this Bill, but have it go through and then work at refining and fine-tuning it later. I am in support of this motion, particularly, the four guiding principles that the Minister has stated. These are the principles that, firstly, the Bill must be technology neutral. Secondly, it must be light regulation. Thirdly, it must be certain and transparent.”
“Mr Speaker, Sir, it would appear that the bus stop accidents occurred around bends and where there is merging traffic. In the light of these circumstances, would the Minister of State perhaps review and resite the bus stops that are located in these dangerous areas and even consider barriers just for these places?”
“We look at how the school develops its teachers, the quality of its teachers, the school's "spirit" and perhaps how hard they work to make sure that the students get an all-round education. Sir, I would urge the Ministry to think along these lines.”
“For example, we could emphasise on value added. I know that after the Committee of Supply debate last year, the Ministry of Education has begun to look at other factors like value added in a more focused way. But I would say that, currently, there is still too much weightage given to academic grades per se. I would urge the Ministry, for example, to look at giving value added the same weightage as academic grades. Because at the end of the day if I send my child to school, I want to know what she is capable of, and the school will make her an even better person. So value added, 30% perhaps, and academic grades, 30%. We could also look at other factors like the school has a good community service programme. The ECA programme is good. It builds compassion in the students. It builds leadership. These are all the other outcomes of education and, therefore, that is 10%. As Mr Chiam said yesterday, the playing fields are important. The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. So playing fields, sports, physical programmes, are important too. We could give some weightage to that too, perhaps another 10%. It is also important for schools to have a record of character building, teaching values in their progammes and the success must be evident. And if it is evident, I think they should deserve 5% for that. Facilities of the school will be important and that, however, should not be over emphasised. We can give it another 5%. I think there can be a catch-all kind of category to which we give a 10% weightage, and this category could involve peer ranking of the school by the teachers and students from other schools.”
“Sir, at the end of the debate yesterday, we heard Mr Lim Swee Say eloquently giving his story of how schools have, because of the ranking system, given up the idea of creative teaching, so that they can attain good grades for the students and thus get a higher ranking. We have had complaints about ranking. The system is too strung up, and it causes too much stress on our students. Last year, at the Committee of Supply debate, I remember Mrs Lim Hwee Hua raised this point, and asked the Ministry of Education to reconsider its emphasis on grades. And she referred to the MSG factor which, in the eyes of the Ministry of Education, refers to mean subject grade, but MSG, Mrs Lim said, is not good for our health and we should remove it. I am glad to say that MSG was indeed removed. But I would like to continue this call for the Ministry of Education to take away this over emphasis on grades in the evaluation of a school. Sir, I have talked to principals who have, perhaps wishfully, perhaps regretfully, said that even though they have given very high value added to the students, if only they could get better students to start off with, then they could get even higher ranking. I think it is important for us to know that ranking is good if done properly. It is good because it keeps schools on their toes. It helps them to evaluate their programmes so that at the end of the day, they know what is weak and what is strong, and so they can improve themselves. Of course, it is good for parents to know what are the good schools. They can choose schools in an informed manner, so that the talents, skills and inclinations of their children can be matched better. Sir, I would urge the Ministry of Education to think of fine tuning the ranking system.”
“Perhaps in this situation, we can think of grants or loans or something which we can give to help them send their children to university or for further studies. And if this is needed, perhaps we can even look at relaxing our rules on the use of CPF savings. The other thing that we can also do to help these students fit back into Singapore society, and besides looking at relaxing the standards for the mother tongue grades, perhaps we could also look at accepting the grades that they have obtained overseas in their overseas educational systems. I think we are rather rigid in this and perhaps our universities, for example, could look into accepting the equivalent of `A' levels, so that these children will not be penalised. Otherwise, if we do not do these things, who would want to go overseas? Who would want to be penalised for being good?”
