"PM Lee on his achievements and regrets, after a decade at the helm - CNA 16 January 2015
SINGAPORE: As the nation gears up to celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, Singapore should take the occasion to take stock and focus on its vision for the years ahead, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in an interview with Singapore journalists earlier this week.
In his first such interview since reaching the milestone of 10 years at the helm, Mr Lee touched on a broad range issues, such as the evolving political landscape, the challenges facing Singapore and Singaporeans, and his vision for the country.
ON WHAT HE IS PARTICULARLY SATISFIED WITH
"I would say putting a lot of emphasis on education.
"We've followed through on that in many ways, investing in the schools, Edusave, resources for the principals, making sure every school is a good school, developing tertiary education, building up the ITEs. I've now opened all three of them - the East, the West and most recently, and the best of all, I think is the Central campus.
ON HIS GREATEST REGRET
"In retrospect, it's easy to say that we should have been building up our infrastructure a lot faster; that we should have got our trains running; that we should have got our HDB flats built more.
"You want to predict what's going to happen."
ON THE POPULATION WHITE PAPER
"I think there was a strong emotional reaction when we put out the White Paper. In retrospect, if we have had a bit more time to prepare the ground, to explain it, to soft sell and prepare people to understand what it is that is the issue and what we are trying to do, we should have done better. But that's water under the bridge.
"We will continue to adjust to get the balance as right as we can, but I don't think we are able to relax because we have to continue in a sustainable way. But neither are we able to say: 'We go to zero and let's do away with all these people. We don't need them to build our trains, we don't need them to make houses. We don't need them to serve us noodles in the middle of the night when we go down to the hawker centre.' I think that is not practical.
ON FUTURE ELECTIONS
"I think it must change. I'm not sure which way it will change. We are in a very unusual situation where there is a clear consensus for the ruling party, for the People's Action Party.
"So there is no safety net, no certainty that what we have now is going to continue. And each election is a very serious contest for who is going to form the next Government."
ON THE NEXT GENERAL ELECTION
“(The number of Group Representation Constituencies) will be decided by the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee. But at the last General Election, the average number of MPs assigned to each GRC went down, and there were a few more SMCs (Single Member Constituencies). I am satisfied with that.
ON HIS SUCCESSOR
“It's very possible (my successor) is already in the current Cabinet line-up, but it's not an absolute because I want to bring in a group of new candidates with strong leadership potential in the next election. I believe we should be able to find my successor from the previous two elections or the next one.
ON THE NARRATIVE FOR SINGAPORE
"I think that for the next phase, the narrative cannot be a single word, nation-building. It has to be that we live in Singapore, we have a home, this is a place which is quite special, if you travel, you would know it's very special. Not just if you travel to developing countries and backward areas."
Interesting time to reflect on his 10-year helm as PM of Singapore.
Lessons for me are:
1. acknowledgement of mistakes is a great act by courageous leader. How the mistakes happened though must also be looked into. e.g. when we want to have a 6.9m population, the accompanying supporting infrastructure like 'affordable housing for the locals without adding more stress to the young couples wanting to start a 3-kid family', the public transportation, the space for more people, the human resources needed to maintain the spaces/laws and order/etc WOULD HAVE BEEN considered. Would have been a SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) and NOT comes as a shock!;
2. acknowledging mistakes BUT without identifying the MISTAKEs like: the locals WANT Foreign Workers (FWs) who are in the construction industry doing jobs that Locals do not want to do. The LOCALS have NO PROBLEM with that. At the same time, are the LOCALS GOOD enough to compete with the foreign talent (FTs) in their own backyard? If not, what is the talk of the EMPHASIS on Education SINCE day 1 of his PM-ship?;
3. I am MOST concerned with the lack of drilling on 'values' of Singapore. Increasingly I am hearing the younger generation of LOCAL talent are NOT measuring up to the Employers' expectations vs. the FTs! This is worrisome. It also shows certain confusion with the government swinging between relaxing the % of primary school cohorts to get into the university further and the exhortation that you don't need to be a graduate to have good career prospect!
Honestly, when more and more graduates are churned out without corresponding increases in the so-called graduate-type jobs, it just means the graduates will do whatever jobs available. IF NOT, mismatch of expectations will result in BITTERNESS and potentially emotional voting! Which is scary!
Notes: have I progressed in the last 10 years? Not really as I have to consider very hard if I can afford a car then when I was working 10 years ago! Of course, I can also choose to go without a car and take the public transport.
