Former Permanent Secretary: I think our leaders have to accept that Singapore is larger than the PAP
August 30th, 2010 | 
Author: 
Mr Ngiam Tong Dow
Since Mr Ngiam Tong Dow retired from the civil service in 1999, affairs of state have weighed heavily on his mind. The highly respected former Permanent Secretary worries about Singapore’s long-term survival and the kind of society the next generation will inherit. At 66, the HDB Corp chairman insists he is ‘no radical’, just a concerned Singaporean with three grandchildren, who wonders ‘whether there will be a Singapore for them in 50 years’ time’. In Tea with Think, a weekly interview series, he gives a candid appraisal of the civil service, and his prognosis of what the lack of an alternative political leadership means for Singapore. The interview will be continued next week.
Q. With all this pessimism surrounding Singapore’s prospects today, what’s your personal prognosis? Will Singapore survive Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew?
A. Unequivocally yes, Singapore will survive SM Lee but provided he leaves the right legacy. What sort of legacy he wants to leave is for him to say, but I, a blooming upstart, dare to suggest to him that we should open up politically and allow talent to be spread throughout our society so that an alternative leadership can emerge.So far, the People’s Action Party’s tactic is to put all the scholars into the civil service because it believes the way to retain political power forever is to have a monopoly on talent. But in my view, that’s a very short term view. It is the law of nature that all things must atrophy. Unless SM allows serious political challenges to emerge from the alternative elite out there, the incumbent elite will just coast along. At the first sign of a grassroots revolt, they will probably collapse just like the incumbent Progressive Party to the left-wing PAP onslaught in the late 1950s. I think our leaders have to accept that Singapore is larger than the PAP.
Q. What would be a useful first step in opening up?
A. For Singapore to survive, we should release half our talent – our President and Overseas Merit scholars – to the private sector. When ten scholars come home, five should turn to the right and join the public sector or the civil service; the other five should turn to the left and join the private sector. These scholars should serve their bond to Singapore – not to the Government – by working in or for Singapore overseas. As matters stand, those who wish to strike out have to break their bonds, pay a financial penalty and worse, be condemned as quitters. But it takes a certain temperament and mindset to be a civil servant. The former head of the civil service,Sim Kee Boon, once said that joining the administrative service is like entering a royal priesthood. Not all of us have the temperament to be priests. However upright a person is, the mandarin will in time begin to live a gilded life in a gilded cage. As a Permanent Secretary, I never had to worry whether I could pay my staff their wages. It was all provided for in the Budget. As chairman of DBS Bank, I worried about wages only 20 per cent of the time. I now face my greatest business challenge as chairman of HDB Corp, a new start-up spun off from HDB. I spend 90 per cent of my time worrying whether I have enough to pay my staff at the end of the month. It’s a mental switch.
Q. What is your biggest worry about the civil service?
A. The greatest danger is we are flying on auto-pilot. What was once a great policy, we just carry on with more of the same, until reality intervenes. Take our industrial policy. At the beginning, it was the right thing for us to attract multinationals to Singapore. For some years now, I’ve been trying to tell everybody: ‘Look, for God’s sake, grow our own timber.’ If we really want knowledge to be rooted in Singaporeans and based in Singapore, we have to support our SMEs. I’m not a supporter of SMEs just for the sake of more SMEs, but we must grow our own roots. Creative Technology’s Sim Wong Hoo is one and Hyflux’s Olivia Lum is another but that’s too few. We have been flying on auto-pilot for too long. The MNCs have contributed a lot to Singapore but they are totally unsentimental people. The moment you’re uncompetitive, they just relocate.
Q. Why has this come about?
A. I suspect we have started to believe our own propaganda. There is also a particular brand of Singapore elite arrogance creeping in. Some civil servants behave like they have a mandate from the emperor. We think we are little Lee Kuan Yews. SM Lee has earned his spurs, with his fine intellect and international standing. But even Lee Kuan Yew sometimes doesn’t behave like Lee Kuan Yew. There is also a trend of intellectualisation for its own sake, which loses a sense of the pragmatic concerns of the larger world. The Chinese, for example, keep good archives of the Imperial examinations which used to be held at the Temple of Heaven. At the beginning, the scholars were tested on very practical subjects, such as how to control floods in their province. But over time, they were examined on the Confucian Analects and Chinese poetry composition. Hence, they became emasculated by the system, a worrying fate which could befall Singapore.