“Sir, recently, I encountered a case of a person who was posted overseas. He, in his youth, was one of the star performers in his particular department. Perhaps, because of that, he was sent overseas and he stayed several years, working for his employer. When he came back, of course, he felt that he was by-passed for promotion because his cohort had moved ahead. But, Sir, I want to talk about what happened to his children. When he brought his children overseas, of course, he wanted to be with his family. But when he came back, his teenage children could not fit in our school system and became drop-outs. Sir, our Government has been encouraging Singaporeans to build a second wing for the economy and for companies to go regional. I think it is important for us to think of things that we can do to encourage people who have been loyal to their companies and who have been posted overseas. Can we do something to help them adjust when they come back? Perhaps even before they leave, we can have programmes to help them understand the problems that they will face when they come back. And we could emphasise that in cases like this, they would be given exemptions if they need to apply for it. Because in some of these countries they are posted to, their children are not able to study the mother tongue and their standards of the language would therefore deteriorate. We could have orientation. Besides orientation, we can think of scholarships, loans or grants for education. Like this parent that I met, his children cannot enter our local university. But he is not rich enough to send them for an overseas education. And so he feels that for his loyalty to his company, he has been deprived of something that others take for granted.”
“But I am not saying we should drop or stop teaching mother tongue. What I am saying is that the stress of our current educational system is sometimes due to parents putting on more pressure though the Ministry of Education requires them to have some reasonable standards in achieving mother tongue proficiency. Actually all that the Ministry of Education requires is just a pass in the language. Sometimes, parents adopt this attitude that to reach the tree tops you have to aim for the moon. And so they force the students to go for all kinds of remedial lessons and tuition when actually the standard is already proficient. And so they add the stress because they fear that if they do not do this, the student may not even pass the mother tongue and so cannot get into university. Sometimes, they know that their own children can pass mother tongue but they are afraid that in a contest between two equal persons, the one with the lower mother tongue grade would drop out. Then they may say, "Son/daughter, I cannot afford to send you overseas." Here, we have an opportunity for SMU to be a kind of overseas university based locally and this is where we can say, "Well, if you pass mother tongue or even if you don't pass, we can consider and see if you are really one of those who deserve to enter otherwise." Then we would not have people who, when asked about the courts, say "Colombo Court" or maybe "food court". Sir, I think it is also important that if we do have standards that are flexible like this, in terms of admission criteria, then we can also afford to be lenient in deciding what courses the students can do in this university. I hope that if these cases arise, our SMU will be more flexible than the two established universities that we have currently.”
“Not only do they have very little time for ECA, but they are sometimes actually discouraged because they will be faced with comments like, "You stupid fool! Go and study! Why do you care so much for other things?" These are things that we have to nip in the bud. If ECA is to be one of the criteria for admission into SMU, I think we ought to look at the character development aspect of ECA rather than to worry that it is going to be another pressure point, another thing for which the parents would say, "Son, you'd better go and get a gold medal for 100 metre sprint." Sir, one other thing that I would want to raise is to urge those who are planning for SMU and those who will be choosing students for admission that they mind what Prof. Chin has said about not leaving out those who are deserving. There are many ways that students can be deserving to enter into SMU without having got sterling academic results. American universities choose students sometimes based on their potential. In other words, a child's personal interests and potential are as important in deciding whether he should go for a course or not. If he is a violin prodigy, as has been reported in the Straits Times recently, he may be a teenager, his age is too far below what his cohort would be but he, nonetheless, is a genius, and he should be admitted. We do not want to have a situation where Albert Einstein is refused entry into SMU or any of our universities. Sir, the other requirement that perhaps SMU could look into, when looking into admission criteria, is to consider if this high emphasis we put, as a society, on the mother tongue is important. I know I am going to be accused of heresy at this point with some members of the establishment.”
“Sir, it has been announced that the Singapore Management University will be run privately along lines of American universities, and I think this is a good move. It has also been announced that entry standards at this SMU will be high but not necessarily based on academic results. That is a good assurance because we do not want the SMU to be a third rate university. It has been announced too that amongst the other things that would be referred to when choosing students for the SMU would be their record of extra-curricular activities (ECA) and aptitude tests and perhaps essays and interviews. I think that this is also a move that is to be highly commended. The outcome of education really must be to produce a rounded student that is not just word perfect, and not certainly not word perfect "bookworms". We need flexible thinkers, we need people who care for society to be compassionate. And Mr Zainul has referred to the booklet called the "Desired Outcomes of Education". Several of the outcomes for potential leaders are also listed in this book on page 4: First, committed to improving society; compassionate towards others; able to inspire, motivate and draw out the best from others and has the tenacity to fight against the odds, not quitting. 4.30 pm Sir, I doubt that any of these things can be learned in the books and from professors, no matter how intelligent and how brilliant they are. These are things that you have to learn, as Mr Sinnakaruppan has mentioned, from living in the hostels, from acting in the plays produced by the student societies and being student leaders, like Mr Sinnakaruppan was. Sir, it is not easy for a student these days, especially in university.”