SINGAPORE: As the nation gears up to celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, Singapore should take the occasion to take stock and focus on its vision for the years ahead, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in an interview with Singapore journalists earlier this week.
In his first such interview since reaching the milestone of 10 years at the helm, Mr Lee touched on a broad range issues, such as the evolving political landscape, the challenges facing Singapore and Singaporeans, and his vision for the country.
ON WHAT HE IS PARTICULARLY SATISFIED WITH
"I would say putting a lot of emphasis on education.
"We've followed through on that in many ways, investing in the schools, Edusave, resources for the principals, making sure every school is a good school, developing tertiary education, building up the ITEs. I've now opened all three of them - the East, the West and most recently, and the best of all, I think is the Central campus.
ON HIS GREATEST REGRET
"In retrospect, it's easy to say that we should have been building up our infrastructure a lot faster; that we should have got our trains running; that we should have got our HDB flats built more.
"You want to predict what's going to happen."
ON THE POPULATION WHITE PAPER
"I think there was a strong emotional reaction when we put out the White Paper. In retrospect, if we have had a bit more time to prepare the ground, to explain it, to soft sell and prepare people to understand what it is that is the issue and what we are trying to do, we should have done better. But that's water under the bridge.
"We will continue to adjust to get the balance as right as we can, but I don't think we are able to relax because we have to continue in a sustainable way. But neither are we able to say: 'We go to zero and let's do away with all these people. We don't need them to build our trains, we don't need them to make houses. We don't need them to serve us noodles in the middle of the night when we go down to the hawker centre.' I think that is not practical.
ON FUTURE ELECTIONS
"I think it must change. I'm not sure which way it will change. We are in a very unusual situation where there is a clear consensus for the ruling party, for the People's Action Party.
"So there is no safety net, no certainty that what we have now is going to continue. And each election is a very serious contest for who is going to form the next Government."
ON THE NEXT GENERAL ELECTION
“(The number of Group Representation Constituencies) will be decided by the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee. But at the last General Election, the average number of MPs assigned to each GRC went down, and there were a few more SMCs (Single Member Constituencies). I am satisfied with that.
ON HIS SUCCESSOR
“It's very possible (my successor) is already in the current Cabinet line-up, but it's not an absolute because I want to bring in a group of new candidates with strong leadership potential in the next election. I believe we should be able to find my successor from the previous two elections or the next one.
ON THE NARRATIVE FOR SINGAPORE
"I think that for the next phase, the narrative cannot be a single word, nation-building. It has to be that we live in Singapore, we have a home, this is a place which is quite special, if you travel, you would know it's very special. Not just if you travel to developing countries and backward areas."
Interesting time to reflect on his 10-year helm as PM of Singapore.
Lessons for me are:
1. acknowledgement of mistakes is a great act by courageous leader. How the mistakes happened though must also be looked into. e.g. when we want to have a 6.9m population, the accompanying supporting infrastructure like 'affordable housing for the locals without adding more stress to the young couples wanting to start a 3-kid family', the public transportation, the space for more people, the human resources needed to maintain the spaces/laws and order/etc WOULD HAVE BEEN considered. Would have been a SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) and NOT comes as a shock!;
2. acknowledging mistakes BUT without identifying the MISTAKEs like: the locals WANT Foreign Workers (FWs) who are in the construction industry doing jobs that Locals do not want to do. The LOCALS have NO PROBLEM with that. At the same time, are the LOCALS GOOD enough to compete with the foreign talent (FTs) in their own backyard? If not, what is the talk of the EMPHASIS on Education SINCE day 1 of his PM-ship?;
3. I am MOST concerned with the lack of drilling on 'values' of Singapore. Increasingly I am hearing the younger generation of LOCAL talent are NOT measuring up to the Employers' expectations vs. the FTs! This is worrisome. It also shows certain confusion with the government swinging between relaxing the % of primary school cohorts to get into the university further and the exhortation that you don't need to be a graduate to have good career prospect!
Honestly, when more and more graduates are churned out without corresponding increases in the so-called graduate-type jobs, it just means the graduates will do whatever jobs available. IF NOT, mismatch of expectations will result in BITTERNESS and potentially emotional voting! Which is scary!
Notes: have I progressed in the last 10 years? Not really as I have to consider very hard if I can afford a car then when I was working 10 years ago! Of course, I can also choose to go without a car and take the public transport.
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