Q. But aren’t you an exception to the norm of the gilded mandarin with zero bottomline consciousness?
A. That’s because I started out with Economic Development Board in the 1959. Investment promotion then was all about hard foot slogging and personal persuasion, which teaches you to be very humble and patient. I learnt to be a supplicant and a professional beggar, instead of a dispenser of favours. These days, most civil servants start out administering the law. If I had my way, every administrative officer would start his or her career in the EDB. Hard foot slogging.
Q. YOUR idea of creating an alternate elite is not new. What do you think of the oft-mooted suggestion of achieving that splitting ranks within the People’s Action Party?
A. Quite honestly, if you ask me, Team A-and-Team B is a synthetic and infantile idea. If you want to challenge the Government, it must be spontaneous. You have to allow some of your best and brightest to remain outside your reach and let them grow spontaneously. How do you know their leadership will not be as good as yours? But if you monopolise all the talent, there will never be an alternative leadership. And alternatives are good for Singapore.
Q. In your calculation, what are the odds of this alternative replacing the incumbent?
A. Of course there’s a political risk. Some of these chaps may turn out to be your real opposition, but that is the risk the PAP has to take if it really wants Singapore to endure. A model we should work towards is the French model of the elite administration. The very brightest of France all go to university or college. Some emerge Socialists, others Conservative, some work in industries, some work in government. Yet, at the end of the day, when the chips are down, they are all Frenchmen. No member of the French elite will ever think of betraying his country, never. That is the sort of Singapore elite we want. It doesn’t mean that all of us must belong to the PAP. That is very important.
Q. What do bad times mean for the PAP, which has based its legitimacy on providing the economic goods and asset enhancement? Is its social compact with the people in need of an update?A
Oh yes. And my advice is: Go back to Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s old credo, where nobody owes us a living. After I had just taken over as the Housing Board’s chairman in 2000, an astute academic asked me: ‘Tong Dow, what’s your greatest problem at HDB?’ Then he diagnosed it himself: ‘Initially, you gave peanuts to monkeys so they would dance to your tune. Now you’ve given them so much by way of peanuts that the monkey has become a gorilla and you have to dance to its tune. That’s your greatest problem.’ Our people have become over-fed and today’s economic realities mean we have to put them on a crash diet. We cannot starve them because there will be a political explosion. So the art of government today is to wean everyone off the dispensable items. We should just concentrate on helping the poorest 5 to 10 per cent of the population, instead of handing out a general largesse. Forget about asset enhancement, Singapore shares and utility rebates. You’re dancing to the tune of the gorilla. I don’t understand the urgency of raising the Goods and Services Tax. Why tax the lower-income, then return it to them in an aid package? It demeans human dignity and creates a growing supplicant class who habitually hold out their palms. Despite the fact that we say we are not a welfare state, we act like one of the most ‘welfarish’ states in the world. We should appeal instead to people’s sense of pride and self-reliance. I think political courage is needed here. And my instinct is that the Singaporean will respect you for that.
Q. So what should this new compact consist of?
A. It should go back to what was originally promised: ‘That you shall be given the best education, whether it be academic or vocational, according to your maximum potential.’ And there will be no judgment whether an engineer is better than a doctor or a chef. My late mother was a great woman. Although illiterate, she single-handedly brought up four boys and a girl. She used to say in Hainanese: ‘If you have one talent which you excel in, you will never starve.’ I think the best legacy to leave is education and equal opportunity for all. When the Hainanese community came to Singapore, they were the latest arrivals and the smallest in number. So they had no choice but to become humble houseboys, waiters and cooks. But they always wanted their sons to have a better life than themselves. The great thing about Singapore was that we could get an education, which gave us mobility, despite coming from the poorest families. Today, the Hainanese, as a dialect group, form proportionately the highest number of professionals in Singapore.
Q. You say focus on education. What is top of your wishlist for re-making Singapore’s education system?
A. Each year, the PSLE creams off all the top boys and girls and dispatches them to only two schools, Raffles Institution and Raffles Girls’ School. However good these schools are, the problem is you are educating your elite in only two institutions, with only two sets of mentors, and casting them in more or less the same mould. It worries me that Singapore is only about ‘one brand’ because you never know what challenges lie ahead and where they will come from. I think we should spread out our best and brightest to at least a dozen schools.
