Letting 100,000 extra foreigners conquering Singapore is a good sign

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said that more than 100,000 extra foreigners are set to enter the workforce this year.

Commenting on this, labour chief Lim Swee Say said: 'It's a good sign, because it shows that at a time when many countries are having a shortage of jobs, we are having a shortage of workers.'


Regardless how many locals are going to lose their job opportunities to the cheaper foreigners.

Regardless how much the cheap labor is going to drive the country's average wage further down.

Regardless how much more overcrowded the public transport is going to get.

Regardless how much more difficult it is going to be for the locals to get housing, or even places in schools for their children.

So how is this a good sign? I suppose Mr Lim is clueless.

Do you want cleaners going into your household to do the cleaning?

"When we have a littering problem and we have a cleanliness problem, the conservancy costs will go up because the workers will have to come in more regularly.

That would increase the cost because from a normal cleaning situation where you just clean the common corridors and the lift lobbies, now you have to go into the individual households to try and clean it.

This is unnecessary for the residents because the higher the cost, it will be transferred to the residents. We do not want that to happen.

We want them to try and minimise the need for them to pay extra just because of irresponsible behaviour. At this point in time, we have not raised the conservancy charges at all because we have been able to manage, but I think we can continue to contain it even better if residents take responsibility.

The chances of increasing costs will be there if we do not contain this, because the idea is to look at the natural situation where previously you will not need workers to go into individual households."

-- Dr Maliki Osman, Parliamentary Secretary for National Development


Workers to go into individual households to clean? I have read the passage over and over again and still got no idea what he is trying to say. To stop high-rise littering, cleaners will go into the individual households to try and clean it? If high-rise littering were to continue, the rubbish will still end up at the foot of the blocks, which is already been cleaned by the cleaners. So where is this "going into individual households" coming from? My guess? Dr Osman has no idea what he is talking as well because most probably he don't stay in a HDB flat.

And is raising the service and conservancy charges the way to deter high-rise littering? Are we getting to the root of the problem? Is it fair to make the rest pay for the littering few? This is exactly why chewing gum is banned in Singapore. Because of the irresponsible minority.

All will benefit from distance-based fare system. Eventually.

"There would be a group who currently, the ones who are travelling single trips and shorter trips who are not benefiting, but we hope that if they review it say on a weekly travel pattern basis instead of looking at it on a per-trip basis ... look at it as a weekly travel pattern and sometimes also in terms of what is to come later on, more choices ... in due course, I am sure they will benefit as well."
-- Lim Hwee Hua, Second Minister for Transport and Finance


Apparently the public has mistaken the goodwill of the authorities again. Apparently they must benefit from the new distance-based fare system. As advised by Ms Lim, if not per trip, then daily, or weekly, or monthly, or even yearly. If they still don't see their savings in one year, they should look at it in a long term perspective, like 10 years. Somewhere down the years, they must benefit. That is how far ahead the transport authority has looked and planned.

Still not convinced? Then take and swallow the second reason from Ms Lim. They are paying ahead for what is to come later, like more choices of trains and buses. So they will benefit. Eventually. Really.