The hidden ugly side of Singapore

The hidden ugly side of Singapore
Vijay Kumar Jul 3, 09 6:48pm

In between the glamarous buildings and shoppings complexes of this city state, there is huge suffering that the world has never seen. Something that the Singapore government or media will try to hide from the rest of the world. And this is the lives of 80 percent of 'true' Singaporeans who live in the republic's Housing Development Board (low cost) flats.

I, like many young youths, went looking for a better future in this Lion City of opportunity, After four years of working experience in Kuala Lumpur. It was my first experience outside Malaysia and I was very happy to be offered a job in Singapore with a basic salary of S$3,500.

Then, with huge hopes, I started looking for a master bedroom to rent being single. I finally got a master bedroom in Clementi for S$700 a month but only after being rejected by many other landlords for being Indian. The ensuing eight- month ordeal that I spent in this HDB flat really opened my mind to what Singapore is for those who can't earn.

It made me ask if this is the type of development that I ever wanted in my country Malaysia. This is the first time that I felt gifted to be born in Malaysia. Anyway, I lived with a family of three (husband, wife with one daughter) who rented out their master bedroom to me while they slept in the common room.

It was a three-room flat (but unlike in Malaysia, a three-room flat has only two bedrooms). I did not believe it was the master bedroom that I was staying in until I went into the other room and saw that there is no attached bathroom there. I was given a bed and a mattress and also two fans. Then I noticed that the couple with their daughter sleeping on the floor with a thin mattress in the other room. Not even a fan in that room.

Both husband and wife are born Singaporeans and were employed. It was after one month that I realised that the daughter was not going to school regularly and most of the time there would be a quarrel in the early morning between the father and daughter as there was not enough money to pay for the bus to go to school.

There were times when the daughter was very sick and father had no money to take her to see a doctor. It was a real pain in the heart to hear a small girl suffering through the thin walls of this HDB flat. It was unbelievable for me to see this happening in this ultra-modern city. It took me another two months to realise that what was happening in this flat was not an isolated case of urban poverty in Singapore.

It was every where in those HDB flats. There was a Chinese neighbour (an elderly man) and his son had no money to get a taxi to send his father to the clinic for daily diabetic wound-dressing. I soon understood that poverty in Singapore transcends racial boundaries. The whole family of my landlord got a shock that I own a car in Malaysia.

My landlord would keep pestering me every time I come back to Malaysia to bring my car over so that his whole family could go sightseeing in Singapore. In all my life, I never believed people in a developed country like Singapore would ever consider car ownership a privelege.

Three months later, one fine day, I came back home and realised that there was no electricity in the house. This time, my landlord did not have the money to pay for the utility bills. I was back in the Stone Age, using candles. This lasted for days until finally he borrowed money from somewhere and settled the bills.

My landlord as a person I have known during that period never come back drunk or looked like a gambler. He had to pay for his mother's medical expenses, that much I know. This was the time in my life when I learned what is was like to live in that poor quality HDB flat, drying clothes in the rooms and listening to what the couple talked about in the next room via the thin walls.

It was this time in life that made me to think, 'Is this what I want Malaysia to be? For those who talk great or look up to Singapore's success, have they ever come and lived in Singapore like I how I did? Have you seen a HDB flat and how it looks like?

Bring your whole family for a dinner using public transport and then rush to catch the last bus. Is this what a 10% growth rate a year is about that we want boast? Does this growth figures mean anything in the first place? Do we want to open our country to expats so that they can progress at the expense of our own Malaysians?

Do we want to 'progress' to a level that even our children can't buy a house in our own land? Last, I ask myself. Do we Malaysians look at GDP growth as the only measure to choose our government or are we much more matured than that? Achievement at whose expense?

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SECOND REPORT OF THE SPECIAL SELECT COMMITTEE ON NOMINATIONS FOR APPOINTMENT AS NOMINATED MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

SECOND REPORT OF THE SPECIAL SELECT COMMITTEE
ON NOMINATIONS FOR APPOINTMENT
AS NOMINATED MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT

The Special Select Committee, appointed pursuant to the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore to nominate persons for appointment by the President as nominated Members of Parliament, has agreed to the following Report:

Introduction

1 On 14 November 2006, Parliament resolved in accordance with the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore that there shall be nominated Members of Parliament during the term of the Eleventh Parliament. On 18 January 2007, the President, on the nomination of the Special Select Committee of Parliament, appointed nine persons as nominated Members of Parliament for a term of two and a half years. The term of service of the nine nominated Members of Parliament will expire on 17 July 2009 and, under section 4(1) of the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, the vacancies that will arise shall be filled by the President by making appointments on the nomination of the Special Select Committee.

