Talking point with Bendahara 1

Good day my tifosi, Below is the excerpt of my interview with Talking Point. It is pretty long so I am going to split it into a few parts. B means Bendahara while H means the host. Note that this is his view and no way represent any other organisation. H: welcome bendahara B: thank you H: With the election coming up in Singapore, how do you think that the Singapore Parliament had fared in the past five years? B: The current bunch of mps had been pretty disappointing on the whole. It had been pretty obivous in the past two years where it had drove many of the believers and netural into giving the opposition a chance. While they had continue to bring prosperity to Singapore on the whole, they failed to address issues like the rising cost of living, housing and transport issues as well as the widening gap between the rich and the poor. H: This seems to be pretty negative on your view, what and how do you think that situations could have improve? B: The issue of the housing should have been something that the ministers could have plan better in ahead with the forecast. Instead of reducing the number of houses built, he should increases it and that the price of the house should stay low so that the average citizens can afford it. When I say afford it, I do not meant paying by instalment for another 30 years before claiming it to be your own. H: As you had mention earlier, the transport should have been better managed, how do you think it could have been done? B: With the rising number of people in Singapore, you could anticipate that much more is needed for transportation. COE should be cater as such it should continue to be affordable and yet it control the number of traffic on the road. A good way is to ensure that it would be a premium above the Coe price for those who are foreigners or those who are on the verge of owning a second car. I am in approval of the additional mrt lines been built but I thought that these could have been done earlier and not at this stage where the population already feel the impact of the underprepared transport system. H: What are the steps that you would take to ensure that the rising cost of living would be minimized? B: This is a difficult question with no right or wrong answer to it. If I am to handle it, I would look at the items and decide whether if it is a essential item or luxury goods. If it is an essential goods, we can try and reduce the price by scrapping the gst. This would definitely benefit those with a lower income as they would need to use lesser income to get the same amount of essential items. The excessive income could be better off used as a personal development fund or something that enrich themselves. In that way they would be able to learn and progresses ahead. However, I do not encourage the scrapping of the gst on the luxury. In fact, we can increases the gst via the progressive methods. It can be raised to 10% on all luxury items with the exception of the first property been purchased. H: The progressive gst incremental methods seems interesting and it might work out. Would that be helpful in closing the gap between the rich and the poor? B: No, progressive gst on luxury items would be good for scrapping the gst on the essential goods such as food. The progressive gst should help to reduce the negative effect of scrapping the gst of the essential items. It will not help in reducing the gaps of the high income vs the low income. In fact, if we are to narrow the gap, we should bring the lower income gap upwards than to force the higher income group downwards. H: It seems that you already have some plans to narrow the gap. Can you share with us what would you do if you can have a free hand on the issue? B: We will need to understand why is it that certain profiles fall into the lower income group while some manage to stay out of it? The answers to the reasons may not be that clear, outright or simple solution. It means that there will not be a complete set of answers or solutions to the question. What I would do if I am given a free hand? I would be setting up a council to study and analysis the issue and to come out with the solution. The solution must be practical and effective to the issues arises from it. H: What would likely to be the challenges and issues that would be ahead for the government and the country? What would you do to overcome them? B: The competition ahead from other countries may force us to be more competitive and to stay ahead of them. At the same time, we need to ensure that all Singaporeans stay ahead of competition with a good income and happy with the optimal results ahead. Again, I do not have any solution off hand without a detail analysis. I would definitely drive a committee to tackle the issues ahead. It should be the utmost priority given if I am the government. Part 2 of the conversation would be posted later.