Remember that each time the nation complains, this is what happens:
1. The government acknowledges the complaint and declares it is valid and that they will form a committee or some crap to look into it.
2. A proposal will be tabled in Parliament resulting in 100% approval by MPs and ministers who also sit on key institutions as board directors.
3. The state media will give details of the proposal and examples of how each family will benefit from the extra government spending in the form of “subsidies” (whether this be direct cash handout, “better” transportation, “increased” healthcare subsidy, etc).
4. The money will be taken out from public coffers to pay as “subsidies” for Singaporeans who are the “beneficiaries”.
5. These subsidies go to paying government institutions which have been privatised and whose board members are the very people (MPs, ministers) who approved the proposal in Parliament.
This is the perfect machinery for channeling public money into private hands (now you know why the govt just can’t wait to privatise every single institution and hand out subsidies).
Every complaint Singaporeans make, the government’s solution is in the form of subsidy or expenditure. If you complain about noise, let’s spend $10 million on noise control technology. If you complain about not enough medical coverage, let’s spend some billions to buy insurance coverage. If you complain about spalling concrete, let’s renovate the entire estate with heavy subsidy. If old people refuse to stay in retirement homes, let’s make the entire nation elderly friendly, including the roads, the toilets, the buses, the stations, etc. Don’t be surprised you will find hundreds of examples over decades.
The problem is this – often the complaint is made by a small percentage of the population but is blown up by state media to warrant massive expenditure. Sometimes the media skew it in such a way as to suggest something else. For example, when Singaporeans grumble about the MRT being over-crowded with people, what they mean is that they don’t want to see foreigners taking over our space. But the government skewed it to mean this: We hear your complaint about public transport, so we will spend more money to build more stations and new lines so as to ease your travel! But the real motivation is the government is building the capacity for millions more foreigners who are arriving. Exactly the same with housing – we build faster and more units so you need not wait. Really? Why only now?
I want you, my dear Singaporeans, to take a hard look and trace where all this expenditure is ending up and the real motivation behind all their words and actions.
It is extremely hard to regain the trust of the people. WP for 2016!
The Savvy Artist