Competitveness

The collapse of the Singapore economy.

Now that I have your attention. Where do you think the future lies ahead for Singapore? The new millenium beckons for new people. I normally don't talk about politics or economy as they are boring but since I have to write an article about it, might as well blabber my own slanted opinion towards what lies ahead for Singapore in a young simple-minded Singaporean.

Recent hype about competition made the news recently on the government's model on various industries. Let me give you a quick rundown if you ain't a Singaporean or a country bumpkin living on Kusu island and Straits Times is the timezone that you follow when you are on a kelong. Singapore has been a succesful developing nation, gaining strength day by day, reaching its peaks of economic success with flourishing trade and loads of imports and exports, money was flowing through PAP's white pockets in the early 1990s.

Well, then came the 1998 & 2002 recession slammed the middle-class Singaporean majority back to oblivion and PAP finally had to sweat their way through. With globalization upon their hands, PAP had to change their model of being a successful nation within the region but to be a global player. The fact is that this change was to to comply with our "Allies", that are mainly the Western powers. We have to adopt the GTO practices and hence, the operative word of this "World" model is "competitiveness".

Therefore, our government looked into the various sectors, opening up to foreign players but also restricting their boundaries in terms of controlling the local sector here. Then, came the reprecussions of this system which I will share with you later.

2 years ago, because of this "World" model, organizations have to be competitive by being TRANSPARENT in their accounting practics. So first came the banking industry. Singapore only wanted 3 main banks to operate in Singapore and the prescene of 6 banks was simply an eyesore for these men in white. The banks scramble to meet their dateline, merging left right and centre. As you all know, POSB merged with DBS and hence, by merging, they closed down a few branches, a few ATM machines that caused loads of inconvenience for us consumers. As they were reconsolidating, citizens had to suffer from moving their accounts, their life savings and their unit trusts to other banks swiftly and queues were formed, fights were resulted, more jail terms for these queuers, queuers pay money to government to let them out, so governement scores. 1-0.

Last month, came the medical industry. There were like 10 hospitals and a handful were private hospitals and boom! Bad publicity regarding expensive charges to citizens and wham! the price menu for breast implants and anal rectum openings went skyrocketing to become more competitive, in other words, cheaper for the consumer. Yeah !!! 1-1 an equalizer as consumers FINALLY gain something from a change in governement policy.

Then came the public transport model. Wow, this was a joker man. In 1996, The North-east line tender was only entitled to Tibs or SBS and the govt didnt allow SMRT to apply so as to make it "competitive". Recently, the transport minister said that they had to "re-think" this model as SBS was making heavy losses from the NEL and the minister was contemplating whether their choice was valid or not like they should have given it to SBS. Valid or not, this worsen the situation for the public. From what I gather, it seems that in order to get out of the red, SBS had to increase fares for those that travelled on the NEL line. Painful for the Seng Kang and Punggol people pockets. As the governement made a wrong choice in this decision, resulting in drastic reprecussions to the nation, they score another point as they disspaoint and aggitate people living in the north-east. Score, 2-1 to the government.

Now, being a media student myself, this was a painful paragraph to write. The media industry also reshuffled in the early 2000 to make way for competition like Channel U and Channel i and for MediaCorp, Streats. Then came the childish battle as you see on "Which is the 2nd most read tabloid in Singapore?" and just reported last week in the news, EVERYONE was making losses because of the lack of advertising revenue and support. Apparently, the nexus from the common media like TV and newspaper was due to the advent of Internet where it has grown strongly to provide practically everything the common media can do like Online broadcasts, Online news and Online porn. As the media industry is reeling from the loss, the consumers are indeed glad for a change on what they see on their little black box as they had more choices. I think little people care whether the broadcasting stations win awards or make money, they just want to watch what pathethic local programs they can watch admist their holes in the pockets from travelling on MRT. Hence, the comeback where the score is now tied 2-2.

Now, the score was done for fun. But the implication here is serious. Who will win in the end? The government or the people. In a democracy, the government is a slave to the population as what they do is a public service as they are equally paid on par. The population put their trust onto the government and hence, whatever decision they make, we follow. We don't like it, we protest (to no avail, of course). The Singaporean governement in adopting the Western model of competitiveness might be too hasty, as the results are evident now.

Questions to think about. What will be next ? Will it be the education system or housing blocks? Will our taxes be affected next or will we see more foreign competitors? Sigh, where is the Singaporean governement leading us, and where will we end up next? Food for thought.

- Benjamin

Note: I did not meant this to be too overtly political, just a critical analysis from a normal Singaporean citizen who worries about his rice bowl and the colour of his underwear. I did not mention about our telecommunications industry but that is another whole new ball game worth exploring. Hope ya all are not bored by now.