“But we also need to be careful that we do not fill our teachers' time so much that they too have no time to think. And if teachers have no time to think, how can they teach students to think in the thinking schools? Tired teachers have no time to think and plan. Tired teachers have no ability to rest, read, refresh and keep up to date. If this happens, we are not going to get our thinking and creative schools. Lastly, I would like to mention that we need to be careful when we plan all these programmes with purpose and good meaning, but they may be implemented in a way that is not expected. I know, for example, that the Ministry of Education sets some very reasonable standards. But the policy makers must remember that at the ground, things are looked at differently. And if they do not understand the rationale of some of the programmes that are being introduced at the Ministry level, they are going to do it their own way, and they are just going to look at it as yet another thing to do to improve the ranking.”
“For thinking schools, we need to reduce the academic load somehow, because there is this irresistible desire for schools (and parents, I suppose, pressuring the schools) to teach primary 6 work, for example, in primary 4. And drill for GEP aptitude test. I think this is ridiculous. Creating needs time to think. Play aids creativity. I think we need to give back to our children time to play, time to be children, time to do things that fill up their time meaningfully. And not just to see that if there is some time left, they must not be given time to be idle, let's fill it up. So we have teachers and parents who have this temptation and they say, "Well, you have got a long weekend ahead. Chinese New Year is coming, many days of holidays, I think you need to do some homework." And then piles of homework are given to them. How do they enjoy their long weekends and holidays then? And how do we give them time to play and learn to be creative? Sir, I think creativity perhaps needs to be nurtured, but I wonder whether creativity can be taught. How would creative teachers be identified? Because if creativity can be taught, surely they must be taught by creative teachers. Otherwise, how do uncreative teachers teach creativity? I think this is a pertinent question to think about, and we certainly do know that we have got a lot of good teachers. But I think it is not every teacher that knows how to be creative or knows how to teach creativity. We are sending a lot of teachers, in a way, back to school, to seminars and workshops to learn things that they perhaps did not learn when they were in the teachers' training school. We are sending them to do all these things because we want to upgrade their skills and improve their professionalism.”
“Sir, it is easy to think of ways to spend money to build good schools and provide the hardware for schools, like computers and the sort of equipment that they need. These can all be listed out. I think it is important to talk about the software that goes into the schools, the children and what we put into their minds. Sir, creative people are divergent thinkers. They tend to come to different conclusions from the majority of us. I have read somewhere that Thomas Edison, for example, was deaf in one ear, because he had been boxed as a child for misbehaviour. We have got a society that tends to, they say, build conformist patterns in children, and this is a clear way of destroying creativity of people who are divergent thinkers. Children who act differently, think differently or give different answers are looked upon as being too smart, too big for the shoes and, therefore, punished and suppressed in normal schools. I think we need to think of ways of changing that. Schools are also burdened with all sorts of programmes. Many of these programmes are, of course, introduced with good intentions, with well-meaning purposes. But when these programmes are implemented in schools, they are done in rather unthinking ways. There are all sorts of enrichment programmes, programmes that teach children IT, programmes that teach children who are bad in their mother tongue to pick up their skills, remedial classes, even community service hours for them to learn how to serve others. Our children are very, very busy people. They have so many things to do. Sir, I wonder whether the schools actually do think carefully of how to implement this, whether the schools give the rationale to the children, so that the children grow up learning why they are doing these things.”
