Singapore- From First World to Third

1) The deterioration of SMRT and transportation in general.
When SMRT trains started running in 1987, I remember the buzz and excitement it generated. There was alot to be proud of. Metro train travels became part of our daily lives and travelling time was reduced. Happy days.
But ever since its listing in 2000, company execs (and technically PAP since Temasek Holdings own a majority stake in the entity) indiscriminately focused on cost cutting, revenue generation and keeping shareholders happy.
Today, train breakdowns are as commonplace as tissue paper packets used to "reserve" seats in eateries all across our business district. SMRT has become a national shame.

Whilst performance have gone down, fares have headed the other way. The regulatory body Public Transport Council has sanctioned nearly every adjustment request from buses, trains and taxi operators. These companies are majority-owned by the Singapore government.

The roads are no better. Toll gantries known as ERP are erected all over the island, expanding from town and business districts to heartland areas, in the name of traffic flow management. Yet the expressways and even in-roads are still jammed. Once I overhead an Australian remarking that if they did this ERP thing down under, the public would have the mayor lynched.

COE or the piece of paper that allows you to purchase a car now costs as much as a brand new Mercedes C Class in Australia!


2) The unspoken wage decline.

The real earnings, the most accurate measure of wage growth as it takes into account inflation, have been on a steady decline for as long as one can remember. UBS's latest prices and earnings studies reaffirms this. Singaporean's wage levels are in the league of Brazil, Slovakia and Malaysia. Nowhere near Swiss standards for sure. That's shocking considering how highly paid our leaders are.



An International Labour Organisation report also documents that Singaporeans put in the longest work hours globally!

3) Corruption in public service

-Golden tap, first class travels, undeclared directorships and a "peanut" salary package of just $550,000 per year. The man TT Durai was the head of the National Kidney Foundation. Instead of focusing efforts to help dialysis patients, his corporate extravagance and misdeeds were just small symptoms of the wider elitist network that the government has created.

-A senior civil servant at the Singapore Land Authority defrauded the government and bought luxury cars with the dirty money.

-Most recently, the former heads of the Singapore Civil Defence Force and Central Narcotics Bureau were arrested for alleged misconduct. Both were high flying government scholars chosen by the PAP establishment. Looks like there's going to be alot more fire fighting for PM Lee's party if the regime's foot soldiers can't start kicking the bad habits.

Corruption exists in nearly every country but Singapore's sycophantic media has always been quick to point out how the nation is one of the least corrupt in the world.

Unfortunately for them, the irksome social media has all but erased decades of cover up for ruling party.

Watch this space for more revelations of breaches of trust.

4) Ballooning public debt

President Tony Tan claimed in his recent Lunar New Year speech that owing to PAP's fiscal prudence, Singapore does not have high sovereign debt. But that's not true.

CIA and Eurostat estimate that Singapore's public debt is 105% of GDP or ninth highest in the world!

Most of the obligation is probably to the Central Provident Fund (CPF). When the PAP liberalised CPF for housing, they had the opportunity to "borrow" money cheap (the interest rate that CPF pays account holders) to fund their activities. Over the years, misguided policies and investments (mostly kept from Singaporeans) created losses that the government increasingly can't keep up with. See Temasek Holdings, GIC and other stat boards and GLCs.

This is why the PAP keeps raising the minimum sum and withdrawal age because they just can't afford to return the money to retiring Singaporeans.

More puzzling, none of the extraordinarily high debt is due to citizen welfare schemes for the state provides almost none, which is the case for most developed state with significant government obligations.

Singaporeans have a right to know where and how government borrowing is really spent all these years.

5) Love affair with foreign talent (or trash)

60% of registered doctors in 2010 are foreigners.

50% of expats earned more than 200k a year.

38% of the population are foreigners/PRs attracted by pro foreign employment policies, lax banking rules and good physical infrastructure.

30% of our private homes were bought by foreigners in 2011.

20% of A&E patients in our hospitals are foreigners... and enjoying subsidies.

Singaporeans aren't xenophobic. Many of us have grown suspicious of foreigners who are perceived to take away many PMET jobs that Singaporeans want to do. Most of these foreigners are here for the quick buck and simply use the country as a stepping stone (and Visa-less travel) to their dreams elsewhere.