Q. You advocate a more inclusive mindset all around?
A. Yes, intellectually, everyone has to accept that the country of Singapore is larger than the PAP. But even larger than the country of Singapore, which is limited by size and population, is the nation of Singapore, which includes a diaspora. My view is that we should have a more inclusive approach to nation-building. We have started the Majulah Connection, an international network where every Singaporean – whether he is a citizen or not, so long as he feels for Singapore – is included as part of our diaspora. Similarly, we should include foreigners who have worked and thrived here as friends of Singapore. That’s the only way to survive. Otherwise, its just four million people on a little red dot of 600 sq km. If you exclude people, you become smaller and smaller, and in the end, you’ll disappear.
Q. What is the kind of Singapore you hope your grandchildren will inherit?
A. Let’s look at Sparta and Athens, two city states in Greek history. Singapore is like Sparta, where the top students are taken away from their parents as children and educated. Cohort by cohort, they each select their own leadership, ultimately electing their own Philosopher King. When I first read Plato’s Republic, I was totally dazzled by the great logic of this organisational model where the best selects the best. But when I reached the end of the book, it dawned on me that though the starting point was meritocracy, the end result was dictatorship and elitism. In the end, that was how Sparta crumbled. Yet, Athens, a city of philosophers known for its different schools of thought, survived. What does this tell us about out-of-bounds markers? So SM Lee has to think very hard what legacy he wants to leave for Singapore and the type of society he wants to leave behind. Is it to be a Sparta, a well-organised martial society, but in the end, very brittle; or an untidy Athens which survived because of its diversity of thinking? Personally, I believe that Singaporeans are not so kuai (Hokkien for obedient) as to become a Sparta. This is our saving grace. As a young senior citizen, I very much hope that Singapore will survive for a long time, but as an Athens. It is more interesting and worth living and dying for.
Mr Ngiam’s interview with Susan Long from Straits Times.
* This article was printed by Straits Times many years ago but we deem fit to reproduce it for the benefit of Singaporeans who might be under the impression that everyone in the civil service agrees with the present policy.
Posted in Snippets
Pretty interesting read! Ngiam Tong Dow is surprisingly candid in this interview. I do wonder why he kept referring to LKY as “SM” Lee though, instead of his current “MM” title. How old is this interview?
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Yes, open up POLITICALLY, this country belongs to ALL SINGAPOREANS. ABSOLUTELY. The political class is failure – that is why we are in an ABSOLUTE MESS AND IN COMPLETE DENIAL. Keeping the status quo will destroy this nation, I strongly believe this as well.
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Could be a future candidate for elected Presidency post?
He was trained by Dr Goh Keng Swee and was proposing a zoological garden to Dr. Goh who was aginst it becos meats costs more to feed the animals.
Or rather bird seeds cost less so instead of building a zoo, Singapore built a Bird Park in Jurong for a start.
He too fear of Singapores future…
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” But when I reached the end of the book, it dawned on me that though the starting point was meritocracy, the end result was dictatorship and elitism. ”
(From Last Para)
= SINGAPORE ?
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When was this interview dated? Just asking cos he keeps referring to LKY as “Senior Minister”.
This is a good read especially coming ahead of another election. Keep it coming TR! Thanks for the effort.
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Sad isn’t it, that the two most intelligent men in the Civil Service, Ngiam Tong Dow and Yoong Siew Wah are both retired?
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“sometimes LKY doesn’t behave like LKY”
I strongly
Agree. Especially when he is old.
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We voters need to do our part by voting in as many opposition candidates as possible..
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ML,
Very old. When Mr peanuts was PM
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It is quite clear from this YOG that the media and the yes men in the elite class will go as far as to create falsehood while sacrificing the truth. This is just the visible part of the iceberg. The proverbial emperor’s new cloths. Too many useful idiots that will say anything pleasing to the power that is.
This is definitely not what i want for my children. Sadly i do not see them changing.
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Walk the talk . Don’t just talk.
Talk is cheap.
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Gosh ! I am converted.
This man changed my perception of those within the system
I always held this view that those in the system are nothing but little LKYs picked by LKY for LKY.
I salute you Mr.Ngaim for your depth especially in the matters that are close to our heart…..it does help to understand people of your generation and the fire in their belly-for Singapore by Singaporeans…..
It’s a pity we missed the wisdom of your ilks,Dr.Toh and S.Rajaratnam comes to mind.Who choose to remain silent despite the overbearing nature of PAP and LKY….surely I am being overtly diplomatic where ISD was used to silence dissent.
Devan Nair once said colleagues,perhaps like you and others ,restrained LKY….but with all you chappys out of sight little LKYs are now terrorizing the tuft.