“Maybe we can do a model village like that just to remind Singaporeans of where we were and how far we have come. Sir, this call is also to the Government - and the Minister for Finance is happily here - for the Minister for Finance to allocate some more funds to the Minister for Community Development so that we can have funds to educate and publicise these things that Singaporeans can do to help them to learn and this is a learned thing to learn the art of relaxation and the proper use of leisure time.”
“We need to create facilities for Singaporeans to play, recreational facilities that do not cost the earth, perhaps such as adventure campsites. I think we have got adventure campsites that were planned but are now suffering from the regional crisis because these things have to be put on the shelf as they are not deemed to be necessities. Sir, I think that is short-sighted. These are necessities - fishing sites, perhaps even kelong sites. I think PPD and some other agencies discourage Singaporeans from going up to kelongs to just spend a night there, or fish and do things like that. I think we should allow them to do so. We should allow for more outdoor accommodation for fun activities, more parks like Sungei Buloh and Labrador and we should leave Pulau Ubin alone so that it is unburdened with all our improvements. There is value in being able to just run around in the wild, so to speak. Sir, if we leave it untouched, it also helps our Singaporeans to be reminded of the times that we have gone through, that once upon a time in Singapore it was like that. It would give them some lessons in how far we have come and how much we should appreciate the work that we have put in. Sir, perhaps this can be modified a little. We might be able to preserve one or two villages in there as pristine as we can. Leave it there, the Malay village or the Chinese village, so that the people would remember how we lived once upon a time. Perhaps for this model village we can put people there. Like in other countries, for example, Plymouth, in Massachusetts, they have got a village there as if it is still living in the 1600s. They have got people moving around, sowing, planting, milling, and so on.”
“My call is also to the Singapore Government to promote sports (not only for the masses, we have been doing that a lot) and I think it is time we move on to a higher level, and that is we should also be promoting sports for professional talents to grow, not just in soccer but in everything else. This may seem like benefiting only a small group of people but as we can see from other nations, every time somebody wins a medal in the Olympics, the whole nation wins and cheers. Every time there is a medal won in the World Cup, not only in soccer, but in all sorts of things, everyone stands up and cheers. So I think it is important now for us to start looking for programmes to groom professional talents and be serious about this because professional talents and champions also serve this purpose of bonding the nation and the community together, and giving us all, you might say, a vicarious national pride in this achievement. We need bigger grants for grassroots organisations, for example, to organise family oriented sports and games and recreational activities and be more proactive in starting some of these programmes. My call is also to the Government to promote mental health by building facilities that would give fun, inexpensive fun, for Singaporeans. It is nice to build big resorts or big tourist spots that can also be used by locals, but these are expensive and generally if you look at the entrance fees of $15-$16, nobody goes. If you look at the Lianhe Zaobao celebrations, they opened up Tang Dynasty City for a dollar and crowds came. Perhaps we do not have to charge a dollar, maybe $3 or $5, and I think much more response will be there.”
“Sir, it is commonly acknowledged that there is too much stress in Singapore and, as Dr Teo has eloquently put it, the quality of life is not as it should be. We are too strung-up. We are too serious minded. As the Minister for Information and the Arts said in the debate in this House a few days ago, quoting Mr Sim Wong Hoo, our best and most famous entrepreneur, there is not much of a fun element in Singapore. Even a pressure cooker needs safety valves or else the pot will explode and then whatever you are cooking is useless and wasted. I do believe, Sir, that the pressure cooker that we are in in Singapore needs safety valves. There is anecdotal evidence that more and more children, for example, are going for counselling and the mental health of our nation is at stake. The talents that we are nurturing could one day explode and then be wasted. I do not know if there are figures, but if there are, I hope the Minister would reveal them to the House. Sir, my purpose today is not just a call to the Minister to do something about this, but also a call to all Singaporeans, my fellow Singaporeans, to remember to work hard and play hard. This is a call to all Singaporeans to keep a healthy mind in a healthy body. Being competitive is fine because we are a small nation that survives on our wits, but being a small nation that is competitive does not mean that we have to spend every single moment making money and forget about our health and forget about our families and having fun with them. Being competitive, without being healthy, is thus foolish.”