Further, you just have to question the true ability and qualifications of some foreigners. There are reports of foreigners paying for fake certs to get into Singapore.

A prestigious club in Singapore had to sack its CEO for not producing a Masters cert which he claimed to have obtained.

The country's football association removed its French deputy CEO for not disclosing his bankruptcy before taking up the job.

We're not exactly sure how foreign CEOs like Jackson Tai, John Olds and Philip Paillart (combined total tenure of 4 years), added value to Singapore's biggest bank DBS before departing with very golden handshakes.

We're not sure how three expats who started a brawl and two of them subsequently fled the country before facing court, got jobs with leading banks here. It's outrageous how they let foreign trespassers post bail and retain their passports when they refused to allow bankrupt Opposition leader Chee Soon Juan permission to travel to attend an innocuous award ceremony.



SMRT see-Sawing

I must apologise for not updating the blog for several weeks. But I'm back now.
Kicking off with the most talked about story on PerezHilton.com, the Mass Rapid Transit.

After the 2010 World Cup, Brazilian coach Dunga offered to step down after the country's failure to get past Netherlands in the quarter finals. Reaching the last 4 of arguably the world's most prestigious and competitive tournament is no easy feat.
But in a nation which is football crazy and that once was the global leader in the sport, this is failure.
In any case, Dunga was promptly fired by the CBF.

The UK faced one of its worst winters in recent times last Christmas, leading to the resignation of Scottish Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson for failure to tackle the travel chaos.
In the words of Scottish Labour leader, "Scotland had lost confidence in the transport minister and it was only right that he should resign..."

If you recall, state-owned monopoly SMRT picked up the "Best Passenger Experience" award in an annual conference in 2008. The win was debatable even then, more so if you've ever taken the trains in Seoul, Taipei or Hong Kong.
Since then, SMRT has come a very long way. A long way down.
I documented in September about the less than stellar track record of the rail operator.
Two months later, SMRT's CEO Ms. Saw Phaik Hwa was given an extra 176, 600 shares as a reward for "performance". This is equivalent to S$332,008 at Nov 11 closing price of the stock.

Much has been said on and offline about the recent spate of SMRT malfunctions. I will not list the details since the Singapore Democrats have already done so here.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that a leader should always step down when things go wrong. Everyone should be given a second chance to redeem themselves.
What is clear here is that Ms. Saw oversaw, no pun intended, and presided over a spate of breakdowns over the last two years, in addition to two hugely embarrassing graffiti incidents.
As CEO, she obviously had ample opportunities to put things right but no.

As of today, SMRT trains are running at increased intervals. Waiting times have shot up and queues have gotten longer. And they are going just about as fast as Cinderella's pumpkin carriage.
Retailers are reportedly hit, people are late for work and some couples even cancel their dates. In short, SMRT has adversely affected the lives of many Singaporeans.

But our transportation woes lies deep within the system...the same regime that took quite a few brazen gambles over the last decade. Not just the casinos but the irresponsible immigration policy to prop up its "GDP growth at all costs" model.

You see, when the first SMRT trains started running in 1987, I don't think the urban planners then  envisioned over 5 million people squeezing into this island in such a short period of time. Singapore's resident population then was just 2.7 million.
To make matters worse, our current generation of Ministers keep getting caught off guard, using stop gap measure like ERP, COE etc to "regulate" the system.
Minister for Transport Lui Tuck Yew's comments summed his party's inaptitude perfectly:

 "There have been a number of train disruptions in recent days. I do not know if these are isolated incidents or whether there are systemic and more serious underlying issues causing these breakdowns."

Ms. Saw's position is totally safe for now. This is because Ong Ye Kung, who also happens to be a PAP MP, is on the Board of SMRT. And out of sheer coincidence, he's also tasked to carry out this on-going independent investigation into the breakdowns.
So with salary that is higher than any former SMRT CEO and a position with zero accountability, this lady is here to stay.

SMRT and SBS to increase fares.....again

For the whole of 2009, the Hong Kong MTR made US$77 million from advertising revenues. Because this was a significant drop from the previous year, probably due to the '08 financial crisis, the management promised to go all out to bring in additional ad dollars.
Check out some of their digital campaigns here:

If you've been to Kuala Lumpur recently, you will see lively advertising in their metro stations.

