The troubling spectre of elderly Singaporeans
doing menial jobs like cleaning toilets, pushing rubbish carts, collecting
cardboards and wiping tables at hawker centres, has become all too common these
days and doubtless weighs heavy on the minds and conscience of many
Singaporeans.
Financial
Support for the Elderly Poor
Voicing questions which I believe many of us have,
a concerned resident took the mic at a South-East Community Development Council
(CDC) conference on 2 Aug 2018 [1]
to ask whether elderly Singaporeans were being forced to work at manual jobs “just
to survive” and whether the Government could provide a pension scheme to meet
the basic financial needs of the elderly.
He also wondered if such a pension scheme could be funded by a marginal cut
on the defence budget or by cutting Ministerial salaries by 10%.
As the resident from Braddell Heights, put
it: “I think not many people will believe you if you say that elderly work
because they want to mix, because they want to do exercise. Perhaps they work
because they need to work."
- For the elderly, the Government has the Silver Support Scheme, which “does help quite a number of our seniors”;
- For low-income citizens, “the Government does take quite good care of you. There are actually many, many schemes to help look after those who are poor”; and
- For elderly who are not poor but wish to work, “I personally think it is a good thing, because if not, then what do you expect the elderly to do at home?”
Wearing
Two Hats
To best understand Lim Biow Chuan’s response,
we need to recognise that he wears two hats. He is both:
- Adviser to Mountbatten Grassroots Organisations under the People’s Association (PA); and
- Member of Parliament (MP) for Mountbatten SMC.
The two hats are distinct roles, which do not
fit as one.
The role of an MP is to be the voice of the
people in Parliament. The MP’s job is to channel feedback, grievances and
issues from his constituents to the government of the day. Voters expect their MPs to advocate their
concerns, to champion their issues and to hold the Government accountable for
their decisions and for their deployment of public funds.
On the other hand, the PA’s key role is to promote,
explain and defend government policies and programmes to Singaporeans. In effect, the PA is the Government’s
apologist i.e. the Government’s defender and spokesperson. The Grassroots
Adviser’s job is to help the PA to carry out its said role.
Clearly, the MP’s role is set to clash with
his concurrent job as Grassroots Adviser when it comes to unpopular Government policies. While voters expect their MPs to champion
their grievances with Government policies, the PA expects their Grassroots
Advisers to promote and defend those very same policies.
The fact that the two hats do not fit as one,
is proven by the PA’s refusal to appoint non-PAP MPs as their Grassroots
Advisers. The PA has flatly refused to have
non-PAP MPs as their Grassroots Advisers on the basis that non-PAP MPs cannot
be expected to champion all Government policies - good and bad - in the way that
PAP MPs can be relied on to do so.[2]
The Braddell Heights resident raised a very valid
concern, but the occasion on which he raised his concern was at a Southeast CDC
Conference. CDCs are part of the PA.
I do not blame the Braddell Heights resident if
he was confused. He saw his MPs before him and he must have thought that as his
MPs they would listen, carry his voice to Parliament and advocate for change.
“the
Government does take quite good care of you”
Instead, the resident got a show-and-tell. Right
on the mark, Lim Biow Chuan responded to the resident by assuring him that the
Government already has the Silver Support Scheme, which “does help quite a
number of our seniors”; and for low-income citizens, “the Government does take
quite good care of you. There are actually many, many schemes to help look
after those who are poor”.
After explaining what the Government was
already doing for the elderly and the poor, Lim Biow Chuan then went on to
exhort his listeners not to shirk from their own personal responsibilities
towards their aged, by saying:
“My sense is always that we shouldn’t always look to the
government to solve the issues of the elderly. It is every child’s
responsibility to look after their parents, because your parents looked after
you when you are young. To all those who are getting elderly, I hope that you
don’t think that your children should not look after you. These are their
responsibilities. And this is what filial piety is all about."
Of course, children have a moral duty to care
for their parents. But the Government also has a social responsibility towards
the elderly. Taking care of the elderly
is a joint responsibility of both the young and the State.
The needs of the elderly encompass medical,
physical, emotional as well as financial. Indeed, very few of us can comfortably
shoulder the entire burden of all those needs.
It is not unreasonable to expect the State has to share a meaningful
portion of the burden. After all, we pay
a lot in taxes and we expect our hard-earned monies to be spent on the public.
Instead of calling on the Government do to
their part and to do more for the elderly, we see the MP asking his
constituents NOT to look to the Government to solve the issues of the elderly. The MP was more focussed on ensuring that the
individual does not shirk his personal responsibility for his parents. I would
have preferred my MP to be more bent on ensuring that our Government does not evade
their responsibility towards our elderly citizens.
“Ministers
are not paid enough”
What the Braddell Heights resident wanted to
know, was whether the Government could alleviate the financial hardship of the
elderly by a pension scheme, and whether the pension scheme could be funded by reducing
Ministerial salaries.
As if to ensure that any thought of cutting Ministerial
salaries is buried 6 feet underground, Lim Biow Chuan’s tag team-mate, Grassroots
Adviser Goh Chok Tong took the mic to rebuke the resident for suggesting
Ministerial salaries be cut to fund a pension scheme for the elderly:
“Had you suggested to up GST by 2 per cent and give them the
pension, I would have applauded you. Seriously. Because you are then taxing the
whole society to support older ones. But you did not. You said cut from
defence, 1 per cent is enough. And on top of that, you said cut Ministers’
salaries. That is very populist. I am telling you the Ministers
are not paid enough, and down the road, we are going to get a problem with
getting people to join the government, because civil servants now earn more
than Ministers. Are you aware of that?”
Citizens
are short-changed
Having been co-opted into the PA, PAP MPs cannot
fully perform their role as your voice in Parliament. They cannot challenge Government
policies, ask difficult questions or hold the Government to account for how
they deploy public funds, without having regard to their obligations to the PA –
which is on top of their obligations to the Party Whip.
Citizens need to know that when PAP MPs go
around their constituency making house visits and meeting residents, they do so
in their capacity as Grassroots Advisers, not as political MPs.
 |
| House Visits by Grassroot Adviser |
As Grassroots Advisers, their job is to
promote, explain and defend existing Government policies. Even questionable policies - such as
sky-scraper high ministerial salaries and shamefully inadequate help for the
elderly poor – stand to be vigorously defended by PAP MPs working with the PA
Machinery.
Citizens need to know that so long as the PA
continues to appoint PAP MPs as their Grassroots Advisers, and thereby
co-opting them into their Machinery to bolster their role as the Government’s
apologist, constituents will be denied the full measure of the advocate,
activist and political leader that they had voted for.
We are short-changed. Instead being the
People’s Voice, our PAP MPs defect from serving our cause to become the PA’s
Voice. Bearing in mind that the PA are
servants of the PAP Government, the PAP MPs end up as the PAP’s Voice.
Cloaked by the pretext of promoting social
cohesion, the PA has the effect of distorting our democratic system to the
advantage of the ruling party.
[1]
"Goh Chok Tong’s speech defending high ministerial pay and defence budgetat grassroots event", 5 Aug 2018 The Online Citizen
