Budget speech puts possible future PM under spotlight
Heng’s maiden Budget speech provided a glimpse into what his leadership style might look like if he assumes the premiership.
By Bhavan Jaipragas
Steady as she goes: That’s what came to mind about Singapore’s near-term economic prospects as Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat stepped away from the despatch box in Parliament after delivering his maiden budget speech on Thursday (24 March).
The odd investor worried that the city-state’s new finance czar could inadvertently introduce unpredictability into the economy would have been put at ease, with few curve balls coming out of the two-hour speech.
Under the watchful eyes of his two juggernaut predecessors – Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Heng delivered a “no drama”, fiscally expansionary Budget that largely kept to the prudence and long-term growth focus institutionalised by them and perennially anticipated by analysts over the last few years.
Heng also sought to allay pessimism over the scale of impact from global headwinds, pointing to economic opportunities rich for the picking from the “Asian growth story”, multilateral trade agreements and Singapore’s technological edge over its competitors.
His assurances came as the city-state’s economy faces languid growth. Heng said the government expects 1 to 3 per cent growth this year, after 2015’s rate of 2 per cent, the slowest in six years.
The real estate industry, which has been lobbying hard for the gradual scaling down of property cooling measures implemented in 2009 were, quite predictably, left disappointed as Heng said it was “premature” to do so.
The key thrusts of Heng’s $73.4 billion Budget – transforming local enterprises through programmes to boost automation and productivity, as well as a continued focus on assistance for less-privileged families – are themes that were mainstays in the Tharman years at the Ministry of Finance.
Even his speech structure – opening and closing with wider sociopolitical points – seemed similar to that favoured by Tharman, currently the Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies, during his eight years as Finance Minister.
Long-time Budget speech watchers would have missed Tharman’s professorial cadence, but Heng’s delivery was clinical and set in his own earnest speaking style.
Heng, an MP for Tampines GRC, is the highest-ranking and most experienced among the Cabinet ministers who entered politics in the 2011 General Election. Photo: Yahoo Singapore/Alvin Ho
Prime Minister in waiting?
For political soothsayers, Heng’s maiden Budget speech provides a glimpse into what his leadership style might look like if he assumes the premiership after Lee steps down, as some have predicted.
The current Prime Minister has given few clues as to who might succeed him, but Heng is the highest-ranking and most experienced among the Cabinet ministers who entered politics in the 2011 General Election.
Lee made him Education Minister immediately after the polls – and subsequently appointed him the head of committees spearheading the Our Singapore Conversation as well as the SG50 golden jubilee celebrations. Heng currently leads the Committee on the Future Economy.
The 55-year-old former central bank chief once described by the late founding premier Lee Kuan Yew as the best principal private secretary he ever had, showed in his speech on Thursday that he has little care for political grandstanding when the spotlight is cast on him.
There was none of the gratuitous personal anecdotes or petty barbs at the opposition as some of his frontbench peers have been wont to do in recent years when delivering major parliamentary speeches.
Instead, Heng made little effort to mask the fact that in his new role, he draws inspiration from the rugged, “roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-to-work” rhetoric of his old boss, the country’s late political patriarch.
He wrapped his speech up quoting the elder Lee’s now famous clarion call in 1965 for Singaporeans to make the then-nascent city-state last “a thousand years”.
Hopefully, there will be plenty more grist for us armchair politicos to speculate on Heng’s leadership mettle after his Budget round-up speech next month, as well as future Budget speeches in this electoral cycle.
Bhavan Jaipragas is a Singaporean journalist currently pursuing a postgraduate degree in politics and communication at the London School of Economics. He was previously a Singapore-based correspondent with a leading global newswire agency. He tweets at @jbhavan. The views expressed are his own.
