Wednesday 12 March 2014

SFMP - yet another billion dollar of PAP's misplaced priority

$1.1 billion - Garden By the Bay
$1.2 billion - Bishan man-made river
$1.2 billion - Project Jewel
And now $1.5 billion into the Sports Facilities Master Plan

The maintenance of these buildings alone cost hundreds of millions a year. If we could size up all these investments pumped, Singapore might be able to provide a decent retirement for all Singaporean elderly after all. Just a few days back, Gerrard Ee chastised Singaporeans of not having the discernment between the need and good-to-have. We wonder what does he have to say about the PAP government's latest big spending.

It is simple to know what should be high on the priority list and require immediate funding and attention. These billions should have gone into subsidizing HDB prices, imposing temporary tax breaks to businesses as incentives in exchange for Minimum Wage, subsidizing education costs and increasing the number of local tertiary institutes, lowering or removal of digressive taxes like GST/COE/ERP, supplementing the CPF Life Fund to increase the amount of payout for retirees, supplementing the Medisave fund to provide more subsidies and more coverage, or simply, the PAP's favorite way of vote buying by giving out generous Cash Vouchers to help citizens manage the cost of living.

Oh no, all these domestic needs listed above are not priorities. Singaporeans do not need help through subsidies and reducing taxes in managing the cost of living. They are not even anywhere near the list of building a garden, river, shopping mall and sports facilities. The PAP always claim they know best, and they are always going around telling people the PAP is the only party that have the political courage not to be populist, so they could mask the fact that they are actually out of touch with reality. The PAP believe Singaporeans are already very well taken care of and that the people just need to count their blessings they are not born in Philippines, India and China.

When Singaporeans needed more funding in healthcare, the PAP have the audacity to ask for more revenues. But where did they get their taxes from when they fund these billion dollar projects?

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