EXPOSED: Was Ramesh’s “apology” was staged?

JP Morgan Director Ramesh Erramalli’s “apology” was staged as a PR stunt to placate public fury, according to an insider source.

A day after the video went viral, the Association of Certified Security Agencies issued a stern statement condemning Ramesh and asking the Attorney-General to press charges.

Notice the stark difference in tone 3 days later:

Steven was supposedly on duty from 7pm to 7am the next day on 30 October 2019. At about 4pm, he received a call from his manager asking him to have an early dinner and meet at the management office for a “briefing” at 6pm.

When he arrived, he was met by Mr Thomas and Mr Gary Harris from the Association of Certified Security Agencies who informed him that Ramesh would be dropping by the office later to resolve the issue and his duties during his absence would be covered by another colleague.

Steven was advised to put his handphone away and all he needs to do is to listen and Mr Thomas will do all the talking on his behalf. No photos were taken at the meeting. If Ramesh had indeed made up with Steven, why wasn’t a photo taken showing both of them smiling and shaking hands?

At 7pm, journalists from SPH and Mediacorp gathered at the condominium’s guard house entrance as if they were waiting for some major announcements and even took photos of Steven, Thomas and Gary:

The entire meeting lasted about 50 minutes. Steven was advised not to divulge details of the meeting and not to speak to the press. The other security guards were also warned not to post anything about the meeting on their social media accounts or to tell a third party.

One hour after the meeting Ramesh’s “apology” was published simultaneously in all the major newspapers at about the same time in a coordinated media blitz.

If Ramesh is really sincere in his apology, he should have visited the guard house to apologize to Steven in person shortly after the incident. Why did he take so long to do so and somemore accompanied by two outsiders?

Furthermore, Ramesh did not pen the apology himself which was broadcast to the public via a third party. It appeared a script was prepared beforehand and the “apology” was meant for the public rather than for Steven.

We want to hear Ramesh’s apology in his OWN WORDS. Anything less is insincere, fake and unacceptable!

Heng Swee Keat led team to conclude CECA with India which open the floodgates to Indian PMETS

On 29 June 2005, India and Singapore signed the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA). This free trade agreement not only enables Singapore and India to trade goods freely, it also allows professionals to work in each other country more easily.

The CECA was concluded after 13 rounds of negotiation and the Singapore’s side was led by none other than Heng Swee Keat, the current PM-in-waiting, who was then Permanent Secretary for Trade and Industry. Heng and his team essentially did the ground work together with their Indian counterparts. They then presented their proposals to the politicians for approval.

Some of the areas covered by CECA include: Improved Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreement, Trade in Goods, Customs, Investment, Trade in Services, Intellectual Property, etc.

However, controversial ones include concluding further Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) so as to facilitate the freer movement of professionals between Singapore and India. It helps to recognise each other’s education and professional qualifications so that Indian and Singaporean professionals from the following five professions could be able to practise in each other country:

Accounting and auditing
Architecture
Medical (doctors)
Dental
Nursing
Already, Singapore now recognises degrees of Indian doctors and nurses from certain Indian universities.

Movement of Natural Persons

Then, CECA also enables movement of persons between both countries. In particular, professionals employed in 127 specific occupations will be allowed entry and stay for up to 1 year or the duration of contract, whichever is less.

Also, intra-corporate transferees (i.e. managers, executives and specialists within organisations) will be permitted to stay and work in India and Singapore for an initial period of up to 2 years or the period of the contract, whichever is less.

The period of stay may be extended for period of up to 3 years at a time for a total term not exceeding 8 years.

In theory, of course, CECA could also benefit Singaporean professionals wanting to work in India but how many Singaporeans really want to work there to earn in rupees?

Indian companies try to exploit CECA loophole

After CECA was signed, some of the Indian IT companies set-up in Singapore tried to exploit the “intra-corporate transferee” loophole so as to get more Indian IT workers to work here. They would hire them in India and then “transfer” them to their Singapore subsidiaries to work, without the need to hire any Singaporeans.

India unhappy with Singapore

By 2017, thanks to CECA, large number of Indian professionals especially those in IT sector were moved into Singapore as “intra-corporate transferees”, since CECA did not set any quotas. Few Singaporeans, if any, were hired.

