Open letter to PM Lee expressing unhappiness at his pro-foreigner policy – Foreign workers (Part 3)
By Tan Keng Leng
MCYS Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan recently told a university student point blank that if Singapore does not take in large numbers of foreigners, then in 20 years time locals will have to pay significantly higher taxes to support an ageing population.
With all due respect to Dr. Balakrishnan, since when did the Singapore government ever provide an extensive social security blanket for its people anyway?! We are always being told that social welfare would breed a crutch mentality in the recipients, and yet at the same time the government is always exhorting us to donate more to private charities.
Mr. Prime Minister, do the recipients of such donations really care whether the money they receive came from private or government sources as long as they can receive them?
If providing charitable assistance to the needy really breeds a crutch mentality in them, then why doesn’t the government outlaw private charities on the grounds that they undermine the government’s efforts to promote self-reliance among the needy instead of encouraging more donations towards them as exemplified by the annual President’s Star Charity Show and others?
Instead of spending $10,000,000/- to integrate the foreigners into the country, shouldn’t the money be better spent on providing poverty alleviation programs for needy locals? After all, the foreigners chose to come here of their own free will; the onus is therefore upon them to integrate with locals and for them to adapt to our ways, and not for us to adapt to their ways.
We are an independent nation state, not a colony of these foreigners’ homelands. This contradiction becomes even more glaring when compared to the GeBiz tenders listed above. Is this what the government really wants, PRC scholars with crutch mentalities holding key positions in the country instead of self-reliant locals? That is something that we definitely do not want.
There are some very important questions we want answered: with more than a million foreigners residing in the country remitting out hundreds if not thousands of dollars out of the country every month, exactly how much money is the country losing through capital outflow every month? And what is being done to arrest this monetary loss the country is incurring as a result of this?
Did any of the elite scholars in the Finance and Manpower Ministries even taken this into account when they decided to throw the country’s doors open to any and every foreign Tom, Dick or Harry who wants to come here? And if they had, what plans do they have to attract money back into the country to compensate for the capital outflow? For the foreigners, if things should go bad here, they can and will always return back to their own country; we locals have no such luxury.
It is not enough to say that the foreigners contribute to greater GDP growth, or that the rich have become richer as reported in the press. Two of the things we are very concerned about are the falling standards of living among ordinary people, and the rapidly widening income gap between the haves and have-nots. Experiences in other countries have shown that these issues left unresolved would eventually sow the seeds of social strife and instability; that is one thing that we do not want to see happening in this country, so shouldn’t something be done to improve the livelihoods of ordinary locals to ensure that it never happens here?
A question that needs to be answered is this: what is the Ministry of National Development doing to ensure affordable public housing for the people? It is easy for MND Mah to claim that a $400,000/- HDB flat is affordable; anyone one earning more than $1,000,000/- a year like he does would find that cheap.
For a family of gross take-home income of $4,000/- or less per month, it would mean slogging for 30 to 40 years to pay off the mortgage loan; add to that the need to support their families, including saving up money for their children’s tertiary education, and the burden becomes something that may even drive these families to destitution. Another comment Mr. Mah made was that locals are picky and only want housing in good locations.
Considering how much these homes cost, why shouldn’t anyone prefer a mature estate where everything is nearby? An ordinary family’s members need to take public transport to work and school; can anyone imagine what it would be like for a child living in Punggol to have to go to school in Bukit Panjang, and her father to have to go to work in Tuas? On the other hand, foreigners usually leave their families behind, so why shouldn’t they be the ones to have to live in remote locations or to buy private property at market value instead of driving up property prices for locals by buying resale flats?
Something that that disadvantage local men vis-à-vis foreigners is the need to serve NS. Between local men who need to be absent for up to 40 days a year serving NS and foreigners who don’t, naturally employers will prefer foreigners whose employment won’t cause work disruptions.
We would much rather not need to have to serve NS after our 2-year tour of duty is over, but we know that this would never be granted. So, if abolishing the need to serve NS until the age of 40 is impossible, then the government should level the playing field for locals in other ways.
For example, foreign males aged 40 and below should be required to perform community service such as cleaning public toilets and looking after the low income elderly for up to 40 days a year.
While local men serving NS will be paid by the government, in this case, the foreigners’ employers should continue to pay their salaries as part of a mandatory corporate social responsibility program.
This will also encourage social interaction and community bonding between the foreigners and the locals without taxpayers having to foot the bill for them. It will also level the playing field for local men, since currently employers always favor foreigners who have no NS commitments over locals who always have to serve for up to 4 weeks of every year.
Another advantage that foreigners have over locals is their much lower CPF contribution, 5% vs. 20% for locals. Given that they have a much higher take-home pay compared to locals, and most of them leave their families behind as they are here only for the short-term, of course they can afford a lower salary.
If they had to support their entire families here where the cost of living is extremely high instead of only themselves here and their families back home where the cost of living is much lower, they would demand a much higher salary, especially if their CPF contribution is 20% too.
So with immediate effect, we want to see the employee CPF contribution for foreigners raised to 20%; likewise, if employers are currently paying a lower CPF contribution for them, then it should be raised to 14.5%, same as for locals with immediate effect. Only when locals and foreigners are competing on a level playing field can anyone truly judge who is more productive.
There’s another issue about salaries that we wish to bring up. The government is always saying that Singapore cannot afford to set a minimum wage level as it would adversely affect our competitiveness.
If that is the case, then why are foreign professionals given a minimum wage of $2,500/- per month when local professionals may be paid as low as $1,500 per month? Shouldn’t locals also be paid the same minimum wage since they are doing the same job at the same level?
And for that matter, why should the salaries of top officials be pegged to the top echelons of the private sector because of the fear that they may leave for the private sector? Isn’t this itself a form of minimum wage?
If that is the case, then shouldn’t they also be subjected to the same conditions as the private sector, namely if they make a serious blunder they are forced to resign immediately instead of simply “moving on because it was unintentional”? And since the government always says that foreigners help to keep Singapore competitive, shouldn’t we replace all our top elite scholars with foreigners who are willing to do the same job for far lower pay?
After all, wouldn’t this result in substantial financial savings for the government that can either be channeled back into poverty alleviation programs for needy locals or tax cuts that would boost the economy through increased consumer spending and business expansions?
Other parts in the series:
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