The number of new citizens has doubled from slightly below 10,000 in early 2000 to an average of about 19,000 the last 6 years. The PAP has gone ahead with its population target, refusing any serious and meaningful debate in parliament. It will not stop until it is stopped by people’s power. There appears to be an insidious agenda and many have speculated the PAP is in dire need for the votes of new citizens at the next election.
Despite PAP MP Inderjit Singh urging the government to stop the growth in PRs and new citizens in 2011, the PAP insisted on fighting against common sense. NMP Eugene hit the nail on PAP’s head when he opined that immigration is the “mother of all issues”.
The problems created by new immigrants, courtesy of PAP, is reframed by the mainstream into one of the government having initiatives in CNA’s “PA’s initiatives to integrate new immigrants & Singaporeans”.
Singaporeans should note that:
1 The population target is PAP’s, NOT OURS. No thinking Singaporean should accept this as it would mean we are willing to accept more crowding in public space and public hospitals, higher property prices, less places in public tertiary institutions for locals and the eventual loss of national identity.
2 The Population White Paper (PWP) was also not supported by some PAP MPs. The PAP MPs who did not speak out against the PWP are clearly living in La La Land, totally disconnected from ordinary Singaporeans.
When MPs are getting a monthly allowance of $16,000 as well as a 5 to 6 figure income from their profession and numerous directorships, they are not concerned with what has been happening on the ground eg. none of them are aware that during weekends, up to 90 per cent of commuters on our trains could be foreigners.
Yesterday, 2:51 PM (Sunday peak hour, up to 90% foreigners on our trains)
We should not expect PAP MPs like ex MP Michael Lim who lives in a ‘chateau’ to understand the 83% of us who live in public housing units which must seem like cages to him. While most of us clean our apartments, Michael outsources his.
Image credit: BT
3 By supporting the integration policy, that would mean the PAP will continue to maintain a loose immigration policy. As it is, there is hardly any room on our public transportation for the elderly and family with children. We must put an immediate stop to a worsening situation. If the PAP says that such a situation is OK, they should take public transportation during weekends with their family. Otherwise, Singaporeans will likely tell them not to T C S S.
4 In my estate, PRCs stick to their kind and there is really no integration with locals. RC members are of course silent as there is no direction from their PAP master and also no complaints. As the government mouthpiece, the mainstream media will blindly support all government policies despite most being flawed, leading to the current mess.
In the above mentioned CNA article, PAP MP Fatimah Lateef considers “having more dialogue sessions and roping in youths to help” as some initiatives by the People’s Association Integration Council. Put it another way, it is actually PAP trying to resolve the biggest mess it has created by allowing immigrants who have no desire to integrate into the country. It is also an attempt to push ahead with the immigration policy despite the rejection from the majority of Singaporeans.
Fact:
The PA is a politicised institution. Contrary to its name, it priority is not to serve citizens but the political objectives of the PAP. Its board of directors comprises PAP ministers and their supporters.
5 Fatimah, the council’s adviser, says: “People from the same ethnic community tend to stick together…we have to try to break them down to a certain extent by integrating people, bringing them out.”
Questions:
Why should the government commit public resources to ‘breaking down new immigrants’ if they were willing to integrate in the first place?
Why does the government give out citizenships, like tissue paper, to foreigners who have been here for at least five years but has still not been able to integrate?
From asking the relevant questions, instead of simply accepting instructions from the PAP as if we are non-thinking citizens, we can see from the above that Fatimah has indirectly acknowledged our flawed immigration policy.
6 Fatimah has been trying to resolve problems in her constituency in Geylang for 8 years. Instead of resolving them, Geylang has now turned into a potential powder keg, according to the police chief. Fatimah took the trouble to trumpet her deeds for residents on a Facebook posting ie working with various agencies to address the issues, installing X number of lamp posts and CCTVs, etc. But the end result is a situation has become markedly worse. Fatimah is an ineffective MP at best.
7 Besides huge intangible costs, our integration policy comes with added financial costs to citizens. In 2009, PA’s ‘staff costs’ was $149,000,000. In 2012, this had ballooned to $223,000,000, an increase of $74,000,000 or 50% in 3 years. Other ‘initiatives’ are also not f.o.c. eg the National Integration Council’s (NIC) Community Integration Fund (CIF) of $10,000,000 to co-fund other initiatives such as providing free visits to heritage sites for foreign students.
8 To take our ‘wayang’ from Mediacorp to Hollywood level, the PA Integration Division wants to appoint “150 youth integration ambassadors”. This again confirms PAP’s policy failure and it is so desperate as to recruit students to portray to the world its initiatives in helping foreigners. If only it was half as caring towards citizens.
9 Did the PAP have the mandate of citizens? The answer is no. Policies need not be debated in parliament but are decided by only a number of politicians. Instructions are then given to subordinates and so called grassroots members with our 150th ranking media acting as PAP’s stenographer. The PAP is merely creating an image to impress other countries to increase their foreign investments.
10 Newbie minister, Lawrence Wong, has already mastered the art of giving motherhood statements to perfection and offers his pearls of wisdom to subpar intelligent citizens like us: “Integration takes time and a lot of effort is needed at the person-to-person level”. Lawrence expects citizens to believe new citizens will be able to integrate after having failed to do so for five years.
11 To rope in member of the public to its cause, the government created a fancy title called Integration and Naturalisation Champions (INC). It is likely there will be some recognition/award/reward for citizens to become INCs. This is similar to the majority of self serving RC members whose personal agendas citizens are acutely aware of. The costs of our failed immigration policy is being distributed by the PAP to citizens and this is termed an ‘initiative’.
12 Lawrence hedged his statements well when he advised INCs that they “need to be patient and committed as the results of your efforts may not bear fruit immediately”. No need for any time frame nor any objective yardstick.
13 In 2013, PA organised 2,310 activities to promote integration, an increase of 35% over the previous year. Of the 400,000 attendees, about 20% were new immigrants. But Singaporeans know the PA is playing the numbers game – residents attend government events only when free makan and other freebies are provided. Why don’t just throw more tax dollars to achieve a 350% increase in the number of activities and make it even more ‘successful’ ?
In short:
- PAP’s immigration was flawed from day one and citizens must not continue to play along as if GDP figures matter most.
- By playing along with the integration programme, we indicate to the PAP we prefer policies not to be debated in parliament.
- The majority of Singaporeans are against the immigration policy. Singaporeans did not give PAP the green light to throw tax dollars at a programme to address a failed policy.
- Every new citizen is expected to self integrate into the new environment. But Singapore has an upside down system where the government has to spend millions in tax dollars, set up all sorts of committees with silly ‘initiatives’ to convince new immigrants that they need to integrate into Singapore society!
- Should citizens decide to assist the PAP in any desperate attempts to ‘right’ a flawed policy, it will continue to ignore common sense.
Singaporeans must not support PAP’s forced integration programme or we risk the population target shifting from 6.9 to 9.6 million.
Phillip Ang
*The writer blogs at http://likedatosocanmeh.wordpress.com/