PM Lee admits govt lacked 20/20 foresight
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SINGAPORE: Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has admitted the government did not have 20/20 foresight, resulting in problems with inadequate infrastructure in the country.
He was speaking at the "Singapore Perspectives" conference on governance organised by the Institute of Policy Studies on Monday.
Acknowledging the problems of insufficient housing and inefficient transportation network, Mr Lee pointed out that the government was blind-sided by the outcome of some international events.
He elaborated that in 2000 and 2001, the 9/11 terrorism attack on the United States plunged countries into recession. Singapore dealt with a slow economy with minimum population growth and local housing prices went down.
But by 2005 and 2006, Mr Lee said the mood changed and the economy started picking up.
So, he said, the government did what it thought would have been appropriate then. It decided to make up for lost time by growing the population and boosting the economy.
He acknowledged that infrastructure like housing and transport didn't keep up with that growth.
Mr Lee said: "I decided that we should try and make up for lost time because you want the economy to grow. You want Singapore to make progress and you don't know how long the sun is going to shine. As it turned out, the sun remained shining for longer than we expected. So the population grew faster than we expected, our infrastructure didn't keep up.
"Should we have given ourselves more buffer and said let's build and be ready? I think in retrospect, clearly we could have done more. Could we have predicted that we would have five years where the economy would grow brilliantly and our population would increase so rapidly? I don't think we could easily have said that.
"Should we then have said, 'I didn't plan for this infrastructure, let's tell the businesses to go away and let's forget about the growth, we don't need the IRs, we don't need these extra jobs, we just stay where we were'. I think that would be very risky. So we went ahead.
"The strains showed up. It's quite instructive how they showed up. They didn't show up gradually, progressively but quite suddenly. When the global financial crisis came at the end of the decade, 2007/2008, we expected to go for a very deep dive.
"In fact in one quarter, we had minus 10 percent growth. Nobody talked about house prices, there was no shortage. HDB - we watched the market every day, the resale market was dead but we did the right thing with our Jobs Credit and other measures. We avoided a bullet, the world economy recovered faster than expected.
"In the middle of 2009, the wind changed...those of you in business, you would remember that in the course of two weeks, during one or two private property launches, somehow the wind changed. It's like the spring breeze touched your face and the market was off. By August, we were thinking of measures to cool things down and we've been trying to cool things down ever since.
"So we lacked that 20/20 foresight. Next time, we will try to do better, certainly to have a bigger buffer and not to cut things so fine. But I think it's very difficult to know, 10 years from now, how many you will need.
"Even if you know how many persons there will be in Singapore, you can't say how many houses they will need. Will they buy it? Or will they say, 'oh, I'm not certain because the economy is not looking good or the politics are not certain, well, I'll hold off'? But when the market goes up, it goes up with a vengeance and we've paid the political price, we learn from it."
In the 90-minute question and answer session, Prime Minister Lee also tackled a number of issues which included whether the wide-ranging social nets in Singapore would encourage citizens to become more dependent and if Singapore needs more space for discussion.
Mr Lee is of the view that the government needs to do more but he wants the government to be helping from behind the scenes, as opposed to Singaporeans expecting the government to jump in all the time.
On why there is still a need to moderate social space involving social media, for example, Mr Lee said the online community in particular is not moderating itself.
Extreme views are put out and responses and disapprovals are also extreme. So this cannot be left to itself.
Mr Lee said: "We don't believe the community in the social space, especially online, moderates itself. It doesn't happen anywhere in the world.
"You have views going to extremes and when people respond to their views, they may respond in an extreme way, and when people decide to disapprove of something which was inappropriate, the disapproval can also happen in an extreme way.
"It's in the nature of the medium, the way the interactions work and that's the reason why we think it cannot be completely left by itself."
- CNA/ir -
Lee hsien loong 's "governance" lack of ................ but this fellow still has the cheek to pay itself and gang millions, billions dollars of salary.
Sinkingporeans you are all conned !
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and you want 7 million people in inadequate infrastructure???
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Mr Lee is of the view that the government needs to do more but he wants the government to be helping from behind the scenes, as opposed to Singaporeans expecting the government to jump in all the time.
Get millions billion the highest pay in the world of politics and easy job. This fellow and gang have the best of both worlds. Damn it~
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the white paper all the jazz also no use. say what results will only show 20 years later but still have to relyon labor.
dont they get it. we not asking for foreign labor to scrap. what we ask is to have a hand in the final reiew after companies submit their request for foreign labor approval. some companies their HR and bosses is anyhow choose 1. if gahmen have a final say and audit on that, we wont have any tom dick harry cuming ehre to crowd our places and at the same tiome dont add to productivity at all.
play us for a ride just in case 20 yrs is a long time. we urge people to decide properly during GES or any BEs and the curren trend of lettying good oppositions a chance to run TCs and mess in prliament is still a safe gurad.
twenty years later if the money of bnaby bonuses all go down the drain we still have opposition as backup all along.
think we all just born yesterday arh?!
