The Plot Thickens

One can appreciate the number of foreign construction workers needed in the country, and we are grateful to each and everyone of them for scaling the dizzying heights of tower cranes and scaffoldings to build our new landscape. Why the Immigration and Checkpoint Authority of Singapore (ICA) allowed so  many non-construction sector foreigners to come in is the question begging to be answered.

The resident total fertility rate (TFR) fell to 1.19 in 2013 from 1.29 in 2012. The number of foreigners taking up employment here is still growing at nearly 3 times the total population growth rate, which expanded 1.3 per cent to 5.47 million as of June. That total population figure includes 20,000 new citizenships and 30,000 new permanent residencies (PRs) which the government continues to grant each year, despite the token measures and empty promises to reduce the foreign intake. All the numbers point toward the demise of the Singapore born and bred, destined to go the way of the dodo bird.

It was worst in 2011-12, when foreign employment growth was as high as 8.1 per cent. Those were the wild and woolly days when a tour guide with dubious credentials could easily sneak past the lax ICA.

Member of Parliament Intan Azura Mokhtar has now ponied up and admitted that, yes, she did write a letter of appeal on behalf of Yang Yin to the ICA. She downplayed her contribution to the perfidy that is alleged to have robbed an old woman of as much as $10 million in missing treasures. She must have written so many such letters for people she scarcely knows. Or so she claims.