I refer to MP Goh Chok Tong’s interview in Petir’s “Staying ahead of social challenges”. Goh was instrumental in opening the immigration floodgates to any citizen from less developed countries. Regardless if they were foreign trash, all were considered talents. Although our infrastructures were inadequate, Goh went ahead with an annual population increase of 100,000, including citizens.
Goh sees “the long runway he has travelled”, including nearly 40 years in politics....he wants to continue using to contribute to Singapore”. In view of some of the irreversible problems created by Goh, most Singaporeans wouldn’t mind paying him to keep out of politics.
He says: “I’m focused on what Singapore is going to be like in the future,..what I think could be the problems and how we can tackle them”. So does that mean Goh was not focused in the past and somehow had not anticipated today’s problems.
Any person with an average intelligence knows it’ll be a challenge as society faces a rapidly ageing population. For this and other social issues, Goh displayed his brilliance and suggested the formation of another committee ie a “social review committee” which is similar to the government’s “economic review committees”.
After all the detailed studies and recommendations of the Economic Review Committee (ERC) have been implemented, all the government did was take shortcuts to increase the GDP by:
- importing cheap labour to increase productivity
- building casinos
- increase intake of foreigners
- providing tuition grants to foreigners.
etc.
If the results are going to be similar to those of the ERC, then please don’t invite a disaster by setting up another committee.
We already have hundreds of government committees like RCs, CDCs, CCCs, etc. The PAP already has more than 30,000 pairs of grassroots ears on the ground, RCs, RCs sub committee, etc. If they were not listening then, they will not be listening now.
The problem lies in a government which refuses to listen and setting up another thousand committees will not improve its hearing. What the government needs is an appointment with an ENT specialist, clear up whatever that has been causing hearing impairment and maybe put on some hearing aid.
Philip Ang
*The writer blogs at http://likedatosocanmeh.wordpress.com/