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nothing will change in the government even after 2016. because we still have "killers" "killing own kind" - giving them mandate ..............
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makes you think if the new BTOs are really meant for you huh
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Dun worry, 10-20 years later from now, he will say the same thing that they have not foresight. But of cos as they are being pay "peanuts" so they will not be the one that suffer but the Lesser Mortals (or sometime also address as dogs/sheep/draft etc. by the elites)
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after 20 years he probablyy retire somewhere else with all "the" money liao.
u think he still got time to come out and talk meh.
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You really sure he will retire elsewhere. may be when the papa goes to the netherland, papa brings him along leh
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i hope a PH will come along with it.
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Originally posted by GHoST_18:
i hope a PH will come along with it.
no worry , sure we will be give PH. besides, there will be buses and free meal for people who attend wake
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no need PH lah. save the one lad holiday inlieu to work or do something meaningful.
funeral must serve chai png 2 meat 1 vege one miscellanous more rice with meat bun flour and kong bar for us to DIY fillings.
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Originally posted by troublemaker2005:
no need PH lah. save the one lad holiday inlieu to work or do something meaningful.
funeral must serve chai png 2 meat 1 vege one miscellanous more rice with meat bun flour and kong bar for us to DIY fillings.
If you don't want PH does not mean others don't want.
You so greedy for food.
How much pek kim you going to give to demand for food you want? -
i think the average ah beng also will chose nice ah lian tomarry.
you guys get what i mean?! rite?! ahhahaha
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Originally posted by GHoST_18:
makes you think if the new BTOs are really meant for you huh
Hanor hanor.
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Originally posted by SJS6638:
If you don't want PH does not mean others don't want.
You so greedy for food.
How much pek kim you going to give to demand for food you want?
i go there is their honor, still want pek kim from me? -
Listen guys, Khaw Boon Wan is a big mistake. He has distroyed everything from Property to now on island. I cant believe LHl is supporting is supporting this. My country is and my island is full of filipinos. Every I go I hear is Tagalog. Noty Chinese, not Indian not Malay. Singapreans have always known to be competent and efficeient. The filipinos are destroying our reputation. Its time we get rid of these pinoy pigs
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my stand on foreign labor should be known to most who frequent this forum now. pinoy cheenas all should abit by one standard.
we need foreign talent, but we do not yearn for them. they should be mainatain at a certain small efficient percentage against our local population and worforce. they should be mainatain at a small efficient percentage that will not stress and burden our aging popualtion.
newborn true blu sgreans babies should be the only and feasible solutions to our aging popualtion.
if we do that, all these fast rash, forced infusion of foreign 'cultures' will slowly erode and stay at a small efficient healthy percentage.
you cannot force such a thing into our society and ask us to eccept them in just decades. it takes centuries, and when the time is ripe it will still only be and should be our minority.
cheena and pinoy culture should not be our main dish, it shallnot oversahdow us. all these cultures will only be desert or side dishes.
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the toilet paper manufacture has always been sending the worng signal out.
gettign paid even higher than US president!
so that there willnot be corruption.
whay if we now add some competition into parliament by having opposition that draw lesser and can really work and some out with solutions better that the existing rullin one?
what do you meant people have to be paid high so they wont corrupt. so can i say if we pay them a fraction now they will be corrupted immediately!
this explanation and analogy simply dont make sense. even to a lowly educated ar beng!
with this price we can hire the US president to come help us run Singpaore.
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If gahmen had foresight, we wun be having LUP for older estates n paying out of our pockets again
Tink SG should adopt the US style of governance.
ie the MP is different from the office holder... -
did he have his eye sight checked b4 or not? remember a colorectal surgeon is not an optician :lol: :lol::lol::lol:
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Originally posted by Loyalsingaporeson:
Listen guys, Khaw Boon Wan is a big mistake. He has distroyed everything from Property to now on island. I cant believe LHl is supporting is supporting this. My country is and my island is full of filipinos. Every I go I hear is Tagalog. Noty Chinese, not Indian not Malay. Singapreans have always known to be competent and efficeient. The filipinos are destroying our reputation. Its time we get rid of these pinoy pigs
it wasn't Khaw.. it was Mah Bow Tan
Khaw just inherited the mess.. and forced to toe the party line... but the sins of MBT does not exonerate him of his own
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Horseshit Neigh! :lol::lol::lol: