Not fair to price land nominally for public housing and charge market price for land for private housing

You have heard this: land used by HDB should be valued at a nominal fee because it is for PUBLIC housing.

Except that PUBLIC housing in Singapore is at a level and concept unseen in other countries.

In other parts of the world, public housing is subsidised housing reserved for the poorest segment of society. They are usually rental flats situated in poor neighbourhoods with little amenities and poorly maintained.

In Singapore, public housing is housing the whole nation to give Singaporeans a stake in the nation, and to give a quality lifestyle that meets the aspirations of Singaporeans.

The vast majority of home owners are hardly poor as evidenced by the cars they drive. No one raises an eyebrow when they see a Lexus or BMW parked in a HDB car park.

Even those making the argument for land to be valued nominally are themselves well-to-do with good jobs.

85% of households in Singapore live in public housing which boasts of beautiful features, transport network and amenities not inferior to Orchard Road.

How does one argue for land to be valued nominally for 85% of households and expect the other 15% to pay market price for land?

Where is the equity?

There's a wide range of BTOs to cater to different aspirations and budgets.

These are BTOs. No kidding.

There's a wide range of BTOs to cater to different aspirations and budgets. Hence, one cannot compare a 5-room BTO with unique features to a 5-room BTO elsewhere or in a non-mature estate.

BTOs are priced not only according to location, and amenities around them, they are also priced according to their individual features and characteristics.

Central Weave in AMK, for example, has recycling chute which makes for better, more efficient and convenient recycling, and a beautiful environment which includes the ABC (active, beautiful, clean) waters feature.

The perception that HDB is unaffordable is being perpetuated by the focus on the most expensive, high end range of new BTOs as well as a very small percentage of resale that have gone for a million dollars.

This creates anxiety for people who may not be aware that there are other choices available.

Affordability also means choosing the right size of flat that fits our budget.

Overall, affordability is seen in close to 90% of first-timer families who are able to service their home loans with their CPF, with little or no cash payments.

Central Weave, despite their high prices, is oversubscribed many times for the larger 5-room and generational flats. Clearly, many are able to afford these flats even with HDB's income ceiling eligibility criterion.

A WP Government will remove the second key to raid reserves to fund their populist policies

If Singaporeans buy into the proposal that we can sell land for money to spend on daily needs, then we are not only stupid, we are the laughing stock of the world.

Singapore is so small, we don't even have enough land for all our needs. We have to reclaim land.

Saudi Arabia not only has oil. Saudi Arabia also has land (2.15 million sq km).

Singapore is just 716 sq km of which 141 sq km is reclaimed land.

For all its vast resources, Saudi Arabia has had to raise value-added tax from 5% to 15% in less than 2 years! 10 percentage points in less than 2 years.

The last time Singapore raised the GST rate was in 2007.

15 years later, Singapore wants to raise GST by 2 percentage points.

The proposal by WP to sell land for money to spend on daily needs is a desperate populist measure.

WP's proposals: sell land for money, borrow for money, no need for you to pay more taxes. Free education, free transport, ...

What is stopping WP from going all the way of populism to promise you free things is the second key to the reserves, the blocking power of the President.

A WP-led government will remove the blocking power of the President.

Yes, they will.

Pritam said in Parliament that the President must be restored to its ceremonial role with no blocking power so that there will be no confrontation with a newly-elected (WP) Government. 

WP proposes redefining education as 'soft capital' and use borrowing to fund education

Instead of taxes, WP propose to fund education through borrowing. This is the WP's way of giving you Nordic-type of benefits without the Nordic-type of taxes.

With their proposal, they can even lower taxes for you. How? By borrowing.

Free education. Free healthcare.

WHO PAYS ? Ultimately, it's still YOU and not just you, but YOUR CHILDREN as well.

The annual budget for Education is $13 billion.

Just think how taxes can be reduced when a government borrows this sum to spend instead of collecting taxes.

