A distant Post (a year ago) ..&… nothing has changed….

Auditor General’s Report – Millions Missing

Friday, 1 June 2007, 8:47 pm

TOC Exclusive

The original Auditor General Office’s (AGO) audit of 12 Ministries and associated statutory boards has revealed irregularities to an extent not fully revealed by the recent Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

According to the AGO, losses of public monies added up to $6.2 million, a substantial amount of which is still unaccounted for.

The Auditor General’s preface to the report states that ‘This audit approach is not intended to reveal all errors and irregularities.’

In the report, the Ministry of Law lost a potential $77,666.64 safety deposit because its computer system could only register sums to the nearest dollar. It appears under the header ‘No $77,666.64 security deposit because of 36 cents’.

The report details how these millions were lost in a detailed account of mistakes and dubious practices.

The Ministry of Home Affairs, for example, charged rental far below the market rate, forgoing $2.38 million that should have gone into state coffers. The Ministry of Law, in addition to the 36 cent mistake, left our public funds $386,829 poorer by failing to implement rental increase. This was described as an ‘oversight’.

The list goes on.

The Ministry of Manpower delayed collecting a $501,998 debt for a grand total of 15 years. When it decided to finally recover the sum of money, the company disputed the debt owed but the Ministry did not have the necessary paperwork to ‘substantiate the debt’. National Development lost us $228,000 in foregone rental, and Trade and Industry overpaid $1.87m in grants to a statutory board (since recovered).

The largest outstanding sum identified was the Ministry of Health: $136.2 million for Phase III of the National University Hospital development project has still not been recovered despite having been completed in 1996.

More questions than answers

The report raises more questions than it answers. Procurement irregularities are unexplained: a National Development contract was awarded for an eighth ranking bid (in terms of price) out of 11 without any justification. Further, the officers signing the contracts were not authorized to do so. Under the column ‘subsequent action’, all that is said is that the Ministry ‘streamlined procurement procedures…which would prevent such lapses from recurring’. Not even an ex post facto explanation about the dubious procurement.

The ‘subsequent action’ detailed for other irregularities and mistakes do not offer much elaboration. In the case of the Ministry of Manpower’s half a million dollar mistake that spanned 15 years, it gave assurances that ‘levy debts will be resolved within a much shorter time frame in future’ and that ‘future relevant documents’ would be retained.

TOC Opinion

Theonlinecitizen (TOC) recently reproduced in full the report by the Public Accounts Committee (here), convened by Parliament to scrutinize irregularities highlighted by the Auditor General’s report for financial year 05-06. It gave few concrete figures to highlight the irregularities it was pointing out.

TOC has obtained a copy of the original AGO report, which gives a far more comprehensive overview of the scope of the irregularities. This is reproduced in full (see below). We hope that members of the public will step forward to scrutinize the report and ask the necessary questions of our public servants.

In light of the limited scope of the Auditor-General’s report, we believe that the public deserves a more thorough audit of its public offices. Further, action needs to be taken to examine why these mistakes occurred in the first place: What are the fundamental causes of these lapses? Is it systemic or is it just incompetence on the part of the departments involved?

What were the consequences of these multi-million dollar mistakes?

This report can either be swept under the carpet to the further detriment of the credibility of the media and our government, or it can serve as a reference point for a new era in government transparency and accountability.

We hope the latter will prevail.

From the Auditor General Office’s website:

“Non-compliances with procedures in the use of public funds are signs of weak internal controls. As audits are done on a test check basis, the weaknesses found could be an indication of more widespread problems. Many frauds, big or small, occurred because the weak controls were exploited. Weak controls involving small amounts could also be exploited resulting in larger losses. In the Report of the Auditor-General for the Financial Year 2005/06, individual cases of loss of public moneys were mostly small but these collectively amounted to $6.2 million.” (Link)

You can view a copy of the Auditor General’s report as follows (pdf file):
Part 1 – The cover and content list
Part 2 – Introduction
Part 3 – Main report
Part 4 – Main report (cont’d)

Please visit also the Auditor General’s Office website for some FAQs.
Please do send us your views/articles on this issue. Our email address is theonlinecitizen@gmail.com

