Today’s PAP leaders fall short of predecessors: SingFirst
SingFirst rally at Jurong Stadium. Photo: Ernest Chua/TODAY
SINGAPORE — Hurling an accusation that was levelled by several opposition parties against the People’s Action Party (PAP) during the 2011 General Election, Singaporeans First (SingFirst) treasurer David Foo said yesterday (Sept 3) that the current PAP leaders do not measure up to their predecessors, such as founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and former Deputy Prime Minister Goh Keng Swee.
At SingFirst’s first rally at Jurong Stadium yesterday, Mr Foo, 51, said the foreign population expansion, which he said had “produced overcrowding to increasingly unpopular limits”, is an example of how current PAP leaders have failed to deliver to Singaporeans.
“The PAP of old is quite different from the PAP of today. The PAP of old had foresight ... Now, what happened?” said Mr Foo, a member of SingFirst’s five-man team contesting in Jurong Group Representation Constituency.
They will be facing a PAP team led by Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
Mr Foo noted that four decades ago, the late Mr Lee had forewarned of the risks of importing “too many” foreign workers.
Recalling Mr Lee’s National Day Rally speech in 1971, Mr Foo said: “Mr Lee warned ... if you take in too many, then instead of our values being superimposed on them, they will bring us down to their values.”
Singapore has now found itself in a difficult and unsustainable situation that “Dr Goh feared the most”, he added, as its dependence on foreign workers and multinational companies has widened the income gap among residents.
The late Dr Goh had advocated the development of specific local industries to reduce dependence on foreign labour, Mr Foo said.
“We will (then) be able to, by our own efforts, develop export markets for products that we have the capacity to specialise in. The pay-off is that the scope of wage improvement would be larger and more sustainable ... But what do we have (now)?”
Singaporeans need to ask the Government hard questions and scrutinise the report card it has presented, he added.
Mr Foo and team-mate Wong Soon Hong, who kicked off the rally, also spoke about education reforms.
Although Singaporean students go through a rigorous system of education, they do not seem to be equipped with the requisite skill sets for employment, said Mr Foo.
Singaporean degree holders are more likely to lose their jobs than any other labour segment, he said, adding that the incomes of undergraduates “underperform that of non-degree holders”.
“Are Singaporeans forgotten? Are employers filling jobs with foreign labour instead of hiring Singaporeans? We need to question the Government for numbers,” Mr Foo said.
SingFirst member Gregory Wong, 48, also pointed to the frequent train breakdowns as an example of how the Government has under-delivered.
“The transport infrastructure is not stable, it is crippled. If we want to push (the population) to 6.9 million, what do you think will happen to the MRT? It will be punctured,” he said in Mandarin.
Mr Wong said there were 97 train disruptions in the past five years, which worked out to at least twice a month. “Do you think this is reasonable? ... Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future returns,” he said.