Sir !,
…..can we have more of you and your generation come forth to speak like this little interview which goes a long way like a light at the end of a tunnell–for a lost generation like us !
Please do.
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what can one expect from a slitty eyed hakka?
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MR Ngiam is right.
half-hearted politicians should not become ministers even if they are bright scholars.
half-hearted ministers will only protect their own interests unlike policiians who are comitted like what GKS said ‘IT’S LIKE A VOCATION,A HOLY ORDER’.
though,this ‘HOLY ORDER’ requires no vow of chastity,i think the vows of ‘POVERTY’(in spirit) and OBEDIENCE(to the law and interests of singapore and singaporeans) are relevant!
Our half-hearted ministers are getting “too rich” and that’s not helping as first thought.
It seems that greed feeds on more greed and greedy people tend towards SELFSIHNESS.
aND,SELFISH PEOPLE MAKE LOUSY POLITICIANS!
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“sometimes LKY doesn’t behave like LKY”
That happens when your offspring takes over the helm. Let him loose and allow him room to make his mark. If he succeeds lky can retire but not otherwise. Appears he is not succeeding so old man has to stay on.
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But when he was in the Civil Service holding his iron rice bowl tightly, he didn’t utter much under the onus of the Code of Civility, isn’t it?
Once out, retired, he is a free man to speak loudly but like Dr M, they are like men in the wilderness blowing hot air in the wind, isn’t it?
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I agree with you @cclcclccl,
But it’s better than nothing.Why?
Because if more and more of the men with the establishment speaks up, it will awaken the sense of our youth.
It would a spark to light the fire of rebellion.
Remember,it was Deng who run with Mao that changed the destiny of China…Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono the general of Suharto regime is now the darling of democracy….and so on.
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This interview with Ngiam was done & published in Shitty Times back in early 2006 I think.
Basically I have the impression that most of these ex-civil servants who are now happily retired tend to make noise ONLY after retiring with full pension & free medical benefits. As many are asking — where were these civil servants when they held power? I’m sure we will hear much more from existing senior civil servants after they have retired with full pension years down the road.
Btw, I also suspect many of such critical ex-civil servants may have opted for the lump-sum payout of their pension, rather than collecting on monthly basis. The amounts can easily be many millions for senior civil servants. This is so that govt does not have “control” over them if they criticise the govt policies.
I have a neighbour retired primary school teacher with barely O-Levels — she opted for lump-sum pension of $500K after 37 years as a teacher. How many degree holders or diploma holders today can receive even $500K cash when they hit 60 yrs old, not to mention millions of dollars for the senior civil servants???
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Dual ownership was a mistake, isn’t it?
It was an admittance by the govt of a genuine mistake that allows the rich to invest in resale public housing HDB flats and resell it at a profit.
It was yet another major U-turn of a major costly mistake, isn’t it?
Who approved the dual ownership? Mr Ngiam should know and tell.
There was dead silence when it was announced, isn’t it?
Hopefully for it to be quickly forgotten and swept down below the carpet.
How many more major U-turns will be made and when?
Who dare to ask MM in Parliament?
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Although the interview with NTD was conducted many years ago,the logic of what he said and commented are very much alive and relevance
in today’s Singapore.
We, the citizens must bear in mind that Singapore will always be LARGER than the PAP!! Should PAP be voted out someday, Singapore will still be around, unless of course some unforseen act of God happens!!
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I too agree with cclcclccl,
Civil servants and politicians are the same….they are bound by “unwritten rules/regulations” against speaking out and speaking against the government policies. Once they are out of this grip, they start blowing their trumpets and grapping attention….
Like Speaker of House, Tan Soo Khoon on criticising the govt’s 7 ivory towers, ex-NTUC chief, Tan on legislative controls on financial products etc…Still, I think this is good because their voices (or noises) are still louder than most of us ordinary citizens.
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could ngiam tong dow be a decoy.
afterall,he was then part of HDB?
i would onl believe him if he stands for election challenging the PAPies.
a mere few words here and there is just like one swallow in the summer.
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ALL PATRIOTIC AND RIGHTEOUS SINGAPOREANS MUST TAKE THEIR COUNTRY BACK FROM PAP SCUM
http://votepapout.wordpress.com/
VOTE PAP OUT!!!!!
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WE NEED HIM AS OUR PRESIDENT!
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I hope to see more ex.civil servants now stand united and voicing out now for the sake of saving singapore.
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Great post/interview. Very fruitful messages in there to set one thinking.
