Letter From A Dane

I read with interest Mentor Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s remark in Singapore’s Parliament that Denmark, Finland and Switzerland can afford mediocrity in the remuneration of their ministers.

I shall restrict my observations to Denmark and Finland.

These 2 Nordic countries reward their leaders, in both the private and public sectors, somewhat less handsomely than Singapore. Despite this, I would suggest that both countries’ governments are by no means mediocre, and neither have they evinced any indication of being able to afford it.

Finland has managed to weather the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 90s, a market for 20% of its exports, in no small part due to its successful transformation from a resource-based to a knowledge-based economy. Its leading multinational, Nokia, is the market leader in the mobile telecommunications industry, with a global market share of 36% in the manufacture of mobile phones (Q42006) and revenues of €41.121 billion (2006). While most of the credit for this success story can be attributed to the Finnish private sector, Finland’s government had a significant role to play in creating the optimal framework for the flourishing of the technology sector. From the mid 1960s onwards, there were special efforts to expand higher education, with a law on higher education passed in 1966, the result being that Finns are some of the most well-educated people in the world.

The Finnish government was also instrumental in pushing for the promotion of GSM as the European mobile telephony standard, based on the Nordic countries’ experience of NMT, an earlier, pan-Nordic standard. The early adoption of GSM in Finland provided the platform for Nokia’s global breakthrough. Decades before the global liberalization of telecommunications markets in the 1990s, Finland’s telecoms market had already been liberalized, and thus had possibly the world’s most competitive market for telecom operators and equipment makers. Credit for this is in no small part due to the role of the Finnish government. Finland devotes a higher percentage of its GNP to research and development than most countries, and the role of the government has been critical, especially in the early 90s, where public-funded research increased despite recession.

In the case of Denmark, the government made the decision in the 1970s to intensify research into renewable energy. Important research was carried out at Risoe, the government research centre, into wind energy. It took political courage to subsidize feeder tariffs for wind turbine-produced electricity. That decision has paid off handsomely. Today, Danish-based companies have a global market share of ca. 50% in the manufacture of wind turbines, an industry with global annual growth rates of 30%, and estimated revenues of €10 billion (2006, est.). Indeed Denmark’s Vestas has recently set up engineering and research facilities in Singapore.

In more general terms, I would submit that both countries’ systems and governments are not mediocre, and are like Singapore’s, acutely aware of not being able to afford it. Rather than Europe being there to catch Finland and Denmark should they falter, both countries have been net contributors to the European Union budget since their accession. Mediocrity is not a hallmark of either society either. In the last 30 years, both countries, despite their small populations, have produced individuals who have won Olympic gold medals, Oscars and Nobel Prizes. They have produced New Economy pioneers, for example Finland’s Linus Torvalds, the creater of Linux (an open-source operating system and competitor to Microsoft’s Windows) and Denmark’s Janus Friis, co-founder of Skype (a peer-to-peer telephony application).

In conclusion, both countries’ positions as globally competitive economies and high-achieving societies have been attained against the backdrop of low corruption levels, and high levels of trust between citizens and government, and seemingly despite high taxes and comprehensive welfare states. This has not required stratospheric levels of remuneration of government leaders and officials.

Mr. Gregory Glen
Holstebro, Denmark

Money Definitely No Enough

MP for Jalan Besar Dr Lily Neo told parliament that plans by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) to raise by $30 to $115 the public assistance (PA) handout to those with no means of income due to age, illness or disability, was not enough. Said Dr Neo, “My senior constituents told me they need to skip one meal a day so as to manage to survive on the PA amount of $260, and the extra $1 proposed by MCYs will not be able to buy a meal in any hawker centre.” Minister Vivian (male, not female) replied that the entitlements have to kept low so as not to erode the incentive to work. Hello, countered the well coiffured Dr Neo, “surely this line of argument shouldn’t be applied to people who can never work because of disability.” At this stage, Vivian the male Minister told her they always can skip an appointment with the hair-dresser if they want 3 full meals a day. “And tell them not to dance on the bar-top, because that will lead to fights because of jealous boyfriends”. When Dr Neo persisted by reminding the Minister with “Shouldn’t providing three meals a day be a priority of his promise to help the poor cope with higher cost of living, thanks to the GST increase?”, a desperate Vivian scouring the house for support noted that since Opposition MPs are silent on the MCYS debate, perhaps they agree with “my policies, my philosophy and my programmes.” To which Workers’ Party chairman Ms Sylvia Lim replied, “Sir, I’d like to to respond to the minister that there are still four years to ago. We are just enjoying ourselves, watching him dig his own grave.”