Singaporeans will be so happy because - unfortunately - most people live in the present and do not own their future. In other words, the future is not real to them. This is why populism will win votes. People do not see the future consequences.

The happiness will be short-lived.

Because nothing is free.

Borrowing does not give you free money to spend.

When you borrow for a recurrent expenditure like education, it is an ever growing debt that has to be repaid.

So, you borrow $13 billion in one year. The next year, while you are still servicing the loan, you borrow another $13 billion.

You now have a bigger loan to repay.

Repeat this year after year. You have a growing debt that snowballs into a monster where you are just paying off interest.

When interest rate goes up, you are done for.

Is that what you want? Do you understand what you will be getting into?

Sri Lanka is a cautionary tale for us. Sri Lanka is bankrupt today because it kept borrowing to fund recurrent expenditure.

Singaporeans have been a very disciplined people supporting policies including tough ones because we understand the rationale behind them and we care for our children and their future too.

We have the ability and the intelligence to analyse deeper the alternative proposals of opposition parties. Many of us love Singapore and want Singapore to thrive, to be a place we are proud to be, a home truly, where people are not selfish, and everyone does their part to keep Singapore a shining red dot. 

Which country in the world has produced homes for every family?

Governing Singapore is not easy because Singaporeans are a demanding lot.

They want their BTOs. They want it quick. They want it big.

But each time a forest is earmarked for housing, they accuse the government of 'development at all costs'. They also want every tree and every green.

Enough is enough, they said. Vote them out.

They think land should come at zero cost when land is so scarce and some of it did not even exist at first. The government had to create them through reclamation.

They don't like so many foreigners here. WP and PSP said if construction workers are paid well, Singaporeans will be happy to build BTOs. WP and PSP make them happy but they also want their BTOs cheap.

How to govern a people like this?

People in countries much, much larger than Singapore cannot afford to own their homes. In Singapore, even 80% of the lower income group are home owners. This is despite the acute land constraints we face.

Jamus Lim: borrow at low interest rate to make your balance sheet look better

What Jamus said is something that most people know. You don't need to be an economist to know that you stand to gain from borrowing at low rates and investing for higher returns.

But that is also how many people start getting into trouble.

At a time when things go downhill and interest rates go up, and a government needs to focus on helping people, a WP-led Government will be scrambling to refinance all their mortgages.

Jamus made that recommendation because like his teammates in WP, he thinks good times will last forever.

That is also why their other policy proposals look at surpluses accumulated as a result of exceptional factors, and they think that year after year, the same bountiful surplus will be reaped. So they tell voters that a GST hike is not needed.

The PAP Government does not work this way.

The Government does not borrow for daily needs. These must be paid for by income earned.

By exercising prudence, and having fiscally sound policies, the Singapore Government has earned themselves a Triple-A credit rating which will alow them to borrow at favourable rates while freeing up our reserves to be invested for higher returns.

The Government may in the future, borrow for very large infrastructure projects. A new Bill introduced in April 2021 will pave the way for the Government to pay for major national infrastructure projects through borrowing, something that has not been done since the 1990s.

If a government is not prudent, even if interest rates have gone down, it will not be able to borrow at low rates. Sri Lanka is the example to look at. With its credit worthiness graded as junk, you think they can borrow billions at low rates?

Foreign workers steal your jobs? No, they bring jobs to you.

Back in 2011 when there was a backlash because of foreign workers, Mr Lee Kuan Yew still said the same thing: foreign workers bring jobs to Singaporeans. Take it from Ah Gong. He always had Singapore's interest in everything he did.

Without access to highly skilled workers, investors will not come here. If investors do not come here, there will be no jobs for you.

The Singaporean is a confident man/woman who takes steps to improve himself/herself, not afraid of competition because he/she cannot become a global leader if he/she is afraid of global competition.

That is who you are: confident and not anxious. Have a positive attitude and seize the opportunity to learn from the best and those who are better.