Many Singaporean PMETs started filing complaints of discrimination to the Manpower Ministry through the Fair Consideration Framework. The Singapore government was forced to slow down the approvals of Indian professionals to work here.

“This (visa problem) has been lingering for a while but since early-2016, visas are down to a trickle. All Indian companies have received communication on fair consideration, which basically means hiring local people,” the president of Nasscom, the IT association of India, complained.

In retaliation, the Indian government decided against expanding the scope of goods where import duties for Singapore goods would be cut unless the concerns of Indian industry are addressed, the Times of India reported.

In particular, the Indian government is against Singapore using the “fair consideration framework” to regulate the employment of Indian professionals in Singapore. “They (Singapore) are doing it despite the CECA clearly stating that there will be no ENT (economic needs test) or quotas on agreed services. This is a violation of the agreement,” warned an Indian official.

Obviously, when Heng negotiated CECA with India prior to 2005, he had not foreseen all these issues facing Singaporean PMETs. Perhaps he cared more if GIC and Temasek could invest freely in India or if DBS could open more branches there?

Nevertheless, Heng was confirmed to be appointed DPM of Singapore on May Day. Opposition member Lim Tean has this to say to Heng, the current PM-in-waiting, “Heng Swee Keat should explain his role in CECA, which cost Singaporeans jobs! What is the benefit to Singapore of CECA?”

EXPOSED: Uptron Academy of Computer Learning

After traveling through the entire New Delhi in the morning, our Singaporean friend Jack Song has finally found Uptron Academy of Computer Learning and enrolled in a diploma course for only $100!

Our JP Morgan Executive Director graduated with a Diploma in Computers and Information Management at Uptron Academy of Computer Learning in 1994.

He first worked at Takada Industries Pte Ltd in Singapore as a System Administrator before joining JP Morgan where he now earns a 5 figure salary as an Executive Director.

Singaporeans who are inspired by him may consider applying to enrol in his school whose diploma is worth more than the degrees of NUS, NTU and SMU!

Why Jovina Choi is now Singapore’s public enemy number one

She embodies every bit of characteristic that we all hate in a human being:

1. Ignorance. Holier-than-thou attitude

“Because it’s clear you’re out to cheat money”

She is not aware that drivers don’t make money from passing through an ERP gantry, yet she’s so confident that that is what the driver is doing and insisting she’s right.

2. Irresponsible. Everything is everybody else’s fault attitude

“Because you know I am a layperson and I don’t know the route”

She expects every driver to know every road very well. And essentially she pushed all responsibility of her misfortune (in this case, having to pay for ERP) to the driver when she, as a person who ought to be familiar with the route, herself doesn’t know the way.

 

3. Hypocrisy. Double standards

“You do not have the right to video me”

This said, while she herself attempted (but allegedly failed) to film the driver

4. Exaggeration. Drama queen

“He is taking me to the Toa Payoh police station, and I think that he is a very rogue and dangerous person”

Don’t seem to hear any tyre skidding or any other surrounding cars horning.

5. Overcalculative.

“And I have to pay the extra cost from Toa Payoh all the way to City Hall”

This was said when she just declared herself to be in a danger situation and yet she’s also equally worried about the extra cost she’ll have to incur for her to get from the police station to her intended destination. Which is more important to her? Additional ~$15 cost or her safety? Clearly her priorities are off

6. Quick to accuse. Possibly due to poor upbringing.

She pretends to call someone of authority to try to frighten the driver. Person is very likely just her mom. The person on the phone uses threatening words like “going to Court“, “You have no right to take her hostage” “You are causing her to lose her freedom” etc without first hearing the full story. Do note that these are all very serious charges and can get the driver into trouble.

Clearly this pig face was brought up in an over protected environment, which brings me back to point 2: Irresponsible, everything is everybody’s fault.

7. Manipulative. Liar. Playing victim

“Sir can you help me.. This driver is trying to take hostage of me” in a damsel in distressed voice.

The word hostage was never used until the woman on the phone started introducing it. So who implanted the idea of hostage? The person on the phone!

8. Overbearing. The world revolves around her

“No.. no you’re listening to his point of view”

Only her point of view matters.

