How many of you took Friday off to enjoy a looong National Day weekend off? I hope you're having good rest and fun wherever you are and whatever you're up to!
(1)
Singapore is on a killing spree... again. Yesterday, a 79-year-old stateless person was executed in Changi Prison. It was the 16th (yes, you read that right) execution of this year. Like all the other executions carried out this year, it was for drug-related offences.
Last year, we executed 17 people—the highest number since 19 people were killed in 2003. At the rate that we're going, we might not only exceed last year's number, but 2003's as well.
Since Singapore resumed executions in 2022 after a two-year break, we have executed 58 people.
(2)
The Workers' Party proposed a motion on Singapore's economy this week, triggering a long 'debate' in Parliament that led to the motion being passed, but only after being amended to the PAP's satisfaction. This was the original motion (emphasis mine to highlight the amendment proposed by the People's Action Party later):
That this House, notwithstanding the suggestions in the Economic Strategy Review on the future Singapore economy, believes in a more equal and inclusive economy, with opportunities for entrepreneurs to experiment, households and businesses to succeed, workers to thrive, and ideas and innovation to flourish; and in an economic engine driven by dynamic local companies, healthy domestic demand, and Singaporeans and Singaporean capital venturing abroad.
"We must reform significant parts of our present economic structure to deal with a changed world," argued WP's Kenneth Tiong, who brought the motion. "To pursue growth that distributes more fairly, and to measure what makes that growth worth having: a fair share of national income, real income growth in line with productivity, a widening range of what an ordinary wage can afford."
The motion was seconded by his colleague, Jamus Lim, who spoke on the need to wean Singapore off a reliance on foreign investment and direct our attention to local enterprises:
For starters, we must evolve away from our traditional reliance on foreign MNCs as a driver of growth, and pivot toward SMEs as our economic engine. While the ESR speaks about both, it betrays an implicit bias toward the former. We need a conscious shift away from too much fixation with tax competition, an undervalued exchange rate, and the wooing of footloose multinationals. We must instead promote bottom-up formation and growth of our indigenous companies, and unleash the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of our local workforce.
This means weaning our companies off a race-to-the-bottom focus on cost cutting as the only means to be competitive. Revenue and wages should instead hinge on productivity gains, not a relentless search for cheaper inputs. Margins can, and should, be driven by elevating value-add and quality. What we want is for "Made in Singapore" to be synonymous with better, not just faster or cheaper, which is best left to economies lower down the income ladder.
Other WP MPs and Non-Constituency Members of Parliament spoke on the motion, too, focusing on different aspects, including Pritam Singh once again bringing up the need to legislate retrenchment benefits.
You can find all of WP's speeches on the motion here.
In response, the Jeffrey Siow, transport minister and second minister for finance, asserted that the government's economic strategy has "always been built around Singaporeans, whether as workers, professionals, investors, entrepreneurs or business owners". Dinesh Vasu Dash, Minster of State for Manpower, argued that there's no evidence that Singapore's economic structure is failing:
Some members have contrasted Singapore with other newly industrialised economies, arguing that their greater reliance on local champions has produced a better productivity model and better outcomes for workers. But on comparable measures, Singapore’s wage outcomes are higher than these economies not only at the median, but also at the lower levels of income.
[...] the evidence does not support the conclusion that Singapore’s economic model is failing. We are navigating a structural transition, however difficult and uneven, from a position of strength. The system has served us well, but we must and will remain adaptable to the changing world.
PAP MP Edward Chia, who I still think of as The Hamster Guy, proposed amending the motion to (emphasis mine to highlight the change):
This House, in line with the suggestions in the Economic Strategy Review on the future Singapore economy, believes in a more equal and inclusive economy, with opportunities for entrepreneurs to experiment, households and businesses to succeed, workers to thrive, and ideas and innovation to flourish; and in an economy powered by dynamic local companies, global enterprises, healthy domestic and external demand, and Singaporeans and Singaporean capital venturing abroad.
This amended motion passed after nine hours of talk in the House. All 12 opposition MPs voted against the amendment and the amended motion. All the Nominated Members of Parliament presented voted for the amended motion.
I don't usually write about economic matters because I am very, very aware that this is not my lane, so I'm pointing everyone to the expertise available on Academia SG (I thank the Knowledge Fairies on a regular basis that Singapore has this beautiful platform):
admin
admin
admin
admin
admin
(3)
The Singapore government has removed the contacts of many public servants from their directory in a bid to fight scams. The directory now mainly provides the contact information of political office holders, judicial appointment holders, and more senior positions within the civil service. The Ministry of Digital Development and Information says that this streamlines the website, improves user experience, and protects public officers' contact information amid increasing impersonation scams and phishing attempts.
Without more details about the sorts of scams that they were seeing and reacting to, it's hard to say how effective this measure will be. I suppose, with the information easily available, scammers have been claiming to be certain civil servants listed in the directory to trick people into handing over information or even money? But if this is the case, will removing the names help? Sure, having the names and emails on the directory might mean that people who check them might believe the impersonators after finding the same names in the directory, but not having the names means that there is no way to check at all.
Ultimately, such a measure will do little if there isn't enough media literacy or critical thinking to teach people to be more sceptical about what they're seeing.
Got some more...
💡 I was very sorry to miss Academia SG and Ethos Books's event, States of Unease: From Critique to Collective Imagination, because I was out of the country that day. Thankfully, there's material on Academia SG's website for those of us who missed it to catch up.
🙍🏻♂️ The Tan Jun Jie-s of Singapore are really having a time of it... A 19-year-old Tan Jun Jie was detained under the Internal Security Act in June, a 30-year-old Melvin Tan Junjie has been accused of being a co-ringleader of a trafficking network hawking drug-laced vapes, and a 34-year-old Roy Tan Junjie has pleaded guilty to involvement in a local vape syndicate.
Thank you for reading this issue! If you'd like to support We, The Citizens, please consider becoming a Milo Peng Funder by getting a paid subscription. You can also gift someone else a subscription, or leave a tip (in SGD).
If you're not ready for a paid subscription, you can still support the newsletter by sharing it online and helping me get the word out!
Music for the weekend! It's only just occurred to me to find out what this year's National Day song is, and apparently there's three? Here's one written by weish and performed by Iman Fandi.