In what was a Jan 2010 article that reported Singapore emerging as the world’s second freest economy for the umpteen times was greeted with the usual bureaucratic fanfare and the customary congratulatory from the state media. Ironic for a country that is more well-known for being impregnated with a repressed political culture and an ever-adolescent civil society. Beneath the accolades is a steadfast commitment of the PAP Government to grow Singapore’s economy by ensuring that there is a free market and competitive business environment for enterprises and their accompanying free movement of capital and (foreign) labour. As with all economic goods, it comes with a price. A price that is paid by the sweat and toil of Singapore’s low-wage workers who have pretty much stagnated in the whirlwind of economic progress that have benefited the upper and upper-middle class, some of who were foreigners. Singapore’s income inequality has increased; and although we do not have the poverty problems of other countries with more severe income inequality, the trend is increasingly worrying.

A large part of Singapore’s GDP growth has been achieved via the bumping up of our population whether through the import of cheap foreign labour or the “attracting” of talented Permanent Residents. The attention, with the announcement of Budget 2010, has now shifted to increasing productivity – an almost stark naked attempt to conceal and recover from the negative side effects of the earlier policies. And no doubt, the side effects which were most felt by the low-wage workers and the lower-class faced with an increasingly crowded, competitive and pricey Singapore.

Although the focus has now shifted to productivity, some of the earlier policies have not changed. While we will see a broad increase of the foreign workers’ levy come middle of this year, the dependency ratios of Singapore workers versus foreign workers are not going to change much. Meaning to say, companies who can still afford the levy will still continue to employ foreigners. This is in line with the government’s philosophy to maintain a free market economy that is conducive for businesses. With the PAP majority in Parliament, which will mean that Budget 2010 will pass unopposed, we can only call for the levies collected to be redistributed to low and middle-wage workers through WIS, WTS, SPUR, CPF contributions, Tax rebates and various other means. In fact, the government should run a deficit in this particular account to alleviate the hardship of the low-wage workers who have been most hard-hit by the fierce competition from the import of foreign labour in the last decade. Remember, while foreign workers and talent can return to their countries, where their money will last them longer, sons and daughters of Singaporeans can only continue to grit their teeth in Lion City. For a certain sector of Singaporeans to be stuck in the poverty cycle would not bode well for the future of this country.

Ultimately, welfare handouts, ingeniously disguised as training benefits and supplementary wages or otherwise, are only temporary measures. Ultimately, what is needed is a mindset change and diversified education system that is non-discriminatory, non-hierarchical and does not emphasize on streaming as a social stigma. As the Chinese saying goes, “There is use for every human that is born”. Anyone who has been to Taiwan, Japan or Australia will see that their workers doing non-executive jobs, like service staff, carpenters, construction workers and plumbers, are not shun upon. They take proud ownership and pride in jobs considered demeaning by Singaporeans. Needless to say, they provide good service and skills that are valued by society, not only in newspapers articles come National Day, but in kind and a respectable salary. Indicators such as freest economy, income inequality and freedom indexes are only but numbers and lofty statistics; only Singaporeans can redefine our own country and only ourselves will be left to clean up our mess.