9. Poor control of emotions.

So this is the epic part. She tries to escape. A simple flick of the door unlock lever would have unlocked the door, but she went freaky and shouted “he locked the door! he locked the door! He’s taking hostage of me, unlock the door now!!” while the door opens…

10. Incoherent. Playing the race card.

When all else is lost, she throws out a very pathetic card.

 

Source: Hardwarezone Forum

Disgraced Singaporean doctor Ler Teck Siang should be stuck off register for medical practitioners for good!

Disgraced Singaporean doctor Ler Teck Siang should be struck off the register for medical practitioners for good for his mishandling of the confidential records of HIV patients which has been leaked online by his American lover Mikhy Farrera Brochez.

 Ler Teck Siang

According to media reports, Ler downloaded the information from MOH HIV registry when he was the head of the National Public Health Unit from March 2012 till May 2013.

What transpired next is not revealed. We do not know whether Ler deliberately passed the information to his lover or it was stolen. In any case, the supposedly confidential information is now widely available online, causing much distress and anguish to HIV patients in Singapore.

The first oath of the Hippocratic Oath is “Do No Harm”. By passing the medical records of these patients to an unauthorized person who leaked it online, Ler is causing harm to 5,400 Singaporeans and 8,000 foreigners still living with the stigmatized disease.

As of now, Ler is still on the register of doctors in Singapore though he does not have a practising certificate to practise medicine in Singapore. Regardless of the outcome of his appeal in March, the Singapore Medical Council should strike off his name from the register of medical practitioners for good for he has proven himself to be morally unfit to be a doctor.

Value of 3 room HDB flats in Toa Payoh declined by as much as 30% in 4 years

The value of 3 room HDB flats in Toa Payoh which are more than 50 years old has declined by as much as 30 percent in the past 4 years!

As a property agent specializing selling HDB flats in Toa Payoh, I can tell you that it is very difficult to find buyers for these aging HDB flats which have undergone upgrading just a few years ago.

Sellers who ask for unrealistic prices for their units, even at bank valuation, usually are unable to sell them. For those who need to offload their flats urgently, they will have to give steep discounts of sometimes more than $50,000 to entice buyers.

For the purpose of comparison, let us use the recent sales transactions of 2 room HDB flats at the same size of 710 square feet at Block 9 Toa Payoh Lorong 7.

Read rest of article here.

Can I use my CPF or secure a bank loan to buy a 70 year old HDB flat

Minister for Transport Khaw Boon Wan said recently at a dialogue session with young people that Singaporeans who buy a 50-year-old Housing Board (HDB) flat today can expect prices to continue to appreciate over the next 10 years.

“If you buy a 70-year-old flat, there is still appreciation potential especially because this Government is prepared to continue to invest in it through Home Improvement Programme (HIP) II and the Voluntary Early Redevelopment Scheme (Vers),” Mr Khaw said.

While it is difficult to ascertain if his statement is true as no HDB flats have reached the 70 year mark yet, we can examine if it is possible to secure a bank loan and to use CPF to purchase the flat.

Read rest of article here.

Two-faced WP making use of opposition to advance its own selfish interests

In July 2018, former PAP MP Dr Tan Cheng Bock met up with leaders from various opposition parties in Singapore to discuss the prospects of forming an united opposition coalition to challenge the PAP in the next General Election.

The Workers Party, with 6 MPs and 3 NCMPs in Parliament, was conspicuous by its absence though an invitation was sent to them.

How can the opposition in Singapore be united without the Workers Party? It can only be possible once the opposition face the brutal hard truth that WP is NOT part of the opposition, but part of the PAP whose sole purpose is to keep and entrench the PAP in power forever.

WP is shamelessly making use of the opposition to further its own selfish interests and political agenda. It refuses to work with other opposition parties and yet it demands other parties keep away from its “stronghold” in the eastern part of Singapore to avoid third party contests in the name of opposition “unity”.

 

Photo: WP Chief Pritam Singh

 

Based on results of previous elections, the eastern constituencies of Singapore generally enjoy higher opposition support compared to the east. Because WP has “booked” all the good winnable seats, the other opposition parties have no choice but to contest in seats which are more difficult to win. This explains why WP appears to garner more votes compared to SDP and other parties.

Why not WP contest in Jurong GRC led by popular DPM Tharman and see how many votes it can win? If SDP fields an “A” team in East Coast GRC, it will stand a much higher chance of winning it compared to Bukit Timah GRC.

