PAP should not view Opposition as ‘enemy’: SPP’s Pwee
Singapore People's Party assistant secretary-general Benjamin Pwee has called on the younger generation of PAP leaders to stop viewing the opposition as "the enemy".
Speaking to Yahoo! Singapore in a one-on-one interview before the new Cabinet was announced, Pwee said he hoped the ruling People's Action Party would be more willing to work hand-in-hand with Singapore's opposition parties to move the country forward.
He said this will help to create better representation and better quality decision-making in parliament.
"They need to be willing to strategically partner with alternative parties like us, and not see us as the enemies, the opponents to fight against," he said.
Pwee, 43, a former Cambridge University government scholar and senior civil servant with the Ministries of Home and Foreign Affairs, also called for a relook at Singapore's wealth distribution model, saying the government needs to move away from running the country like a corporate organisation and more toward a cooperative.
Instead of taking what he calls the existing "Singapore Inc." model, where financial gains are driven upwards to its shareholders' pockets, Pwee calls for a more collaborative "Singapore Cooperative" model, much like fair trade agreements that certain multinational companies have with developing countries.
"You are then looking at wealth distribution downwards to all stakeholders of society, where everyone benefits from the wealth that is created," he said.
He also added that this model would solve the issue of ministerial salaries more quickly. While stopping short of suggesting exactly how they should be calculated, Pwee said that the SPP's policy working group, which he heads, is coming up with ideas for a better formula.
"It would be worthwhile to see if (ministerial salaries) can be pegged to another benchmark that is closer to the ground of the common Singaporean and what they struggle with," he said.
Pwee also said that his policy working group is looking into obtaining references from other countries with sound political leadership such as Japan, the UK, Germany and France, whose ministers he says earn about one-fifth of Singapore's cabinet.
At the same time, he hit out at the PAP's current "handout" method of wealth distribution to Singaporeans-- for instance, through the Grow and Share scheme-- saying that this should instead be done in a more systematic manner.
"There should be alternative ways of organising (wealth distribution) so that wealth created in the country goes into the pockets of citizens in a systematic way and not in a handout, or assistance 'gift' kind of way," he said.
In his time at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pwee was the First Secretary in charge of political and economic affairs at the Singapore embassy in Beijing. He was also involved in key development projects between Singapore and China, and the former PAP Youth Wing (Thomson Branch) chairman.