Choo Zheng Xi
Co-editor, theonlinecitizen

*Check out Mr Wang’s entry on the EDB : EDB Under Scrutiny

State of Governance….

recent meetup with some old friends from garmen and statboard reveals general lack of ideas or motivation to generate $$ from vacant properties and unused equipment in agencies. A friend of mine have to justify dismantling this old equipment bought in the 90s but currently not being used. The bosses asked for justification why the need to dismantle. But when he (my friend) tried to revive the project using the legacy device, he was called into office and being told he is not ‘in-line’ with organisational direction and that whatever he trying to revive is ‘old baggage’.  “i am stuck man!! i know i can do some good things with it (that legacy equipment) but i am told whatever i do is not appraisable as work performance and that i am not inline……so what can i do? i just let it be lor….” exclaimed my pal.

really really cheesebunssssssss!

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AUDITOR-GENERAL’S REPORT
Rental revenue lost: Nearly $3 million
Old Catholic High School building left vacant by Ministry of Information, Communication and the Arts for 7 years
July 23, 2008

A NUMBER of ministries are leaving their land and buildings vacant for too long and missing out on rental money, the Auditor-General’s Office (AGO) said in its latest report.

ST File Picture

The report added that there is ‘a need for ministries and statutory boards to effectively manage their properties so as to maximise their usage for the public good’.

Auditor-General Lim Soo Ping, in his overview of its latest report for 2007/2008 submitted on 1 Jul, cited four examples where land and buildings were not used enough.

One was the former Catholic High building, at 222 Queen Street, which was left vacant for more than seven years after it was allocated to the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (Mica) in September 2000.

The National Heritage Board (NHB) was supposed to develop the building as an art gallery for local artists.

However, for four years till 2004, NHB’s development plans did not meet with Mica’s approval..

In 2004, NHB decided to consider another building in the area.

For the next three years, Mica explored possible uses of the building with interested parties but none of the proposals materialised.

The building was returned to the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) in March 2008.

OPPORTUNITY COST

The opportunity cost forgone in rental revenue for the building was estimated by the report to be $420,000 a year, based on rental rates for institutional use.

Over seven years, the rental revenue forgone amounted to nearly $3 million.

Mr K H Choy, who runs RichPlan Property Services, said: ‘It’s never a good thing to leave a building empty as income is being lost.

‘However, there are also considerations that the space has to be rented out to the right people.’

Responding to the report, a Mica spokesman said that it was aware of the opportunity costs of vacant properties, which was why the building was returned to SLA this year.

As the former Catholic High is in the Arts and Civic District earmarked for arts, heritage and civic activities, Mica’s plan was to ‘provide housing for compatible arts groups under one roof’ to add to the buzz of the area.

The ministry worked with several agencies to pursue different proposals for the site. But the various options were considered ‘not feasible’.

Several other ministries and statutory boards also came under fire for poor building management.

The Public Service Division (PSD) did not let out six of its 45 holiday chalets for 14 years since 1993.

The chalets are now in a dilapidated and uninhabitable state with broken doors, broken sinks and leaking roofs, the report said.

When contacted, PSD’s director of personnel policy, Ms Bernadette Sim, said that demand for the six chalets had been very low because of their location.

There was no commercial viability in PSD operating the chalets for civil servants, hence they were left vacant pending redevelopment plans for the area.

She agreed that there could have been better management of those six chalets and steps are being taken to return the land and buildings to SLA.

The report also said Temasek Polytechnic needs to be more proactive in renting out its three apartment blocks.

The average vacancy rate for the apartments in the last three years was 65.2 per cent. If the vacancy rate was 25 per cent for 2007, an additional $342,000 in rental could have been collected.

The polytechnic has since informed AGO that it is exploring opening the apartments up to other categories of users.

SLA was cited for not having tight enough controls on the reservation of state properties.

There was no cap on the reservation period or a cost or penalty to the agency making the reservation.

NO INCENTIVE

The report said: ‘Agencies have no incentive to exercise care in making reservations with due regard to opportunity cost to the Government.’

In a test check of 10 reserved properties, five were left vacant for three to six years.

The Ministry of Law and SLA informed AGO that they had been working with the Ministry of Finance to introduce a reservation framework for state properties.

Auditor-General Lim said that lapses reported should not be seen as a reflection of the state of the governance of the organisation as a whole.

