Government must focus more on cost of living issues: Pritam Singh

Cost of living issues deserve “closer scrutiny” by the government given public anxiety over price increases, said Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh on Monday (14 May).

In his maiden Parliamentary speech as de-facto leader of the opposition, Singh focused his speech on the cost of living, touching on “existential issue(s)” such as raising the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) as well as transport, the planned Goods and Service Tax (GST) hike, the aging population and the budget surplus.

Alluding to a recent government survey of married Singaporean couples, the 41-year-old noted that many of the respondents expressed a desire to have three or more children. “But…61 per cent of respondents raised financial costs as their first of three reasons for not having more children,” said Singh.

He added, “If indeed the cost of living is a major impediment to having more children, what can we do to address this issue? How will we create a strong sense of nationhood when our Singapore core and the values internalised over 50 years of nation-building are progressively hollowing themselves out, with the population not replacing itself?”

Among the cost pressures faced by Singaporeans, Singh pointed out that water tariffs went up by a third in 2017 and a GST hike is on the horizon while transport prices are expected to go up soon.

Greater transparency needed

However, Singh pointed out that the fourth-generation leadership is blessed with “more money and by extension more political capital in the hands of the current government and 4G leaders than any generation of PAP leaders.”

For example, the overall budget surplus for this term of government for the current financial year 2016/17 is currently at $15.7 billion. This could potentially support two more Pioneer Generation packages of $8 billion each, covering 1 million more elderly people, said Singh.

He added, “The picture for the immediate future does not appear to be one of a government needing money to stay afloat or needing to tax the population, as a result of raising the cost of living.”

But while the government has said that greater expenditures will be required in years to come, particularly in healthcare, details are scarce. “For example, on the 30 per cent water hike, how do future capital investments in water supply and transmission cohere with the large reserves of the national water agency, which have increased consistently from around $3 billion in 2007 to more than $5 billion in 2016?” asked Singh.

If the government were to disclose more details of the rationale for such policies, “price hikes are likely to be better understood and contextualised to the benefit of the policy discourse in Singapore,” said Singh.

“This information needs to be shared so that the public are clear-eyed about the sufficiency of the Budget at the government’s disposal.”

Alluding to President Halimah Yacob’s speech in Parliament last week, the WP chief also stressed the importance of “the ability and willingness to listen to the people”.

“If the approach of the 4G leaders is to ignore, silence or ridicule alternative ideas…they may even engender a divided society, rendering the message of inclusivity hollow and without substance.”

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