Going beyond GST vouchers
There is nothing new with the GST vouchers – we have them almost every year. While this is a good initiative, the SPP feels that at this point in the evolution of the socio-economic needs of Singaporeans, the government must take a step to go beyond subsidies and small-scale redistribution of money.
Instead the SPP feels that it is the government’s accountability to its people must be based on the following indicators:
- the percentage of Singaporeans employed in newly created jobs;
- the median pay of Singaporeans versus our foreign counterparts;
- what incentives are in place to motivate companies to help meet the indicators above.
Every year, the government introduces many new initiatives that are accompanied by a slew of acronyms. This year, there is “iSPRINT”, “IPG” and many more interesting names. Besides them being easy to remember, these names need to go beyond that. We need to look closely and examine the follow-through of these initiatives. We need to know if they have been successful or not in terms of what they set our to achieve. We cannot coin new acronyms annually on to be forgotten in the end.
For example, a few months ago, it was announced that more than $400 million was to be set aside for the Future of Manufacturing initiative. The SPP would like to know what is the outcome of such exciting initiatives rather than to see new initiatives being introduced. Full story