‘Even in an organisation with good governance and management practice, lapses do occur occasionally,’ he said.

Cai Haoxiang, newsroom intern

A case of ‘Ah Kong’s $$$$$….wastages, mismanagement or plain neglect ?

while we are being taxed heavily, elsewhere goverment $$$ and property not being maximised. its sad. They setup barriers to carpark and don’t charge. They have apartments vacant but don;t rent. They have chalets but nobody use. but when people tries to book, they were told the slots they wanted not available.

sad sad sad.

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July 22, 2008

Govt property vacant for years

Auditor-General’s annual report raps agencies for not ‘maximising usage’ of state-owned buildings

By Liaw Wy-Cin

GOVERNMENT chalets left to go to seed and unleased for over 14 years and other buildings and tracts of land left empty for years on end – these have come to light in the Auditor-General’s annual report.

Mr Lim Soo Ping has taken to task some ministries and statutory boards for letting this happen to properties under their charge.

In his latest report released yesterday, he urged these agencies to manage their properties better ‘to maximise their usage for the public good’.

He also recommended a review of how government properties pending development are allocated and reserved.

‘This is to minimise the opportunity cost arising from unnecessarily long holding and reservation,’ he said.

Among the buildings his office found under-utilised were staff apartments belonging to statutory boards, left vacant for four to 10 years. Some had vacancy rates as high as 80 per cent.

In his report, Mr Lim also took the Singapore Tourism Board to task for spending $1.51 million over seven years on feasibility studies, maintenance and reinstatement works to turn Capitol Theatre into a performing arts venue, only to find that it was not a viable project.

The building stood vacant until it was returned to the Singapore Land Authority last year. Mr Lim reckoned the rental revenue foregone to exceed $280,000 a year.

The report also highlighted the lack of transparency in the calls for tender bids and irregularities in payment.

One such irregularity was serious enough to have been referred to the police for investigation.

Acting on an anonymous tip-off alleging favouritism in the awarding of contracts to redevelop the Singapore Discovery Centre (SDC), the Auditor-General’s Office found irregularities in 92 per cent of the contracts awarded to one contractor and another company with links to the contractor.

As the SDC – which promotes national education here – is related to the Ministry of Defence, Mindef referred the matter to the police in April.

Contacted last night, Mindef said investigations were still underway.

Asked to comment on the loss of rental revenue from buildings left standing empty, director of research and consultancy at real estate company Knight Frank, Mr Nicholas Mak, said that if the vacancy rate is high, the agency overseeing the building should consider marketing it better ‘or maybe it should relook at whether it really still needs the apartments’.

But Mr Mak said the solution was less clear-cut in the case of redeveloping a building for commercial use, such as the Capitol Theatre.

‘If you are talking about renting it out, sometimes, you have to wait for the right time to enter the market. Or you have to do a lot of upgrading first to redevelop it,’ he added.

wycin@sph.com.sg

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Lapses found elsewhere

THE annual report by the Auditor-General’s Office (AGO) also noted other lapses in ministries and statutory boards:

· Costs incurred in a bad purchase:

The next time the Ministry of Foreign Affairs searches for a property meant for use as an overseas mission, it will not just consider the location, but it will also consult security experts first.

A property which the ministry bought in 2005 was found to be unsuitable due to security concerns in the neighbourhood.

The property was left unoccupied for 21/2 years before it was sold this year – and this was after $406,000 was spent on renovation, commissions and other fees.

· In-vehicle units too ugly:

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) found itself saddled with 66,520 F-brackets – devices designed to hold the in-vehicle units for motorcycles and scooters – which had been deemed too ugly by motorcyclists.

They cost $1.77 million.

LTA told the AGO that motorcyclists preferred to install their own brackets ‘for aesthetic reasons’.

· Unused carpark barriers:

Barriers were installed to restrict illegal entry and parking in the carparks on the Temasek Polytechnic campus, but the barriers were kept up through the day.

The unused barriers cost $30,000 a year to maintain, in addition to the installation cost of $435,000.

The school told the AGO that the system could still capture information about vehicles entering and leaving the premises in emergencies and in the event of a terrorist threat.