Contrast this with SMRT. The billboards lining Tanjong Pagar and Raffles Place stations are mostly empty. These are probably the stations with highest human traffic as they are located in the heart of our business district.
And the economy surely can't be in recession when State Media reported today that Mastercard claimed there was a 49% rise in spending on their cards in the first month of the Great Singapore Sale compared to last year.

Train operators rely on advertising revenue to boost earnings in bad times and to combat rising costs of operation among other things.
That naturally means they need a well trained and motivated sales force to solicit advertising business.
And Singapore is the home to many consumer goods HQ so there can't be a lack of corporate targets.

So why doesn't SMRT (and SBS) appear worried at the lack of ad dollars?

Because they can increase their fares any time they want.
It was reported today that both SMRT and SBS are seeking the maximum fare increase. What gall!
Unlike many cash strapped operators in other countries, SMRT's FY11 revenues grew y-o-y to reach nearly 1 billion dollars.
You can see from the table below that with the exception of FY 2009 and 2010, growth in car kilometres operated did not keep pace with the growth in ridership.
That means SMRT did not adequately increase service levels despite the surge in Singapore's resident population over the last five years.
This would explain why trains are overcrowded, air-conditioning faulty and the numerous breakdowns.

Yet they have the cheek to consistently seek fare increases because they just be bothered to look for alternative sources of revenue like ad dollars or increase productivity?

I wonder what the Public Transport Council (PTC) has to say about the latest request for adjustments.
Since PTC is a statutory board under the Ministry of Transport, Lui Tuck Yew and PAP must also be held responsible if the PTC approves the latest round of profiteering by our public transport operators.

But there is nothing out of the ordinary here. Prices and fares of most public services go up after Elections. Thanks to the 60% daft Singaporeans, we should brace ourselves from yet another vicious cycle of price hikes.

In any case, SMRT has lots to learn from a truly world class system--- The Seoul Metro.

"How to run your train system?" by Bukit Panjang LRT

There was yet another disruption at the sprawling Bukit Panjang LRT system yesterday.
Oh wait, it's just a 7.8km light rail system actually.

Before that on May 17, another disruption took place.

Before that on April 19, another disruption took place.

I will run out of blog space if I'd posted all the disruptions.

In January this year, it was reported in Straits Times that between Jan 2008 till Jan 2011, there were 32 major disruptions at the LRT.
That is about 1 disruption per month!

SMRT, which runs the LRT line and effectively monopolises nearly all train lines in the country, was fined $400,000 in 2008 for a horrific maintenance accident that left thousands stranded.

From time to time, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has also imposed earth-shattering $100-300 fines for lapses in service provision either by SMRT buses or trains.

What is the effectiveness of such fines?

Let's figure- SMRT is about 50% owned by sovereign fund Temasek Holdings. LTA is a statutory board under the Ministry of Transport.
Common factor: Government>>> PAP

The only way we will see service quality improvement from a monopoly is if real competition is introduced.
If you carefully study Hong Kong's public transport system, arguably one of the best in Asia, you will find that from buses to trains and taxis, there is a very strong private sector participation.
This forces the previously government-owned MTR Corporation, which runs Hong Kong's biggest metro system, to stay customer focused and vigilant.
Commuters also have viable alternatives.

Singapore's public transport woes are only getting worse. If you can't stand the squeeze in the MRT, you can take the bus or taxi.
However, Comfort Delgro runs most of the buses and taxis in the country and the company is also more than 50% owned by Temasek Holdings.

Thus, the entire public transport system in Singapore is operated by and owned directly or indirectly by the Singapore government aka PAP.

In a situation like this, lots of groupthink happens in the strategic decision making of our transport system and the best we can get is the ERP, and now, Satellite ERP.

While the May 2011 Elections is a watershed in many ways, it seems the PAP is sticking to the same old ways in the manner it runs the country.

From the Tanglin flooding to dead body in water tank, PAP Ministers and officials are only working hard to shirk responsibility.

Heaven forbid if we continue to get a President who only toes the ruling party's line.