“She can then quickly finish her work without being worried sick to death that her child will be traumatised by the delay or that the child care centre will levy a huge penalty on her for not picking up the child punctually. Sir, this is a simple idea and highly practical. Why do we not have more of such arrangements? Perhaps we should give employers tax incentives or grants to build and operate such centres. Or as Prof. Chin has said, we could perhaps release more funds to upgrade the carers' skills and give them pride of place so that people actually would want to work in such places and it would no longer be a lottery to find a good child care centre. More importantly, I think the Government should set the example by setting up centres like these in all the Government departments. If the Government employees do not form a sufficient catchment for the service, they could open up the centres to workers working in the immediate vicinity or in the same building. And who says they should limit this service to mothers? I know there are some fathers who would need this type of service too. I do hope the Minister would consider this suggestion useful.”
“Sir, as a nation, we have to wean ourselves from an over-dependence on foreign labour, especially domestic labour. We also want our women to contribute to the economic growth of our country by staying in the workforce. Who will then look after our children? Who will teach and nurture them? I am one with Mr Zulkifli in asking if we have to pay somebody to teach them and nurture them, would it not be better to rely on well-trained professionals who have our own values and understand our own cultural sensitivities. There are some things we can learn from the developed countries in this area where they have large numbers of women in the workforce and yet only the very very rich have live-in domestic help. One of the ways they do this is to have an extensive system of child care centres, nurseries and creches. Many enlightened employers even run these centres at the workplace. The advantage of such arrangements is that the mother brings the child to the same place she works, leaves the child with professional child carers and goes to her own work. At lunch time, she can visit her child, play with her child, have personal quality time to interact and bond with the child. When the child is ill, the mother can work with peace of mind because she can pop in now and then to check on the child and the company benefits too from this arrangement because she does not have to apply for urgent leave. At the end of the day, she does not have to rush off early from work to battle the traffic jams so that she can pick up her child in time. Instead, she can just pop in to the centre and make arrangements with the staff there before going back to work. Alternatively, she can pick up her child and bring the child back to her work desk.”
“Clarification, Sir. Can I ask the Minister whether he cares to say whether and how the austerity measures have affected the plans of the Ministry?”
“The goodwill gained, the lessons imparted to the young, the extra money earned from the increased volume of repeat visits or purchases by the elderly - these are, I submit, of greatest value to us on the whole. Many places such as the museums, art festival performances, SSO concerts, perhaps the tourist spots which are currently languishing, and the cinemas which are flourishing on the other hand, these can all benefit from such concessions. There is a ready market out there which is currently being tapped only by conmen selling magnetic mattresses and spurious investments. Third, there can be centres put up at, say, community centres, or some other centres, like what Dr Neo said, which would take care of the elderly. Perhaps at these centres, besides giving them activities to do, we could also provide them with opportunities to buy daily necessities at concessionary rates and the marketers who sell such products and services can benefit by saving the cost which they pay for overheads, such as rental, advertising and middlemen's commissions. Government should take the lead by offering concessions for the elderly in Government-run places of interest and services. Let us stop thanking and praising our elders only and start giving them some practical help to alleviate their sometimes precarious financial conditions.”
“I wish to talk of bonds and the breaking of bonds. But before you rule me out of order, I must quickly add that the bonds I am talking about are the social and family bonds which are the glue that holds our nation together. It is trite to say that the family is the building block of the nation, and that for the family to stay together we need to educate our young to respect their elders, to honour them and to look at them as the repositories of the wisdom which is our nation's resources and treasure. Too often, however, we pay lip services to these principles. Or perhaps we do not know how to be practical in teaching our young how to honour their elders. One of the most practical and eminent ways in which we can show we care and respect our elders is to acknowledge their past contributions. They have toiled to give us the Singapore we have today. They did not, as a rule, obtain the material benefits we gain today in doing the same thing. We can acknowledge their past contributions by praising them, but praise is not tangible and does not impact the young mind on the seriousness with which we praise. If we do not change the minds of the young, we will be guilty of planting the seeds which would cause a break in our social bonds. Would it not be possible for the small kindness movement, for example, to extend to the giving of more concessions to the elderly? First, we can extend the bus concessions we have given them by lifting restrictions on the routes and on the time of use. Second, we can encourage both public and private sectors to realise that concessions to the elderly are not entirely subsidies but a show of gratitude and also good business.”