Foreigners bring jobs to you: LKY

Foreign workers steal your jobs? No, they bring jobs to you.

Back in 2011 when there was a backlash because of foreign workers, Mr Lee Kuan Yew still said the same thing: foreign workers bring jobs to Singaporeans. Take it from Ah Gong. He always had Singapore's interest in everything he did.

Without access to highly skilled workers, investors will not come here. If investors do not come here, there will be no jobs for you.

The Singaporean is a confident man/woman who takes steps to improve himself/herself, not afraid of competition because he/she cannot become a global leader if he/she is afraid of global competition.

That is who you are: confident and not anxious. Have a positive attitude and seize the opportunity to learn from the best and those who are better.

It is as clear as day that PSP Leong Mun Wai was fabricating arguments and pulling wool over people's eyes as he made bogus allegations against the government.

Take a look and understand.

1. 𝐈𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐏𝐏 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝, 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐏𝐏 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐮𝐧 𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐥 𝐢𝐭 𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝟐𝟎𝟑𝟓, under the terms of agreement, the government would pay SHPL (SportsHub Pte Ltd) a sum of $193.7 million a year.

This works out to approximately $2.32 billion from now until 2035.

That is to say, the Government's financial obligation to the PPP is $2.32 billion if there is no termination.

2. 𝐈𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐏𝐏 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬𝐇𝐮𝐛, the Government would pay the PPP $1.5 billion.

Most of it is made up of the capital expenditure (around $1.2b) which the Government would have incurred if they had built the project themselves.

The Government did not spend a single cent to build SportsHub. They can't possibly take back a billion-dollar project for which they spent nothing to build and just wave goodbye to their private partners, can they? That would be daylight robbery.

Add the estimated operating costs of $800 millions for the Government to operate the project, the total costs come to $2.3 billion.

This is comparable to the amount the Government would incur if the PPP is not terminated.

"In other words, the entire transaction is 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐧𝐞𝐮𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐥, because we are not paying SHPL more than what we would otherwise committed to under the PPP model." - Indranee Rajah

The entire transaction is financially neutral even after factoring in operating costs for the government to take over SportsHub.

Leong Mun Wai has chosen to ignore detailed explanations, and instead makes a completely baseless and false claim that the termination sum can be lower.

Leaders, whether elected or nominated, must speak with their conscience and not lie to voters without compunction. Voters have a responsibility to see that leaders uphold the sacred office of Parliament and not allow Parliamentary debates to turn into a comedy or entertainment show.

PSP Leong Mun Wai sought to dent the Government’s reputation with the allegation of profligate spending.

He fabricated the argument that the Government was paying SPHL for brand name when no such payment exists.

Profligate spending? Hello, this government is a triple-A credit rated government and there are very few countries in the world that are triple-A credit rated. You don't get this rating with profligate spending.

It is ironic that LMW was the one who kept calling for more spending from our reserves.

As explained so clearly, the amount of money the Government will incur if the PPP is allowed to run to its end, and the amount of money the Government will incur taking over is about the same.

Singaporeans should really learn to be discerning and not blindly applaud people who are lying to you. 

Jamus Lim did not tell his residents there is help available in looking for a job

Instead of assuring his resident that help is available, WP Jamus Lim chose to echo his resident and to perpetuate the misconception that they have nowhere to turn to.

When Dr Tan See Leng offered to do a job match for the resident, he learned from Jamus that actually, the resident had already found a job.

Why did Jamus choose to highlight the resident's difficulty looking for a job while suppressing the fact that actually, in spite of difficulties, the resident had found a job?

Suppressing a part of the story allows false impressions to be formed and generates negativity against the government. Sad, isn't, it?

MPs have the responsibility to assure residents that help is available and to explain policies that they already agreed with. They should not become a mindless echo chamber. In the Jamus' case, the WP had, in Parliament, AGREED on the need for complementary talent.