But the AGO was not convinced that the cost served the objective that the funds were approved for.

LIAW WY-CIN

Copyright © 2007 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved. Privacy Statement & Condition of Access

Pleasure Factory on the DVD assembly line

Pleasure Factory, Ekachai Uekrongtham’s docudrama look at Singapore’s Geylang red-light district, has been picked up by Strand Releasing. It’s coming out on Region 1 DVD on July 8, and is available for pre-order from Amazon.com.

The sophomore feature film from the Beautiful Boxer director, Pleasure Factory has an ensemble cast that includes Ananda Everingham and Taiwanese actress Yang Kuei-mei and a bunch of newcomers, many whom were recruited off the street. Sometimes mysterious, sometimes heartbreaking, the film follows three loosely intertwining storylines: A girl going to meet an older prostitute (Yang), and being followed by a mysterious young man (Ananda); a guy taking his virgin army buddy around to the brothels; and a woman in a red dress buying a song from a busker. Lit by Brian Gothon Tan, Geylang never looked so good.

Pleasure Factory premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival last year, and had a limited release in Thailand and in Singapore.

Ekachai, meanwhile, is at work on a thriller, The Coffin, a Hong Kong-Thai co-production that will star Ananda, Karen Mok, Andrew Lin and Napakapa “Mamee” Nakprasit.

See also:

• Official site
• Pleasure Factory at Wikipedia

http://thaifilmjournal.blogspot.com/2008/04/pleasure-factory-on-dvd-assembly-line.html

Have ‘License’ will ‘Lipo’

Hi, cheesebun is back after a long absense.

More accreditation, more licensing, more controls, more hoops to jump through……would this ever end? like my friend said to me once….mayb in the near future, we would need permission from the garmen to even take a pee or have a ‘poo poo’. Maybe our poo poo habits are not even international standards, or even better we need to understudy the swiss to learn how they can ‘poo poo’ the 1st world way….haha

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Private doctors must seek accreditation before performing liposuction
By Valarie Tan, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 20 July 2008 1850 hrs

SINGAPORE: From November, private doctors performing liposuction – the surgical removal of fat deposits from the body – will have to be assessed by a new five-member accreditation committee before getting the go-ahead to perform the procedure.

Liposuction was previously unregulated, leading to calls by plastic surgeons on the Health Ministry to tighten rules on the procedure. Liposuction is believed to be the second most popular cosmetic procedure in Singapore, after double-eyelid surgery.

The accreditation committee comprises three plastic surgeons, a dermatologist and a general practitioner.

The committee will accredit doctors based on a set of criteria. These include one year of surgical training in a hospital on procedures.

Doctors must also have observed at least 10 liposuction surgeries under a qualified medical practitioner and performed at least five such procedures under close supervision.

Liposuction clinics must also keep mandatory patient medical records, including reports of adverse outcomes which are required to be submitted to the accreditation committee.

Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said: “What is more important is, I think, along the way we are creating quality control system so that every surgery result is documented, so that it can be audited.”

Patients must be given at least seven days to consider before any payments or contracts are made. Mr Khaw said the rule was revised to seven days from the proposed 15 days because doctors feel that Singapore has a small market.

Clinics are exempted from imposing this rule on foreigners who come to Singapore specifically for liposuction.

Clinics can only offer the procedure to patients with Body Mass Index of 28 or less and only less than one litre of fat can be removed. Anything bigger than those numbers, the procedure must be done at a hospital with anaesthesia. The same rule applies for lipolysis.

It is also necessary for doctors who perform liposuction to meet among themselves at least quarterly to review and discuss their cases. Such meetings will be chaired by a surgeon or a member of the accreditation committee.

The five-member accreditation committee is chaired by Professor Foo Chee Liam, Singapore General Hospital’s (SGH) Senior Consultant at the Department of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery.

The members are Professor Colin Song, head of SGH’s Department of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery; Professor Lim Thiam Chye, head of National University Hospital’s Division of Plastic, Reconstructive & Aesthetic Surgery; Dr T Thirumoorthy, a dermatologist; and Dr Tan Kok Leong, a general practitioner.

In an email response on the new regulation, Madam Halimah Yacob, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for Health, said: “Now that we have such a regulatory framework, and while we expect better compliance through the peer review process that has been suggested, we also need to ensure compliance through an effective auditing process.”