Mr Ngiam gives deep and insightful answers to each of the questions asked with clear and pristine explanations. Very interesting indeed.
Gonna re-read it again. Much to learn from his view-point.
Thanks to TR for re-bringing it up.
Only sad thing is that those concerns mentioned and raised are still prevailing in current times…
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The classic failure of the less-than-decent hosting of the YOG is a clear-cut fine example of the True organisational ability of the people who hold top positions in the YOG organisation hierachy – empty seats, forced attendances, coercsion/fines of Singapore to give way to YOG vehicles instead, this is needles if local drivers had swelled pride in this YOG, speaks volumes for yhears to come.
Why I said YOG hosting failed – and I already mentioned it in TR before, YOG was doomed to fail in the very 1st place as Singapore’s constant boasting of No 1 this No1 that in the world does not equate to successful holding of YOG. How come IOC chief can buy this silly idea!!!
Where were the experiences learned and wisdom acquired from the hosting of Last Years Asia Youth Games. One fkng conceited green-horn reported wrote in the shit times said this YOG is is Dress Rehearsal for World Stage. He is damn damn blind – very sad, what kind of professionalism. If he’s reading ask him to write, what happened to experiences gained from last years hosting of Asia Youth Games??
And another EVIDENCE of failed hosting of YOG is The APPARENT Absence of mention by PM Lee in his NDP. I dont know why – HE AVOIDED mention of the YOG at all (sorry I stand to be corrected coz I tuned off PM NDP). And shit times mentioned ONLY Team Singapore in the news today, NOTHING about the hosting (albeit some mention of the volunteers as heroes). HOW come PM never pat the backs of the IOC various committees???
In peace time the YOG hosting is a failure – given 2 years to prepare – what is there is ABSOLUTE no time to prepare in case of a MASSIVE terror attack in Orchard Road (like the sudden flood in Orchard blamed on a silly drain. How STUPID can PAP technocrats BE???
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ngiam tong dow’s thinking is nothing new, as the one man rule/monopoly of powers; and the need to surround the centre with yes men; running dogs n lackeys have been obvious for years. tdow is simply naive that the centre will devolve powers; leading to better distribution of economic n political powers. no emperor wil cultivate an alternate challenge to the throne; instead will fight n quash any dissent, n use grc to hold on to power. years of living in ivory tower has made him naive, even stupid.
again, he assumes the elites r from two v similar schools, n only the scholahs r capable of running this place, he suggests a debate on different political approaches; only talking/bluffing. does he dare take the lead to form a party to contest? or even comment in tr?
who will he vote?
he is also stupid to say we have become monsters demanding handouts; those shares were better sold to the public, n in global competition, social inequality will increase, the rich will be richer, so a social safety net is needed; sgs do not want hand outs, but there will be a group of sgs who just can’t make the grade, n some r displaced, in their mid 40s, struggling. what does he knows about building a just society n a nation?
n talking about welfare, what welfare? hdb subsidies or discount to market price?
we cannot have so many half hearted politicians who just need to walk over, do not have the real desire to serve or fire in their bellies.
tdow has the disease ‘of u die your own business’; the uncaring arrogance of a monkey’s daughter, ‘get out of my sick elitist face’ ‘y this person must be a wee?’ ‘the sad class’.
with unchallenged power, complacency has set in. pro alien pigs failings r clear. abuse of judicial/police powers, corruption, cronyism, and nepotism is now standard culture. national day awards should not mix with politcal awards – pbms, jps what not (pui)
we have to take back our country. we must never be held hostage to one man, a few man, or even a rotten political party.
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How come no one ask the Parliament, how many Foreigners are owning more than 1 property in Singapore?
I will not be surprise the Ministers have more than one private properties.
Thy do not Tax Own Ppl. They tax only less fortunate local.
We need a change, a change to REMOVE THE OWN THOUGHTS.
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“A Winning Formula, But We Overdid It”
abstract of an interview with Sunita Sue Leng, The Edge Singapore,
February 1, 2004.
*
The Edge Singapore:
What are the burning policy issues for you? And why?
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Ngiam:
The most important issues for me are population and education. Those are the basis for any country’s growth. In the 1960s, Singapore had high unemployment. Every time we passed a school at one o’clock, Goh Keng Swee [finance minister then] felt very depressed. He said, ‘How am I going to find jobs for all these young people?’ At the time, our population growth was very high, about 4%. So we introduced family planning, which was very successful.
