“Greed attracts greed. Period. Nothing good comes out of greedy people.”
“The PAP’s philosophy that you go into government to get rich extends to its MPs, most of whom hold lucrative primary jobs, like Alvin Yeo, Jannelle Puthucheary, Hari Nair, Lim Wee Kiat, and Vikram Nair.” – Kenneth Jeyaretnam
Reading Bertha Henson’s Over-charging over over-charging, one can not help but to conclude that Singapore as a society, as a Government and as a country are sick to the bone. No wonder Singapore has recently been termed the most expensive country in the world and one of the most unhappy people in the world and most miserable people in the world. Everybody seems to rob everybody by overcharging everything, you have a million-dollar cabinet where every minister is drawing million dollars salaries (which makes Obama’s salary looks like pittance with the world on his shoulder), to senior civil servants who overpaid themselves (better paid than many MNC executives) and travel with first class air tickets using tax payers’ money, to lawyers and doctors charging exorbitant fees (no thanks to the proliferation of insurance industry and the help of Government with the ease of tapping into the CPF money), the $600K NKF’s CEO who drew sky high salary to run an NGO (and we were told that it is peanut by the then PM’s wife) and now the million dollar pastor who is being sued and the court case is on going. Over the years, the pay of the public servants from the doctors to the nurse, the teachers, the civil servants and the military personnel, the police …. it looks like every civil service people are all clamour for more money, these sickness has been spread to the private sectors where those who can afford to charge (like the lawyers, the doctors, the dentists, the sales managers, the directors, the accountants, the landlords) have been busy raising their fees and salaries. The only people that can not raise their fees and salaries are the hardworking workers, hawkers and the self employed tutors, no thanks to the ease and availability of cheap labours (though that is changing somewhat just slower growth in bringing in foreign workers and students, the trend is not reversing, it is still increasing) to depress their wages and a weak union that you won’t find in any other developed nations (more). It kind of reminds me of an MNC that I used to work before which was very profitable and people in the company have been taking advantage of the generosity by asking for perks such as first or business class travels, expat postings, expensive degree courses, 20-30% percent pay increase etc and as expected the company became so sick and finally went bankrupt. Singapore seems to be heading the same fate I am afraid if nothing is being done. The solution? it has to start from the Government! As the Chinese saying goes: 上樑 不 正 下樑 歪. Some times I think having a military institution and coup like the one in Thailand may just be good for Singapore and there is a good reason why Asked on the satisfaction of the military junta’s Returning Happiness to the People scheme on tackling the rising prices of goods, 57.3% said they were most satisfied with the work, while 36.3% said they had less to least satisfaction of the matter. Abstract from “PAP’s best and brightest MPs now a liability to Singapore” :
“The latest case involving PAP MP Alvin Yeo reflects the rot in the PAP. Alvin was the senior lawyer in a case involving Dr Susan Lim who had overcharged her client. He acted for the Singapore Medical Council which won the case and filed for claims amounting to $1.33 million. However, the High Court subsequently ruled that Dr Susan Lim had been overcharged by almost 2 peanuts. (1 peanut = $600,000)
In other countries, MP Alvin would have been the talk of the town for months and relieved of his parliamentary duties. Headlines would read something like “Lawyer handling case of overcharging overcharged by $1 million”. The PAP must now do the “right” thing to maintain whatever little moral authority it has left.”
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Source; Asiaone.com
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