J J Chua, a plastic surgeon, said: “Currently, there’s no accreditation. So for anyone, it’s a cowboy city. Anyone can do liposuction – you just have to buy the equipment, you just have supposedly attended the seminar, either overseas, local or watch a DVD, and you can do it. So I think having criteria like these will ensure patient safety and proper training as well as practice.”

CASE executive director, Seah Seng Choon, said: “I would like to see that the doctors involved in such operations have in place all the rules for patients and brief the patients on all the rules, for example, the cooling period, and tell them about the risks involved. And, perhaps, disclose where they can seek redress if they’re not happy with the work done by the doctors themselves.”

According to the Health Ministry, over 70 doctors in the private sector have said they are interested to perform liposuction. Only 40 per cent of those are specialists, the rest are general practitioners.

- CNA/ir

Guessing Game: WHO IS GONNA CLOSE DOWN NEXT ?

The game is now on everyone. comment who will close down next ……

DIGIPEN
DUKE NUS
Cornell-NTU Graduate Hotel School

and the list goes on and one…..one by one they came tumbling down like a set of dominos.

UNSW Asia No More……….

Long as i can remember, Malaysia already had twinning university programmes as far bask as in the 70s. I remember while studying in Australia in the 90s, every other malaysian classmate was from Taylors College, who offers Canadian, UK, USA & Australian matriculation  studies for those preparing to enter university. As far as i can trace Taylors College’s origin, i found that it started as early as in the 70s! Malaysia has a budding industry of a global school house 20-30 years before some dumb ass sg’s EDB/Minister came up with the ‘SG Global School house initiative’. We have lost out so much to Malaysia thanks to tight SG goverment ’scontrols the education since nation founding. Its a matter of bitting a pie that has only that ‘little space’ to bite. Its too little too late! With the closure of UNSW Asia Campus, it shows the lack of foresight of our EDB planners, worse! the losses in  taxpayers $$$$. Another lousy failed initiative to lure reputable universities to Singapore to setup shop. My friend who has a son who is studying in the Foundation Year program offered at Temasek Polytechnic, is at a lost, ” I don’t think i have the $$ to send him to Sydney for 2-3 years of studies, and i don’t think my son is good enough to apply for scholarship…..” Cheesebuns!!!!!!!

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University of New South Wales Singapore campus to shut in June

By Pearl Forss, Channel NewsAsia

Posted: 23 May 2007 1715 hrs

SINGAPORE: The University of New South Wales will close its campus in Singapore next month.

The announcement came less than two months after its grand opening.  The school says it is running into financial problems because enrolment was lower than expected.

Its target was 300 students in its first semester. But it only got 148 students, 100 of whom are Singaporeans.

Students have already paid their fees, which range between S$26,000 and S$29,000 a year. UNSW says these students will be offered a place at its home campus in Sydney. There will also be scholarships to help with the cost of travel and accommodation. The decision to shut the campus comes as a shock to many students. The scholarships offered are supposed to be based on needs and not on academic achievements. But most students Channel NewsAsia spoke to were not quite convinced. Many had chosen the Singapore campus because they could not afford to go to Australia.

And though the school is helping out financially with the scholarships, it is not clear at this point in time how much exactly the school is willing to fork out. Still, the university claims that about half its students have indicated that they would like to go to Australia to continue their studies.  Most of the local students who enrolled in the university come from the polytechnics. “It’s quite an inappropriate time, with our exams coming as well. If they decide to close down after one semester, they should have done adequate research to see if this whole university was even feasible in the first place,” said a student. “Knowing that the school is a creditable one, it is unbelievable that this thing can happen,” said another.

“I do not know what is the next step I need to do. To transfer to another school or go to Sydney? What is the option for us? Now, they have not known what are the private institutes we can go to to transfer in Singapore,” said a third student.