And, by the mid-1970s, we had reached full employment and unemployment had fallen to 3% and below. But like all bureaucracies, we continued to penalise the third order of birth. What we didn’t recognise was that as soon as women went out to work, the birth rate would fall naturally.
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The Edge Singapore:
Is population size so critical?
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Ngiam:
The Scandinavian countries, for example, have small populations and yet are so successful within the global economy.
When I was a young officer, we did studies on optimal population size. We looked at countries like Sweden, Norway, Switzerland and Israel. All those countries had about three, four, five million people. So we thought that was the magical figure. But what we didn’t realise was that it was the quality of the population that matters.
Yes, these countries have small populations but their education levels are very high.
So, when we talk about immigration in Singapore, we should not go for the numbers game. We have to go for quality. When we allow people into Singapore, we must make sure that the average level of education is higher than our average. It must add to the quality and not just the numbers. That means a selective immigration policy.
Today, knowledge is the great multiplier. Potential GDP is limited by land, labour and capital but in today’s world, with knowledge you can multiply the land, labour and capital that you have. To do that, you need to educate your people. Every Singaporean should be educated up to A levels. Forty years ago, people didn’t even have primary education. It is very difficult to re-train them now.
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The Edge Singapore:
Some would say Singapore has achieved a high level of education.
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Ngiam:
I don’t agree. I think we are too focused on producing scholars. We’re very proud of our scholars, of course, but realistically, the country cannot move forward unless we have a large base of people who are well educated. As a former president of Matsushita Corp of Japan said to me, it is better to have a high plateau of people with a high average level of education than a
few high peaks.
In Japan, the aim was to increase the average level of education to senior high, which is equivalent to our A levels.
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The Edge Singapore:
We produce lots of people with good grades but not many creative or entrepreneurial types. Why is that?
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Ngiam:
It’s the focus on imperial scholars. The former Public Service Commission chairman, Tan Teck Chwee, used to say to me, if you want to be creative, you have to be immersed in one discipline, whether it is maths or music. You have to excel in that one subject, to have a real foundation in one discipline. When you’re totally immersed in that subject, you can be very creative. For example, if you want to read philosophy, go ahead. But be very good in philosophy. In fact, you would study logic in philosophy and if you’re good at it, I think you will be good at writing software programmes.
Today, we are swinging from what was a very formatted education system to one which has more freedom but my message to our educationists is, please remember, content is also very important.
*
The Edge Singapore:
You also feel strongly about the CPF.
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Ngiam:
The CPF started off at 3% plus 3% in 1955 and it was meant for old age. And it was because the British government did not want to be responsible for the pension liabilities of its colonies. But along the way, the economy grew and real income was going up so fast. I would say we were too paternalistic as a government. We said instead of spending on consumer products and holidays,
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The Edge Singapore:
Why don’t you set aside more for your housing and your old age?
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Ngiam:
Unfortunately, we overdid the housing part. We allocated more and more to housing. At one stage, our rate was 45%. That was the peak. It was way too high. And housing could take as much as 25% to 30%. I would say you should not spend more than 20% of your income on rent.
In the early years, Singapore was very poor. Dr. Goh [Keng Swee] told the HDB chairman, ‘Look, our household income is only S$400 a month. Even if you set aside 10% for housing, it’s only S$40′. He said, ‘I don’t care what you do , but I’ll contribute S$20. So build something which people can rent for S$40′. So that’s how we ended up with the one-room flats in the early days.
It was dim, poorly ventilated and smelly.
But we succeeded in housing the nation. However, as incomes rose and CPF contributions rose, the HDB built more than what was necessary. If you look at the population structure, there’s no need to build more than three-room flats. There was also no need for a second bite of the cherry and a third bite. If you want to upgrade, you should pay for it out of your other income.
We thought we had a winning formula. But really, we overdid it.
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The Edge Singapore:
Now that most of the population live in their own homes, isn’t it time to refocus the CPF on retirement needs?
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Ngiam:
Yes. My proposal is 20% from the employee and 10% from the employer. Twenty per cent for your housing is not unreasonable. So the 10% is for old age.
But if you want more for old age, which is the original purpose, something has got to give. Maybe the part allocated for housing should be cut to 15%.
Then HDB should build flats which you can sell or rent for 15% of income.
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The Edge Singapore:
Why must you continue to build flats that take up 25% of income?
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Ngiam: When I became chairman of CPF, I immediately saw that we were asset-rich and cash-poor. The balances in the accounts are miserable.
*
The Edge Singapore:
Is it too late to reverse the policy?
