Empty pond syndrome?

Dear members of parliament,

I refer to the 1 Mar 2011 Straits Times report of your contributions in parliament.

Dear Mr Ong,

You ask whether the opposition can do what they say. Do you have any reasons to doubt them? On what basis do you liken their suggestions in parliament to shooting off a Toto or 4D number?

Why don’t you question your own party instead? Do you think $150,000 increase in average resale flat price over the last four years is a form of striking Toto or 4D for Singaporeans? Do you not doubt HDB’s insistence that flats are still affordable?

Ideally, every budget should be an election budget. But without fail, the budget just before the election always seems to bring more goodies than those before and the elections after always seem like drought years. Therefore, Singaporeans can’t help but think that this is indeed an election budget.

Dear Mr Arthur Fong,

You said we had the good fortune of honest men running the country since independence. Until today, the HDB continues to insist that HDB prices are affordable even though the resale flat price has shot by $150,000 on average since four years ago. Please be honest with yourself, how honest is that?

Dear Professor Koo,

HDB resale price increased by $150,000 over the last four years. Not a single soul challenged HDB’s insistence that flats are affordable. How can this be a first world parliament?

The government gave beautiful figures showing growth in median wages. Not a single soul linked it to the fact that we have merely imported more Indian professionals taking on high paying jobs that doesn’t in any way increase our own salaries. How can this be a first world parliament?

The government casually linked wage growth with growth in foreign worker population to explain that the former depends on the latter. Not a single soul pointed out the amateurish leap in logic from correlation to dependence. How can this be a first world parliament?

Dear Dr Lateef,

You can’t help it but you can at least be honest about why the goodies budget and election are so close to each other. The so-called ‘track record’ or ‘trade mark’ of our ‘visionary’ government in planning for the future comprises the following:

– caught without sand, not once but twice

– caught unprepared with the mass exodus of electronics industry leading to mad scramble to find the replacement biomedical industry

– caught unprepared with its own mass import of foreign workers leading to sharp increase in property prices