The school says that it is also in talks with local institutions and other universities in the region to offer these students a place to continue their education. But this is little consolation for the 48 foreign students who wanted an Australian degree and Singapore cost of living. “The school is offering us to go back to Australia to study, but I cannot go back. I end up paying something like $30,000 and I can do nothing. I’ve spent the money and yah, it’s pretty hard for me now,” said a student from Hong Kong. ”I hope not to go back to Indonesia. I’m seeking to go overseas because it’s a better education but now this happens, it’s a bit confusing for me,” said a student from Indonesia. “Before this, I was in Los Angeles. I was going to go to UNSW in Sydney but I ended up coming here because Singapore is also a good place. It’s a good name, it’s a good school, so I thought I’ll give this a try, moved everything from LA, came here….I don’t know what I’m going to do right now,” said a student from the US. UNSW has already invested over S$22 million (AUD$17.5 million) in its Singapore campus. It was invited by Singapore’s Economic Development Board in 2004 to establish what would have been the first private comprehensive university in Singapore.

The EDB refuses to reveal how much it invested in the school. The episode is clearly damaging to Singapore’s aim to be a global schoolhouse. But the EDB, which drives the global schoolhouse initiatives, believes it will still reach its target of attracting 150,000 international students by 2015. There are currently 80,000 foreign students in Singapore.

Aw Kah Peng, EDB’s Assistant Managing Director, said: “The learning point is that we have to continue working very hard. Truly, with every institution, it will be different. With each one, we have to put everything we can to think about all these issues of whether we can make it work, how long it will take for us to make it work, what will it take for us to make it work. We will then have to step forward on that basis.”

UNSW says it would have stayed on in Singapore if it has been allowed to scale down its student enrolment numbers to 2,000 students by 2012. But this would be quite far from the original bargain with the EDB which had set a target of 15,000 UNSW students by 2020.

The UNSW closure does not mean that the EDB will no longer work with the school.

The EDB says there are many areas of cooperation between UNSW and Singapore which are mutually beneficial.

These include foundation schooling for university entry, research collaborations, University of New South Wales school competitions and joint programmes with Singapore institutions.

EDB says it will continue to pursue these areas and strengthen its relationship with UNSW.

Rise of a Police State ? Cheesebuns…..

Hmmmm history reminds us that the rise of police states are usually through subtle…… With this new bill, will the army gets special executive rights to run civilian lives. very suspicious leh……Cheesebuns.

“So this is how liberty dies — with thunderous applause.” – senator Padme Amidala , Star Wars Episode III : The Revenge of the Sith.

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SAF troops get legal powers to conduct security operations
Amendments to the SAF Act will provide a clear legal basis for them to carry out operations in support of civilian authorities.

May 22, 2007  AsiaOne

Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) personnel will get the legal power “to intercept, stop, search and detain, seize and apply force against hostile aircraft, vessels and persons”, in support of civil authorities, said Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean.

Speaking in Parliament before the SAF (Amendment) Bill was passed, he said the enhanced power could only be used “for limited security operations duty in a defined area and allocated period of time as authorised by the Minister of Defence.”

About 2,000 personnel will be trained by the Military Police Command to use this power appropriately. They will be equipped with skills like general legal knowledge, search techniques, incident site management and effecting arrest.

 These personnel will be identifiable by their “Military Security” armbands and carry identification that bears their photographs and NRIC number.

Mr Teo said this enhanced power is necessary to address new security threats posed by terrorists and international criminals. The new foe, he said, is elusive, wears no uniform and hides among innocents.

The new power is meant for specified threats in situations like a World Bank conference or an Asean Summit, which may not warrant a declaration of emergency by the President, explained Mr Teo.

“When you have a declaration of emergency by the President, it really is an extreme circumstance,” he added.

Mr Teo said that although SAF personnel are already undertaking homeland, air and maritime security operations, their legal powers and protection under domestic law when they are deployed are not sufficiently well-defined.

“These security operations often require the SAF to exercise selected and specific legal powers in Singapore territory and international waters and airspace that were not previously envisioned,” he told the House.

“Such powers include the right to intercept, stop, search and detain, seize and apply force against hostile aircraft, vessels and persons. Existing legislation that SAF personnel operate under does not define these powers adequately.”

Under the SAF Act, only military policemen have powers of search and arrest and these are limited to places under possession, control or occupancy of the SAF or situation where SAF operations are obstructed.

“There is therefore a need for a proper legal framework to ensure everything in the conduct of security operations is properly specified, and to lay out clearly what servicemen can and cannot do,” said Mr Teo.