“Sir, the hon. Members before me have pointed out that we do have an aging population. As I look around this House, I suspect that this House is probably greyer than it has been any time in its history. In any case, I know for a fact that the average age for the 23 freshmen MPs is higher than it has ever been before. We therefore clearly are aging as a nation. And I agree with Dr Vasoo that we should dedicate more funds for MCD to deal with the problems faced by an aging community. What is being done, what will be done, to prepare Singaporeans for the day that they too will grow old and to position our social structures to cope with that change. I would like to ask the Minister to update us on that. A further question is: would these plans be affected by the more austere budget necessitated by the regional financial crisis? Sir, I would like to move to my next cut.”
“Sir, a point of clarification. Mr Lim said in his reply that the management corporation's work should not be taken over. I do agree. But in my examples, they were all public facilities. Management corporations deal with private facilities. If the Minister is agreeable that upgrading will be done, my question is: why not town councils? I do not expect to persuade the Minister immediately. But I think some thought should be planted. I would also thank the Minister for praising the good work CASE has done on a peanut budget. Now that he has passed the buck back to CASE, perhaps, he would like to move a few hundred thousand bucks our way too.”
“The Minister said yesterday that the Government is "still committed to upgrading private estates" but has postponed this in these austere times. So that means when good times return and HDB estates have been upgraded, it will be the turn of the private estates to be upgraded. Even before that time comes, there will be occasions where MPs would like to improve and maintain the environment of their residents in private estates and develop common facilities such as street furniture, footpaths and neighbourhood park facilities. In such a situation, it will be good to have an administrative infrastructure at the local level for MPs to improve the quality of life of their private estate voters. I submit that such an agency and infrastructure already exists in the shape of the town councils. They have the experience and expertise. They can be given more responsibilities, such as the provision of municipal services, such as cleaning and garbage disposal and the upgrading and maintenance of common facilities in such estates. The town councils will then be in charge of `real' towns and MPs will no longer be in the unenviable position of being accused of neglecting their private estate residents. Would the Minister please study this proposal?”
“Why do we have no laws or licensing requirements to root out such underhanded ways of ripping off our poor and uneducated, our law-abiding citizens who entrust their matters to companies which they mistakenly believe have been cleared and licensed by the authorities? Sir, to add to the litany of woes, there are all sorts of "real estate agents" also who earn 1% or 2% of the sale price of HDB flats and houses without doing a single thing for the householder. Fortunately, such agents have now got to attend classes before they are given licences to practise. And their certificates are issued by the IRAS. Sir, what we need is a single agency that members of the public can go to if they have been taken advantage of by crooks such as these, who will then get their licences revoked. The list of licence holders can be checked by householders who need such services. Advertisers who have no licences will not be allowed to advertise and the media companies should be required by law to check such credentials before allowing the businesses to advertise. In this way, fly-by-night operators will disappear overnight because they have no way to advertise their services. The one-stop agency is for the convenience of the public and to prevent confusion. It will also result in better control of such tradesmen and professionals. The unit can be called the Housing Services Licensing Unit and will exist to help trade associations to set trade, safety and training standards to instill professionalism. These standards can be formulated and applied by the respective trade associations which should have powers to penalise violators of their own ethical standards. This could include the power to recommend that recalcitrant tradesmen's licences be revoked. Sir, I move now to my last amendment.”
“On the day of the move, the workers turn up late and refuse to work unless paid overtime, or claim that the items in the house are far too many to be moved in one trip, or turn up with lorries different from those promised. In the end, the householder has no choice but to pay up because there is no way he can find an alternative mover at such short notice and so late in the day. Sir, the list of tricks goes on and on. It is time we licensed such services. Presently, we have a rather complicated and yet incomplete system of licensing such services. Plumbers are licensed by ENV and PUB, depending on whether they are sanitary or non-sanitary plumbers; electricians are licensed by PUB; certain renovation companies are licensed by HDB, but not all; and house removers are not regulated by any agency. They are a law unto themselves. The woes they inflict on unsuspecting householders come about in the unfair way they conduct their businesses or in the poor quality of their services. Householders who have been taken for a ride, however, cannot find redress from the licensing agencies because the agencies do not appear to have powers to require the tradesmen to do their businesses in a fair way. The so-called licensing is really a register of people with such skills and licensing authorities are only concerned whether these people have the correct training or proper business addresses for service of notices. 2.15 pm Sir, this cannot be right. We are not a nation of robbers and highwaymen. Why do we permit such unconscionable conduct?”
