01/10/2012

Watz Buzzing - 1 Oct 2012


Application to impeach Cecilia Sue filed by Ng Boon Gay's defence counsel


Yahoo! News Singapore, 1 Oct 2012
Defence counsel of former Central Narcotics Bureah chief Ng Boon Gay applied for the impeachment of prosecution witness Cecilia Sue Siew Nang in court on Monday.


In the fifth day of the trial of Ng, who stands accused of sex-related corruption, senior counsel Tan Chee Meng noted that inconsistency in Sue’s testimony and her statements to the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau.

Tan pointed out discrepancies concerning Sue’s testimony that Ng told her that CNB’s budget for an IT project was "about a couple hundred thousands (dollars) or so".
Sue had also said that a Paul Chew had told her that her quote of $400,000 was not within CNB’s budget. Full story

Related:
Ng’s lawyer applies to impeach Cecilia Sue - Xin MSN News


read more

Myth Busters

The Government has set up its own "myth busting" web pages called "Factually". Nestled within the tabs of the official www.gov.sg website, is a section for "cutting through the swirl of rumour and distortion online". One of the "bite-size answers" is a nugget about HDB flat sizes. Of the 399 words, only the following really matters:


It was at the annual REACH Contributors' Forum on Wednesday night of 2 May 2012, that National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan told a student from the National University of Singapore that HDB flats are not shrinking, contrary to popular belief. In fact, sizes of HDB flats have been the same for the past 15 years.

read more

Singapore a ‘Barren Island’ in the 1950s??? A miscommunication or another untruth?



I never cease to be amazed when I come across incredulous claims made by the PAP government and their devoted supporters. One wonders if it is sheer arrogance that makes them say things that are clearly not true and yet they think they can get away with it? Examples abound with the most glaring example being erroneous claims made to enhance the reputation of the MIW. Some of these erroneous claims include assertions that Singapore was an ulu backwater, swamp, slum before the PAP came along and saved the day.

I thought I had heard it all until I read Ex-Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew asserting in a speech to an international and local audience that Singapore was “a barren island” when the PAP first took control in the 1960s!

Mr Lee had made these remarks earlier this week while hosting a French oil company to dinner at the Istana. He said: “We were suddenly confronted with the challenge of making a living for two million people on a barren island at the southernmost tip of Asia, which gives us the advantage of servicing all the ships that cross the Atlantic and the Pacific.

read more

Myth 232- Shattering the elitist myth

Elitism and the elitist class have been bundled and sold to the non elite masses as the cure all for all the ills in the country and society, and that the elite hold all the answers to the well being of the people.

That followed a couple of decades of elitism pays, and the elite paid themselves handsomely like they were the gods of the day, or at least some openly compared themselves to the immortals. And be very grateful to the elite.

The first shock wave came with the admission in the fallibility of the elite, that the elite made mistakes. This was, for many years unheard of and inconceiveable to even mention it in official statements. The elite know best and admission of mistakes is simply undermining the myth and against the well being of the elite.

read more

'Gov't must address root cause of breakdown'



I was looking forward to the forum between PM Lee and members of the public, ostensibly to discuss the future we Singaporeans envisioned for ourselves, that was broadcast on television recently.

I was disappointed. It seemed to me that the questions were tame, as if they had been screened beforehand for unfavourable or incendiary content. I also felt that a lot of important questions did not get asked; questions on issues that seem to divide society almost right down the middle now.

Singapore was already considered a success story 20-30 years ago. We were known as one of the Asian Tigers then and the productivity of our workforce was up there among the best in the world.

read more

Singapore's population rose to 5.31 million as influx of foreigners continues unabated

Yahoo! News Singapore, 28 Sep 2012
Singapore added a little over 128,000 people over the year up to June this year.

In the latest annual Population Trends publication by the Singapore Department of Statistics, the country’s total population reached 5.31 million at end-June, 2.5 per cent more than the figure a year ago.

The number of Singapore citizens grew by close to 28,000 to 3.29 million over the one-year period.

That of permanent residents (PRs) was up by a little over 1,000 to 533,100 over the period. This was a minimal increase versus the 1.7 per cent contraction the year before. Full story

Related:Foreign population continues to increase unabatedly after GE 2011 - TR Emeritus

read more

Top of the Pops



I had a hard time deciding whether it was another one of those Marie Antoinette moments that our leaders are prone to lapse into, or if our PM was just being brutally honest (a hard truth as his old man calls it) when he was asked on Singapore’s future population. “Six million or so should not be a problem”, he said.

No doubt, you can’t fault his logic. We can build taller flats, reclaim more land and build more train lines. And after all, 6 million is hardly that many more than what the population is currently.

But is this what we want to hear from our prime minister in this national conversation that we are having, when we have been trying so hard to get through to them that our roads are clogged, that our trains and stations are breaking apart, that housing costs are rocketing because there isn’t enough to go around, that everywhere you go bar Sungei Buloh you see lots of people?

read more

What Foreigners Have Done


You know they are running out of excuses when the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) puts up a half hearted defence for squeezing Singaporeans out of jobs (and living space) with the 1 million foreign workers shipped ashore over the recent years. The five key contributions listed by MTI would be laughable if they weren't so sad.

Asked if the hard sell was a prelude to the reversal of tightening of the inflow of foreign workers, Minister Lim Hng Kiang said, "No, I don't want to go into that". And why not, pray tell - is it hurting the GDP bonus?

read more

Singapore will take in foreigners at a "comfortable pace": Lee Kuan Yew



Bloomberg, 27 Sep 2012
Singapore will continue to take in foreigners even as citizens complain about overcrowding and increased competition for jobs, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said.

“We have slowed down the intake of foreigners but we will continue taking in foreigners at a pace” that citizens “find comfortable,” Lee, 89, said at a conference in Singapore yesterday.

Foreigners and permanent residents make up more than a third of the island’s 5.2 million population, and of the 122,600 jobs created in Singapore last year, about 70 percent went to workers from overseas. The city’s fertility rate of 1.2 children per woman is too low, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Lee Kuan Yew’s elder son, said last month. Full story



Related:
S'pore to Take in Foreigners at 'Comfortable' Pace - BusinessWeek

read more

OPINION: Why PAP MPs and leadership always have low opinions about its own citizens - Jack Sim

Singaporeans are not against foreigners. We are fed up because you've failed to supply sufficient housing, transport and build social trust. It is the government that fuel the poor social cohesion by comparing local students agaisnt the top Chinese and Vietnamese students in our local schools; by praising the foreigners and condemning Singaporeans as troublesome, negative and selfish.

So why in the first place did the PAP MPs and leadership think Singaporeans are Ugly?

I suspect it is because the only Singaporeans the MPs got in touch with face to face are the ones they meet at the Meet-The-People sessions. This group are not representative of the whole Singapore. They have personal issues. MPs compare notes with each other and concluded that ALL Singaporeans are demanding, selfish, unreasonable and sometime violent. Full story

Related:If native Singaporeans are falling behind because "the spurs are not stuck into the hide," that is their problem - Lee Kuan Yew, National Geographic Magazine, Jan 2010

read more