Click here for the Minister’s speech in Parliament.

Civil Service to get higher pay now??? Cheesebuns!

First it was the announcement that the ministers and top civil servants pay will be increased. As damage control gesture (who knows???) PM Lee announced that he will donate his next 5 years pay increment to charity. But many of my peers know that by donating he gets tax exemption and he wins also….haha…smart move sir! Anyway, the latest news on civil service’s fresh grads pay will be increased also seems to be another damage control act (who knows????). Lets see if ‘young talents’ will weigh their choices and consider ’sacrifice’ to join the civil service.

Another sad Cheesebun……

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Fresh grads in Civil Service to get higher pay

Starting pay for fresh graduates joining the Civil Service from June 1 will go up by between 7 per cent and 24 per cent .

Those with good honours who join the Management Executive Scheme, a scheme for graduates employed across many ministries, can start at $2,800, up from the current $2,410. Other graduate schemes will see increases between $230 and $620, said a statement from the Public Service Division today.

New hires in the engineering profession scheme will be paid 24 per cent more – from the current $2,570 to $3,190, while a good honours degree holder in the Foreign Service will start with $3,320 – up 20 per cent from the current $2,760. (see chart below).

The starting salary of accountants in the Civil Service has already been raised on May 1, from $2,640 for a good honours degree to $2,910.

Starting salaries were last adjusted in June 2006.

The actual salary offered to recruits will take into consideration their work experience, educational qualifications, National Service and relevant skills, said the PSD.

Appropriate adjustments will also be made to the salaries of officers recruited in recent years before June 1.

“These adjustments are part of the annual salary review to make sure that salaries keep pace with the market. The Singapore economy has performed well over the past year, with increased hiring and salaries in many sectors,” said the PSD statement.

Mr Teo Chee Hean, Minister-in-charge of the Civil Service, when announcing the pay hike for ministers and civil serants in April, said competition for fresh university graduates was getting more intense.

He said that the civil service’s overall resignation rate had gone up from 4.8 per cent in 2005 to 5.7 per cent last year. At some of the entry grades, Mr Teo said the situation was quite serious, with resignation as high as 25 per cent.

“We need to act before the situation becomes more serious. The Government, as an employer, has to respond quickly and decisively to stay competitive and close the wage gaps. Otherwise, we will deplete the service of the able people we need, and the service level to the public will be affected,” said the Minister in Parliament.

The more attractive pay seems to be paying off. From March to April 2007, the Civil Service recieved a 7 per cent increase in applications via its job portal, from 1,440 applicants to 1,540.

» Chart: Monthly Starting Salaries by Schemes of Service (With effect from Jun 1, 2007)

- May 21, 2007 AsiaOne

What if you are not a ‘F.T.’ ?

My friend who holds a job as a carpenter, he was single at 40. Recently, He went to china to look for a wife. He found a 23 year old from a village through recommendation of relatives. He subsequently married her and brought her over here. However, due to her lowly qualification (secondary school), she was not allowed to get PR in the meantime but instead she is currently on visitors’ visa renewable as case by case basis. Their a baby is coming in 3 months time too. So where does the policies leave her ? She is a ‘foreign’ but not a ‘foreign talent’…..

Sad…..another cheesbun.

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Young minds on work holiday

Loh Chee Kong
 
Some of the best and brightest young minds in the world may be heading here for six-month working stints under a new scheme.  The Work Holiday Programme (WHP), which will kick in from December, is aimed at giving Singapore a head start in attracting foreign talent from as young as 17 years old, said Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen on Friday. “In the global race for talent, we need to positively shape international opinion of Singapore and raise our profile.
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“We need to recognise that others have upped the ante and we need to attract and secure a mindshare of Singapore,” said Dr Ng, who was speaking at the Singapore Medical Council physician’s pledge affirmation ceremony on Friday. And because of a “growing phenomenon of well-qualified young students and graduates who travel abroad to gain exposure”, Singapore has to put itself in the “mind map” of these talents early on, he added.
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Dr Ng said: “A positive experience of living and working in Singapore … will encourage some of them to work here when they graduate or at a later stage in their careers.” For a start, the WHP, which is common among developed countries, will be offered to 2,000 university students between the ages of 17 and 30 in Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The scheme will be reviewed periodically and more countries may be added to the list, said the Manpower Ministry (MOM). The applicants need only to supply basic information about the job they have here. On approval, the ministry will grant the students a six-month pass into Singapore. There will be no restrictions such as specific types of work or minimum salary requirement. However, participants must be able to support themselves during their stay here and show proof of exit after six months, the MOM said. And to attract global talent to Singapore’s medical industry, Dr Ng said that the MOM’s Contact Singapore, which promotes working and living in Singapore, and the Ministry of Health are working with hospitals to identify “key groups of overseas medical talent” that they would “systematically reach out and attract”. Dr Ng said: “We are also going beyond the traditional sources of talent, such as the UK and Australia, to identify new sources such as India, China and Hong Kong.”
 