Oscar Awards

Not to be outdone by Hollywood’s 79th Oscar Awards extravaganza, the Singapore parliament decided to convene a Great Budget Debate to showcase its own highly paid performers in action. Dubbed The Mother of All Wanyangs by those in the know who claim the budget is a done deal, nothing will ever come close to the Great Casino Debate. Unlike the nominees for the Oscars who had to wait for the committee’s decision, the parliamentary affair is more predictable.
Walking away with the Comical Ali Award (an allusion to Chemical Ali, the nickname of former Iraqi Defence Minister Ali Hassan al-Majid, who maintained that “everything is just fine” even as American tanks were rolling in) will be “FM” George Yeo. “Our foreign relations are on the whole very good. We have excellent relations with all our major partners, with the US, China, Japan, India, Europe and Australia,” Yeo said in a speech to his parliamentary constituency last Friday.
The Award for Best Script is a giveaway for Vivian Balakrishan who, before executing a classic U-turn, painted a dire scenario thus: “If you want to dance on a bar top, some of us will fall off the bar Top. Some people will die as a result of liberalising bar top dancing… a young girl with a short skirt dancing on it may attract some insults from some other men, the boyfriend will start fighting and some people will die.”
A shoo-in for the Transparency Award will be SM Goh Chok Tong who confessed that Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) in Singapore politics… is not just to ensure minorities are adequately represented in Parliament. “Without some assurance of a good chance of winning at least their first election, many able and successful young Singaporeans may not risk their careers to join politics,” he is quoted as saying.
The Best Cusine Award is unanimously accorded to PM Lee who created a new Singapore hawkerfare favourite when he spoke the memorable words, “I give you an example: you put out a fun podcast, you talk about ‘bak chor mee’; I will say “mee siam mai hum”, then we compete.”
Contenders for the Best Fiction may number more than one, but Minister Ng Eng Hen will definitely earn a special mention for his contribution: “Cutting Ministers’ pay won’t trim fat. You’re getting a bargain for the ministers’ pay. As a surgeon, I worked half as much and made 5 times more.” Serious challenge comes from Lim Boon Heng, who said:
“Restoring the pay cuts of civil servants and ministers is reasonable as Singapore’s economy has now regained momentum.”
AND
“I don’t think my reading for the economy is strong enough for us to even consider asking for the restoration of the cut in CPF.”
And the Best Comedian Award absolutely has to go to the new Secretary of the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) Minister Lim Swee Say, “We believe that the offset package will actually stimulate some spending, additional demand. For example, the low-income households, the low-wage workers will be spending every dollar that they take from the Offset Package, every dollar that they get from the Workfare and incentive schemes on necessities.”

Crazy Horse Bites Back

On Sunday, Karl Verhulst, 39, was carrying his year-old son Zakki in his arms when a horse in the Children’s World Animal Land section at the Singapore Zoo stretched over the 1.3 m tall barrier and bit his abdomen. Belgian national Mr Verhulst said, “The crazy horse could have easily bitten my son,” alluding to more dire consequences than the shutting down of the Crazy Horse Salon at Clarke Quay. Zoo spokesperson Isabel Cheng claimed the horse could have been spooked by the exceptionally large crowd during the Chinese New Year holidays, out in force to spend their Workfare Bonuses, Senior Citizens’ Bonuses, etc before the GST hike starts to bite in July. PM Lee told his followers this year’s Budget was a fair package, carefully balanced to provide something for everyone, except maybe horses. “Five years and seven years of offset (equivalent of GST increase) is quite a lot of money”, said Mr Lee, but horses, and Singaporeans who are encourage to “stay involved and actively engaged” until ready for the glue factory, are not entirely convinced. They pointed out that the GST offset package was reported to be worth $4 billion, while the hike will generate $1.5 billion a year for the government coffers, or $7.5 billion in the 5 years before the next election, and consequent round of price increases. Besides, the $100 property tax rebates and $30 reduction in maid levy really pale in comparison to the parliament approved $15,000 increase in the President’s entertainment allowance. If that doesn’t drive horses crazy, what will?

Always Room For More

National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan had told parliament that finding the right name for the revamped downtown Marina Bay, which will include the much-debated resort casino, a new business district and swanky retail outlets, was “a process akin to parents deciding on a name for their child”. And that was the justification for paying global branding company Interbrand S$400,000 ($240,964) to initiate a massive branding exercise that involved market tests, focus group discussions and consultations with developers and the general public. After spending months deliberating over 400 potential names, the urban development authorities decided to stick to, well, Marina Bay.
Fresh from his coup, Mr Mah is laying the grandiose groundwork for a future population of 6.5 million. The previous target, or what experts call “a planning parameter”, was 5.5 million. The island has 4.5 million people today. Mr Mah said: “Our goal is not just to provide space, but also to enhance our living environment to the extent that it becomes our competitive advantage in the attraction of talent and investment.” The brand new Minister of State for National Development, Grace Fu, assured the nattering nabobs of negativism that overcrowding can be prevented with creative and innovative approaches to land use. Nevermind the authorities’ plan to grow the island’s 650 sq km by another 100 sq km in 2030 has recently been torpedoed by Indonesia’s ban on selling sand to Singapore. Even with 8,667 persons per sq km (compare Hongkong 6,407 per sq km), there’s still standing room to spare, although Mr Mah may have to give up his private swimming pool at his landed property residence to contribute to the nation’s effort.
Still, laggards who prefer to lie down instead of standing up for Singapore are praying that Mr Mah will repeat his Marina Bay Renaming Oscar deserving performance and, after spending billions of taxpayers’ money, end up with present population of 4.5 million.