“First, I would like to highlight the difficulties faced by the average Singaporean household in respect of household services. The Consumers Association of Singapore has had occasion to blacklist plumbers, electricians and renovation contractors who have no qualms about earning excessive fees for their services, and low quality services, and earning such fees in unconscionable situations. The usual modus operandi of such scoundrels is to advertise in the classified advertisements of the newspapers promising services for what looks like reasonable charges. When they have finished their work, which may actually be simple work, they claim that their original fees have to be increased because of certain special work or equipment that they had used, without first seeking the consent of the householder. Some of them have even inflated their charges 300 times more than what they have advertised and used coercion to obtain payment, for example, by escorting the householders to the ATM machines to withdraw cash. Others have masqueraded as contractors engaged by HDB to do upgrading of their flats. They have preyed mainly on the elderly and the illiterate who are more easily awed by officialdom and threats of force. Another source of frustration for householders is generated by house removers. These unscrupulous persons advertised cheap rates for house removal also in the classifieds and would even promise householders whatever they ask for: covered lorries, free boxes; everything moved in one trip, etc. The householder then fixes a date for moving and gets all packed up.”
“Sir, with your permission, I cannot resist a quick response to Mr Sinnakaruppan. I do agree very wholeheartedly that foreign workers do deserve clean and decent housing because foreign workers are people too. But I wonder how far away from Singaporean housing should we place these houses? In small Singapore, I think maybe we might have to put them out in the kelongs. I think the point is that we need to balance the interest of foreign workers and our residents too, and I do support that point. Sir, with your permission too, I would like to deal with my three amendments together? The Chairman: Yes.”
“Sir, again, I will be brief. The question I have is with regard to the liberalisation of telecommunication services and the cheaper infrastructure that we could put in to allow for electronic commerce. Firstly, I would like the Minister to give this House an update on the progress of obtaining the third mobile and second fixed line operator, and whether there are any further plans to liberalise post and telecommunications. We also have had complaints about the service standards of our Internet service providers and also about the high cost of lease line services. These are costs that people would have to bear if they go into electronic commerce. If we are to become an electronic commerce hub, we need to ensure inexpensive but high quality telecommunication infrastructure.”
“Further, if taxi services are to be deregulated and irrespective of whether more entrants are allowed, there must be a minimum service standard of quality, so that free market competition will not descend to unacceptable levels and tarnish the image of the world-class transportation system that we are building. I would urge the PTC to set such quality of service standards in future.”
“Sir, the LTA has recently opened some new flyovers and three-tier road systems such as the Queensway/Farrer Road junction and the Bukit Timah Road/Farrer Road junction. There are more to come, I believe, such as the one at the Braddell Road/Upper Serangoon Road junction. I would like to ask the Minister to enlighten this House on the principles, such as cost benefit analysis, which are considered when the LTA decides on where such three-tier junctions are to be built, whether there will be more of these, whether they have been found to be effective so far, and the respective cost of building a flyover as against an underground vehicular pass or tunnel. Sir, next, I would like to speak on the deregulation of the taxi industry. The Minister has announced to this House that the LTA will be recommending to the Public Transport Council to deregulate taxi fares in Singapore. There are only three taxi operators in Singapore currently. Members of the public are worried that the three operators will get together to form a cartel to fix prices. If the prices are fixed at an unreasonably high level, commuters will suffer. When I say cartel, Sir, I am also referring to the situation where the parties may not officially be a cartel, but would informally match each other's rates in an unspoken arrangement, such as what we suspect is happening in the petroleum industry. Would the LTA or PTC be monitoring this situation? To prevent this, it might be important to also liberalise taxi services so that more companies can enter the market to provide competition if they so desire.”