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Ngiam:
No, it’s not too late. We have to be quite tough. I would say, reduce the amount for housing and that for Medisave. So, both the HDB and the Ministry of Health will not be tempted to add on to their services beyond what people can pay. Whenever CPF went up, both these bodies rushed in to get their share of the pie.
We strayed form the straight and narrow path. CPF was started for old age.
We should have stuck to that. But in all things when you’re successful, you just carry on.
We were great optimists. We thought the GDP growth rate would go up in a straight line, 8% for the next 20 years. The 1997 financial crisis taught us a severe lesson. In fact, we should have learnt from the first crisis, in 1986. We cut CPF to 30% and we should have stuck there. But we raised it back. We did not learn the real lesson.
So the real challenge for the government today is how to reduce the amount for housing and Medisave and set aside more for old age. The old-age problem is already coming on. People of my generation are already retiring.
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http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.culture.singapore/2006-04/msg00292.html
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An interview with Ngiam Tong Dow
His worry: Is Singapore becoming high cost, low tech?
Straits Times, May 22, 2008
By Clarissa Oon
WHAT keeps pioneer civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow awake at night is the fear of Singapore becoming a high-wage and ‘not so high tech’ economy like London and losing its competitiveness.
The longtime advocate of technical education said Singapore must ensure its best and brightest continue to become engineers and not just bankers.
Mr Ngiam observed how Singapore started off in the late 1960s with low labour costs and low technology.
‘In the 1970s and 1980s, we moved to low cost, higher tech.
‘Today, the question I would like to pose is: Are we in danger of being high cost and low tech? That really gets me very worried at night.’
Wages in Singapore had gone up significantly over the decades, he said, but the level of technology not by as much.
In comparison, the high labour costs of many Western countries are offset by strong technological capabilities. He cited the example of Finland, where, he was told, ‘the engineer is more respected than the manager’.
His pet theory for the decline of the British economy is that ‘their best and brightest from Oxbridge, instead of going into engineering and running factories, went into the City of London’.
‘City of London – they are not creators of wealth, they are just shuffling assets around the place,’ he said dismissively.
The United States has overtaken Britain because ‘while some of their best went to Wall Street, their best still go into engineering,’ he said.
Mr Ngiam was a champion of technical education when he was Economic Development Board chairman from 1975 to 1981.
It was partly as a result of his lobbying during this period that Nanyang Technological University was born and the National University of Singapore expanded its engineering faculty.
Recalling those days, he said: ‘I used to tell everybody, what I want is 1,000 engineers, 5,000 technicians from the polytechnics, and 10,000 Institute of Technical Education workers.
‘You give me that, I grant you a job.’
Once they knew they could find trained manpower here, the multi-national companies flocked to Singapore, he added.
Mr Ngiam said the beefing up of technical education was very timely, ‘because now the world talks about global competition and a knowledge-based economy.
‘How do you become a knowledge-based economy, except through science and technology?’
As a result, if the cream of the education system goes into Shenton Way instead of the technology and industrial parks, ‘I think we are done for’.
Source : Straits Times – 22 May 2008
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A Venture Capitalist like Queen Elizabeth I
Abstract of speech by Ngiam Tong Dow at the gala of the Singapore Venture Capital and Private Equity Association
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In the 1970s, Hong Kong and Singapore were the only developing countries that opened their doors to direct foreign investments. Now, every country in the world competes vigorously for foreign investment.
As the multinational corporations (MNCs) brought with them their technology and, more critically, their markets, Singapore and Singaporeans concentrated on serving the businesses of these companies.
In the process, we neglected our own home-grown companies. We chose to expand, not grow, rapidly on the wings of the MNCs, offering them abundant, low-cost semi-skilled labour.
By the mid-1970s, we achieved full employment with an unemployment rate of 3 per cent.
The flip side of full employment was the phenomenon of job-hopping. Labour turnover was excessive, with no time for employers to train and upgrade the skills of employees. Wages rose rapidly. When marginal wages exceeded marginal increases in productivity, the MNCs relocated their plants to more competitive locations.
MNCs are completely objective and unsentimental organisations, moving from location to location as circumstances dictate. Though Singapore today enjoys full employment once again, our older workforce is trapped in stubborn structural unemployment.
Unlike Singapore, our competitors – Taiwan and South Korea – followed a different track. Their governments supported their own companies all the way, protecting their own indigenous companies from foreign competition. More critically, they supported them in the acquisition of technology.
