PAP has all along deliberately distort a very fundamental issue, and that issue is the cost of infra structure development for our country.
The cost of constructing rail ways, roads and MRT has always been borne by the transport ministry which in turn is financed by the finance ministry which collects taxes and revenue from us, the people. Unless the entire MRT is built and financed by private companies and enterprises on built and operate contract, it is completely incorrect to implement a system where the public has to repay the construction cost.
And the fact is no private company in any one of the world’s major cities have ventured into MRTs, the reason is obvious enough. Besides, providing affordable, efficient and sustainable public transport is ALWAYS a prime duty of a responsible elected government!!
If the public is to repay the construction cost of the MRT, then the MRT should not have been built with government funding at all, simply because government funds is public funds. You cannot use public funding to build something essential for the public and then demand that the public has to pay back!!
It would be like I use your money to build something for you that is essential to your economic function and then after having built it and ask you to pay for it again through the use of the system, where is the logic?? The fallacy here is the public is paying twice, directly or indirectly.
PAP has use the same misguided logic in all its other public services, at the end of the day, PAP ends up collecting twice for every public infrastructure it builds: asset plus cash value of the facility it builds.
The correct, or rather fair approach to public facility such as public transport is to generate only enough revenue to sustain good service and maintenance. Even with that, the government do not lose money because the asset value is always appreciating, think about the land and the commercial income such as shop rental MRT is collecting everyday!!
PAP!! Stop treating us like fools!! There is a saying that little action tells a whole lot about a person, in our case, our government and its central philosophy of governance.
Ethen Jin-Chew