2 The Members of the Special Select Committee were nominated by the Committee of Selection, with Speaker as ex-officio Chairman. The Committee comprised the following:

Chairman: Mr Abdullah Tarmugi (Speaker)

Members:
Mrs Lim Hwee Hua
Mr Low Thia Khiang
Mr Mah Bow Tan
Mr Masagos Zulkifli BMM
Mr Michael Palmer
Mr Sam Tan Chin Siong
Mrs Josephine Teo

Invitation to the General Public to Submit Names of Persons for Consideration by the Committee

3 Under sections 2(1) and 2(2) of the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, the Special Select Committee decided that an advertisement inviting the general public to submit names of persons for consideration by the Committee be inserted in the Lianhe Zaobao, Berita Harian, Tamil Murasu and The Straits Times on 6 April 2009. Publicity to the information was also given in a press release.

4 Submission of names was required to be made on forms obtainable at the office of the Clerk of Parliament. Each form had to be signed by a proposer and a seconder and by not less than four other persons, all of whose names shall appear in a current register of electors. The person to be proposed was also required to complete a curriculum vitae form in which, inter alia, he was required to write an essay on the kind of contribution he hoped to make as a nominated Member of Parliament and to submit written references from two referees sealed in separate envelopes to the Committee. The closing date for the submission of names was 11 May 2009.

Formation of Functional Groups

5 The Committee decided that it would continue the practice of inviting the six functional groups, namely, business and industry, labour, the professions, tertiary education institutions, social and community service organisations, and media, arts and sports organisations, to submit names of suitable candidates for the Special Select Committee to consider.

6 The names of the coordinators appointed by Mr Speaker for each functional group and an invitation to organisations identifying themselves with any of the functional groups to contact the coordinators to propose their nominees were publicised by the Committee in a press release issued on 5 April 2009.

Consideration of Persons Proposed

7 By the closing date, the Committee received a total of 46 proposal forms (including those from the functional groups) of which 3 did not satisfy the eligibility criteria.

8 Section 2(3) of the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution provides that, before making any nomination for appointment by the President as nominated Member of Parliament, “the Special Select Committee shall, wherever possible, consult other Members of Parliament in such manner as it thinks fit”.

9 On the advice of the Committee, the Speaker wrote to all the elected Members of Parliament on 19 May 2009, informing them of the names of the persons proposed for consideration as nominated Members of Parliament and asking the Members of Parliament if they had any comments on these persons and if they knew of any reason why any of them should not be considered for appointment as nominated Members of Parliament.

10 The Committee assessed the suitability of all the 43 eligible candidates. In assessing their suitability for appointment as nominated Members of Parliament, the Committee took into account the criteria set out in section 3(2) of the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution which provides that the persons to be nominated by the Special Select Committee “shall be persons who have rendered distinguished public service, or who have brought honour to the Republic, or who have distinguished themselves in the field of arts and letters, culture, the sciences, business, industry, the professions, social or community service or the labour movement; and in making any nomination, the Special Select Committee shall have regard to the need for nominated Members to reflect as wide a range of independent and non-partisan views as possible”.

Nominations of the Committee

11 The Committee found many of the candidates to be well qualified to be appointed as nominated Members of Parliament. However, as stipulated under section 3(1) of the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, not more than nine nominated Members of Parliament can be appointed. The Committee has therefore nominated the following nine persons to the President for appointment as nominated Members of Parliament:

1. Mr Calvin Cheng Ern Lee
2. Mr Terry Lee Kok Hua
3. Mrs Mildred Tan-Sim Beng Mei
4. Assoc Prof Paulin Tay Straughan
5. Mr Teo Siong Seng
6. Mr Viswaroopan s/o Sadasivan
7. Mr Laurence Wee Yoke Thong
8. Ms Audrey Wong Wai Yen
9. Ms Joscelin Yeo Wei Ling

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