By giving way to WP to allow it contest as and where it wanted to while staying out of a united opposition front, the real opposition parties are restricting their own development and indirectly furthering the narrow political interests of WP instead.

Since Low Thia Khiang took over WP in 2001, WP has never expressed any interest to work with other opposition parties. Low himself admitted as much by saying that WP will “forge its own path.” The present WP Chief Pritam Singh has scoffed at the idea of “opposition unity” too. In fact, he appears more interested to work with the PAP.

During a forum held at the Institute of Policy Studies in the aftermath of the 2011 General Election, Pritam Singh shocked the audience by proclaiming that WP will form a coalition government with the PAP if the latter fails to win a majority in future elections.

The opposition should not regard WP as part of the opposition any more and “give face” to it. The real opposition parties led by SDP should considering contesting in ALL the WP seats in the eastern part of Singapore and gives voters more choice.

Do Singaporeans want a weak, feeble and useless opposition which dare not voice their concerns in Parliament or do they want brave, selfless and principled opposition MPs who dare to speak up and hold the PAP to its words and actions?

WP is now the single biggest stumbling block to real political progress and reform in Singapore. Do we want to continue with the status quo with 10, 20 or even 30 useless WP MPs “wayanging” in Parliament or do we want ONE SINGLE real opposition leader like SDP’s Dr Chee Soon Juan to challenge the PAP?

It is time we wipe the slate clean and start afresh in the next General Election. With 12 NCMPs guaranteed to enter Parliament, Singaporeans should not be afraid to vote out the fake opposition WP and replaced them with real opposition leaders in Parliament. Let us give them five years to see how they perform in Parliament and we can decide whether to continue lending support to them in the next General Election.

After witnessing so many cringe-worthy performance by WP MPs who are worse off even than the PAP backbenchers themselves, we can safely conclude that they are largely ineffectual and make no difference at all in Parliament.

Time is running short. A vote for WP is a vote for PAP! As the late opposition scion Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam said at the inauguration of the Reform Party: Singaporeans should vote for WP and Low Thia Khiang if they want to maintain the status quo. The question for you is: Do you still want the status quo for the next decade?

Singapore’s PAP has little to fear from Malaysia’s political transition

By: Kai Ostwald and Steven Oliver

Pakatan Harapan’s recent defeat of Malaysia’s long-dominant UMNO-led coalition came as a near universal surprise, not least to the coalitions’ respective leaders Mahathir Mohamad and Najib Razak themselves. While the popularity of UMNO (United Malays National Organisation) had been in a decade-long decline, massive advantages in access to resources and a deeply biased electoral process seemed a sufficient guarantee of continuity.

UMNO’s defeat raises questions about the prospects of a similar transition in neighbouring Singapore, as the two systems bear extensive similarities. In the words of Dan Slater, ‘Malaysia and Singapore have long had authoritarian regimes that looked like no others in the world — except for each other’.

While Singapore’s dominant People’s Action Party (PAP) is free of the major scandals that have plagued UMNO, it has had a series of smaller missteps and is not projecting regime-typical efficiency in its internal leadership transition. UMNO’s unexpected defeat at the hands of an opposition coalition headed by a former UMNO prime minister also appears to have inspired renewed efforts by a number of Singapore’s fragmented and fractious opposition parties to organise a similar coalition.

What does Malaysia’s surprise election mean for Singapore, which must hold an election of its own by early 2021? The answer is relatively little, as despite regime similarities, the PAP relies on substantially different political foundations to build mass support.

The PAP has fostered a political environment in which Singaporean voters focus primarily on valence considerations — in other words, on party trustworthiness, competence and professional qualifications —  rather than on ideology or policy positions. This provides the PAP with several fundamental advantages. Its penetration of Singapore’s high capacity state, for instance, gives it access to a pool of talent for recruitment that is largely unavailable to the opposition. Meanwhile, its position at the helm during Singapore’s half-century of developmental successes allows it to refer to a concrete record that the opposition can counter only with hypotheticals.