The Knockout Punch

In better fighting form than Rocky Balboa, the outgoing chairman of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), Mr Philip Yeo — the man who spearheaded the biomedical push — yesterday countered the suggestions raised by Dr Lee Wei Ling as well as two World Bank economists that Singapore’s biomedical strategy had only a 50-per-cent chance of succeeding. Yeo took issue with Dr Lee’s criticism, saying: “For a person who has not been here to make comments, I leave it to the person.”
In response, the person mentioned, Dr Lee, daughter of patriach Lee Kuan Yew, said in an email to Today that, unlike herself, Mr Yeo had not been to hospital, seeing patients.
“Five per cent of ethnic Chinese are Hepatitis B carriers with a high risk of liver cancer and/or liver failure. Multiply that by the total number of Chinese worldwide,” she said. Similarly, she added that head injury might not be a glamourous area for research but it was one of the main causes of disability in children and otherwise healthy adults. In addition, NNI has an established track record in head injury research, which gives Singapore a competitive advantage.
“What is Philip Yeo’s definition of success — and can he show at least some glimpse of it?” she asked.
On the World Bank’s aside that the Singapore-based foreign scientists were “a footloose bunch who could pack up and leave overnight”, Sir David Lane, the executive director of A*Star’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, decries: “They sold their house, quit their jobs and are committed to Singapore in a big way.” Professor Lane neglected to reveal who was paying for their generous relocation, housing, living, schooling and “hardship” allowances. One recalls Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s shrewd observation: “People don’t come here because they like Singapore - they come because the returns are better.”

The Bio-Medical Attack

Dr Lee Wei Ling, director of the National Neuroscience Institute (NNI), feels that studies here should focus on Hepatitis B, auto-immune disease and head injuries — areas where Singapore may have a competitive advantage."We need to choose the few research areas that we think may have a chance with," she recently told Reuters. "Why should we want to compete with another 10, 20, 30 world-class centres chasing the same thing?" And in a pointed allusion to the funds being spent on this research, she asked: "Anyone who looks at Singapore's size will wonder — why are we trying venture capitalism?" Two World Bank economists have also added to this line of questioning by saying that Singapore's biomedical strategy had only a 50-per-cent chance of succeeding.

Bristling at such suggestions, the outgoing chairman of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), Mr Philip Yeo — the man who spearheaded the biomedical push — yesterday countered the doubts raised by Dr Lee as well as the World Bank economists. "This is not an instant business. It takes 10 or 15 years to train these people," he said in his final biomedical briefing before he takes up his next assignment as economic adviser to the prime minister in April. He defended his policy of attracting the "big whales" — the top scientists — to Singapore. "I need the whales to take care of the guppies," he said, referring to his young PhD students now studying in top universities worldwide. Yeo has also referred to the same scholarship holders as his "slaves".

Mr Yeo next took a direct personal attack on Dr Lee's criticism, saying: "For a person who has not been here to make comments, I leave it to the person. The Singapore Government is fully committed to what we've done."

Both he and Sir David Lane, the executive director of A*Star's Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, felt that the approach of focusing on what Dr Lee called "niche areas unique to the Singapore population" would not work. It was better to spread the net wide as one cannot predict where the next breakthrough will come from, said Prof Lane. Hence the focus on hot areas like cancer, for which top scientists like Neal Copeland and Nancy Jenkins had arrived in Singapore from the United States last year, with their army of research mice. "They sold their house, quit their jobs and are committed to Singapore in a big way," said Prof Lane.
Mr Yeo saw no reason to focus on niche research areas like Hepatitis B and head injuries.
"Why should we waste our time on Hepatitis?" asked Mr Yeo. "Why should we waste our time on head injuries? How many head injuries are there?"

In responise, Dr Lee said in an email to Today that, unlike herself, Mr Yeo had not been to hospital, seeing patients.
"Five per cent of ethnic Chinese are Hepatitis B carriers with a high risk of liver cancer and/or liver failure. Multiply that by the total number of Chinese worldwide," she said.
Similarly, she added that head injury might not be a glamourous area for research but it was one of the main causes of disability in children and otherwise healthy adults. In addition, NNI has an established track record in head injury research, which gives Singapore a competitive advantage.

"What is Philip Yeo's definition of success — and can he show at least some glimpse of it?" she asked.

In her interview with Reuters, Dr Lee had hoped that "maybe they (the Government) would have a rethink".