I was the chairman of the Singapore Telephone Board in 1972 when we invited leading telephone manufacturing companies to tender for the supply of new-generation equipment. In the Singapore tender, not unexpectedly, the top three companies were Japanese.
To my great surprise, there was no Japanese name when the results of a South Korean tender were announced.
When I asked the general manager of the Japanese trading company that won our tender how this came about, he explained that the Korean tender required the successful company to transfer technology to the Korean purchaser. As it was not Japanese companies’ policy to transfer technology to buyers, none participated. This left the field clear for the winning American company, which was prepared to transfer technology.
In Singapore, our procurement policy was to award the tender to the lowest-priced bid. We were not prepared to pay any premium for the transfer of technology. We took a short-term view, unlike Taiwan and South Korea.
In the 1960s, the Taiwan government established ITRI as an advanced research institute in electronics, staffed by PhDs trained in the US. The research results were available free of charge to the researchers involved, who went on to start their own companies for commercial production.
Taiwan today is the world’s leading producer of wafer for microchips. It is almost high noon. Is it too late for us to grow our own timber? In plain English, this means establishing, nurturing, developing and growing our own Singapore-owned and managed companies. Most critically, we need to develop the confidence and the skills to drive these companies ourselves.
And we can. Singapore Airlines, SingTel, our three banks, Singapore Technologies Engineering, Hyflux, Osim, Venture Manufacturing, and Creative Technology are outstanding examples of Singapore-driven companies. These companies, however, are all too few in a landscape dominated by MNCs.
We need to have more home-grown companies led by Singapore CEOs. Which brings me to the core of my angst. The original Small Industries Finance Scheme (SIFS) was conceived in the late 1970s between myself, as chairman of the Economic Development Board, and Dr Tony Tan, who was then with OCBC and chairman of the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS).
The EDB had a Light Industry Service Unit, whose mission was to nurture light industries through, among other things, loan financing. But it had only a handful of staff, and could not give out more than 10 loans a year. So I invited the ABS banks to join EDB to finance light industries.
The EDB would share the risk, dollar for dollar. To reduce the burden on the banks’ liquidity ratio requirement, participating banks could draw on a line of credit extended by the Ministry of Finance, even for their half of the loans.
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http://www.nicolastang.com/blog/2006/10/ngiam-tong-dow-be-a-queen-elizabeth-i/
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Can Mr. Ngiam writes more articles on domestic issue and possible to include changes needed for Singapore’s survival?
At 66yo, Mr. Ngiam has the right age to be Singapores next President as our present one is ardi 87 years old (a little too old).
Singapore needs a younger elected President with strong personality, sincere and can act independently either for the state matters or for the people of Singapore. Singapore needs a REAL PRESIDENT (Head of State).
STOP – those previously acting, pretending and wayang including hide and seeks..are over once and for all.
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ONE of the seven dwarfs, DOPEY’S days are numbered.
AND Once Snow White leaves the stage, we can only read about “dopey” in fairy tales during bedtime…..
We need “REAL” character and not actor like “dopey” on stage.
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Surely, all serving civil servants and GLC related company staff will be voting for PAP as they are worried about their career advancement given that the voting card is serialized. After these civil servants leave the sector as retirees, they would step up to provide critiques on the government…see that with the ex-NTUC chief and ex-Civil service chief…
Can you blame them if you’re in their shoes making a living within an iron-fist country? At least, they start to speak up what’s going on behind the iron-curtain.
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Good article to share and updates.
NTD was a class of his own. Though he has been retired. He has immensed knowledge and political thoughts which the united opposition can tap and leveraged upon.
Looking into his past interviews, it highlights the thoughts behind those policies years. In particular on the auto-pilot which our civil service can start to think and question. They have been “Yes-man” for far too long. Dare to CHANGE should be the keyword, and better for Singapore as it progressed…
Suggestion to TR: You may want to conduct updated interview with NTD on the many issues which Singapore now faced and his candid thoughts about it. Thanks !
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Just a suggestion. Can you bold the questions as it is easier to identify the question and answers. Better presentation style.
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I’ve read his book and I really think he is a capable candidate for political office.
Though you can see he is more interested in protecting his rice bowl and not walking the talk. Why don’t he start recruiting and mentoring potential opposition candidate.
Why don’t he contest for the PRESIDENCY. He could really become a neutral party if he wants. But Give a very strong voice on matters pertaining to reserves. I really don’t want to waste my tax on someone who just waves and smile at people.
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