Simultaneously, the overwhelming focus on valence politics crowds out discussions of ideological alternatives that are incompatible with the PAP’s platform. The centrality of valence politics, in short, allows the PAP to leverage its comparative advantages over the opposition while limiting its vulnerability to ideational challenges. This presents the opposition with a fundamental dilemma: it is exceedingly difficult to effectively challenge the PAP on valence considerations given the structural advantages held by the dominant party. At the same time, campaigning on ideological or policy-oriented appeals does not resonate with a sufficiently large proportion of the electorate to secure victory at the ballot box.

By contrast, UMNO made ideological and policy issues — primarily in the form of bumiputera (indigenous Malay) privileges — a central part of its platform. This left it vulnerable to parties like the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) and Bersatu, which were able to occupy similar policy spaces and disrupt UMNO’s exclusive linkage to relevant voters. The growing irrelevance of UMNO’s peninsular coalition partners undermined efforts to appeal on other policy positions, allowing the former opposition to capture most of the non-bumiputera vote in West Malaysia.

This does not mean that the emphasis on policy stances was absolute. Valence considerations also came into play. The scandals around Najib Razak clearly hurt UMNO’s credibility and pushed many former Barisan Nasional voters away.

But unlike in Singapore, Malaysia’s former opposition also had sufficient credibility to pull voters towards it on valence considerations. This results in part from their considerable governing experience at the state level, as well as the history of significant opposition presence in parliament. The central position of Bersatu — essentially an UMNO-splinter party — in the Pakatan Harapan opposition coalition also ensured that a post-transition government would be led by a figure that many Malay voters viewed as trustworthy and competent, as well as likely to maintain some degree of policy continuity.

Predicting elections is an inherently risky endeavour, as Trump, Brexit, and now Malaysia so clearly exemplify. But those political contestations involved relatively thin margins. That is not the case in Singapore, where the PAP maintains a substantial buffer that should remain robust for the foreseeable future. The timeframe for a transformation of political culture sufficient to open space for meaningful competition on positional issues is likely well more than the next election or two, as is the timeframe for building a credible opposition on a scale that could unseat the PAP on valence considerations.

The only clear danger to the PAP’s grasp on power is the erosion of its own credibility. With its fate in its own hands and only its own missteps to fear, it is perhaps not surprising that the PAP has been rather reticent in addressing a range of contentious issues from inequality to housing and social change, as well as in passing the baton to its fourth generation of leaders.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This article was first published on the East Asia Forum.

Kai Ostwald is an assistant professor in the School of Public Policy & Global Affairs and the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He is also the director of UBC’s Centre for Southeast Asia Research.

Steven Oliver is an assistant professor of political science at Yale-NUS College in Singapore.

This article was based on the authors’ journal article ‘Explaining Elections in Singapore: Dominant Party Resilience and Valence Politics’ published here.

Why HIP2 and VERS will not transform your depreciating HDB flat into an asset

In a report published by Swiss bank Credit Suisse on 20 September, analysts Louis Chua and Nicholas Teh noted that the much touted Voluntary En Bloc Redevelopment Scheme (VERS) is not a panacea to the real and pertinent issue of “lease decay”.

Noting that one of the stated aims of the scheme is to spread out redevelopment, the report pointed out that flats with 10 years of lease remaining would theoretically be worth only half of flats with 30 years left.

All HDB flats are owned by the HDB and comes with a 99 year lease. When a buyer buys a flat from HDB or another lessee, he/she signs on a lease agreement to lease the flat from HDB.

From a legal perspective, once the lease runs to zero, the flat automatically reverts back to HDB, the lessor with no compensation offered to the lessee as what happened to the 191 leasehold terrace houses in Geylang which were acquired by the government recently.

When Singaporeans buy a HDB flat, they expect three things:

1. The value of their flat will appreciate over time and never depreciate.
2. They are able to sell their flats for a profit years later and use the money either to upgrade or to retire.
3. They are able to pass their flats as a bequest to their children after they pass on.

This means that if I buy a four room BTO flat in Punggol for $400,000 now, I will expect to sell it for $500,000 or $600,000 in 10 to 20 years time. If I buy a resale five room HDB flat in Toa Payoh for $500,000 now, I must be able to sell it at $700,000 to $1 million many years later. If I do not sell the flat and pass it on to my children after I pass on, they are able to inherit something of substantial value.

Such a future scenario is neither realistic or feasible because by nature of the fact of the limited tenure of HDB flats, their value will start to depreciate from 40 or even 30 years onward.

Read rest of article here.