Some of the best and brightest young minds in the world may be heading here for six-month working stints under a new scheme. The Work Holiday Programme (WHP), which will kick in from December, is aimed at giving Singapore a head start in attracting foreign talent from as young as 17 years old, said Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen on Friday. “In the global race for talent, we need to positively shape international opinion of Singapore and raise our profile. “We need to recognise that others have upped the ante and we need to attract and secure a mindshare of Singapore,” said Dr Ng, who was speaking at the Singapore Medical Council physician’s pledge affirmation ceremony on Friday. And because of a “growing phenomenon of well-qualified young students and graduates who travel abroad to gain exposure”, Singapore has to put itself in the “mind map” of these talents early on, he added.

Dr Ng said: “A positive experience of living and working in Singapore … will encourage some of them to work here when they graduate or at a later stage in their careers.”

For a start, the WHP, which is common among developed countries, will be offered to 2,000 university students between the ages of 17 and 30 in Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The scheme will be reviewed periodically and more countries may be added to the list, said the Manpower Ministry (MOM). The applicants need only to supply basic information about the job they have here.

On approval, the ministry will grant the students a six-month pass into Singapore. There will be no restrictions such as specific types of work or minimum salary requirement.

However, participants must be able to support themselves during their stay here and show proof of exit after six months, the MOM said.

And to attract global talent to Singapore’s medical industry, Dr Ng said that the MOM’s Contact Singapore, which promotes working and living in Singapore, and the Ministry of Health are working with hospitals to identify “key groups of overseas medical talent” that they would “systematically reach out and attract”.

Dr Ng said: “We are also going beyond the traditional sources of talent, such as the UK and Australia, to identify new sources such as India, China and Hong Kong.”
 
Some of the best and brightest young minds in the world may be heading here for six-month working stints under a new scheme. The Work Holiday Programme (WHP), which will kick in from December, is aimed at giving Singapore a head start in attracting foreign talent from as young as 17 years old, said Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen on Friday. “In the global race for talent, we need to positively shape international opinion of Singapore and raise our profile. “We need to recognise that others have upped the ante and we need to attract and secure a mindshare of Singapore,” said Dr Ng, who was speaking at the Singapore Medical Council physician’s pledge affirmation ceremony on Friday. And because of a “growing phenomenon of well-qualified young students and graduates who travel abroad to gain exposure”, Singapore has to put itself in the “mind map” of these talents early on, he added. Dr Ng said: “A positive experience of living and working in Singapore … will encourage some of them to work here when they graduate or at a later stage in their careers.”

For a start, the WHP, which is common among developed countries, will be offered to 2,000 university students between the ages of 17 and 30 in Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The scheme will be reviewed periodically and more countries may be added to the list, said the Manpower Ministry (MOM).
The applicants need only to supply basic information about the job they have here. On approval, the ministry will grant the students a six-month pass into Singapore. There will be no restrictions such as specific types of work or minimum salary requirement.

However, participants must be able to support themselves during their stay here and show proof of exit after six months, the MOM said.

And to attract global talent to Singapore’s medical industry, Dr Ng said that the MOM’s Contact Singapore, which promotes working and living in Singapore, and the Ministry of Health are working with hospitals to identify “key groups of overseas medical talent” that they would “systematically reach out and attract”.

Dr Ng said: “We are also going beyond the traditional sources of talent, such as the UK and Australia, to identify new sources such as India, China and Hong Kong.”

- extracted from TodayOnline