The following article was published in the Straits Times on 18 Dec 1999.
Journey of HOPE
By Sharon Vasoo
Straits Times, 18 December 1999
It is a hefty price not many are willing to pay. Every year, more than 30,000 Bangladeshi workers sell their land and cattle, and borrow money so they can land jobs here. From next April, they will also have to sit for a test in basic construction and language skills before they can be hired. The Straits Times traces the route some of them are already taking to find their pot of gold.
DAUL MIAH is a recent graduate of an overseas training centre in Bangladesh that, within a mere month, is supposed to make construction workers of farmers and cattle herders.
He passed tests in basic building skills and English - tests set and marked by Singapore's Building and Construction Authority (BCA) - and came here in June. Six months later, he is going home.
Through an interpreter, he said: "My boss fired me because I was making many mistakes at work. I didn't understand many things...my English is poor. After six months, the boss said I was no good, and told me to go."
Mr Miah, 30, owes more than $5,000 to moneylenders who funded his trip here, and fears what they will do to him when he gets home broke. But how did he pass the skills test that was imposed to solve some of the problems plaguing the construction industry.
Has this learning hurdle become a new avenue to exploit foreign workers?
Every year, about 70,000 foreign construction workers come to Singapore, mainly from Bangladesh, India and Thailand. Their desire to work here has created a $500-million industry that has done well by labour agents, recruiters, middlemen and employers.
Now, there are new players in the game: More than 12 testing centres operate in Bangladesh, India and Thailand.
Bangladesh now has three and will have four more next year. They are meant to turn around the low-skills high-accident problem in Singapore's construction industry, by providing the necessary training in building skills and English that would make the foreign workers competent and skilled.
But Mr Miah's case shows that passing does not guarantee the worker a job, though it does guarantee savings for the employer, who pays a $30 monthly levy for the "skilled" worker, instead of $470 for an unskilled one.
As the BCA discovered recently, people have managed to get in as "skilled workers" without taking a test.
Others were paid to take the tests for them in Bangladesh. In 10 cases so far this year, the stand-in scam was exposed by officers with BCA's training arm, the Construction Industry Training Institute.
By February, workers seeking the skills-evaluation certificate exam must sit for an additional written test as well as a practical test in English.
The extra test will check their knowledge of basic building processes.
By April, construction companies can hire only workers who have passed the test in basic construction and language skills.
Will this improve productivity and reduce worksite accidents?
That remains to be seen.
Only one thing is for sure: Once the tests become compulsory, the overseas test centres will be minting money.
Still unresolved is the issue of who is responsible for making sure the workers who come here can do the job well and safely.
At a recent meeting, the BCA told the training centres they should play their part by screening the trainees.
The centres said their job was training, not recruitment, which was for the labour recruiters to handle.
But it can hardly be to the labour recruiters' advantage to deliver good skilled workers who would stay on the job in Singapore for several years.
The truth of the matter is clearly seen when one considers this fact - the recruiter gets a one-time cut of the $6,000 to $8,000 that a foreign worker pays to get a job here. The more he sends, the more he earns.
So why shouldn't he keep shunting farmers, cattle herders and fishermen to the centres?
Government must step in and set stricter standards in the test centres.
The training methods and curriculum must be controlled from Singapore, and not by businessmen operating in villages in Bangladesh, India or Thailand.
The training period should be lengthened.
Can one realistically turn a farmer into a competent construction worker within a single month?
Test centres should also be made to keep detailed records of the labour recruiters they work with, so that unscrupulous agents can be identified and banned.
Make the centres put up a hefty security bond as well, which they will forfeit if they fail to meet standards set by the BCA.
Standards must go beyond setting examinations and grading them.
BCA should specify student-teacher ratios and spell out requirements for the trainers, if not requiring them to be tested and grade them too.
If foreign workers can be expected to master simple English in a short time, the employers who hire them surely can be expected to learn basic Bengali, Hindi or Thai. Also, while employers, test centres, contractors and labour agents all have a voice and easy access to officialdom, the foreign workers have no voice.
Is it time to consider union representation for foreign workers, so that Singapore's excellent model of tripartite cooperation in problem solving can be applied to the construction industry as well?
With more than 310 deaths resulting from worksite accidents since 1994, the construction industry has proven that it cannot clean up its own problems.
The Government stepped in with an ambitious Construction 21 plan in October to re-invent an industry plagued by over-reliance on cheap, unskilled labour, poor productivity and poor safety.
But dealing with only the construction companies, without bringing under stricter control the test centres, recruiters and others in the labour trade will mean that more workers will suffer the same fate as Mr Miah.
Sunday, December 19, 1999
Tuesday, December 14, 1999
Protect them
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 14 Dec 1999.
Protect them
Straits Times, 14 December 1999
AN ECONOMIST argued that while exploitation at work is a painful thing, it is nothing compared to not being exploited, that is, being unemployed. That logic compels thousands of people in poor countries to seek their fortunes in distant lands, no matter how they are exploited before they get there, and no matter what risks await them in the lands of opportunity. The plight of Bangladeshi workers who have to pay up to $8,000 to get a job here - though a part of that money goes to paying their fees to training centres - would have been serious enough had a Singapore dollar been equivalent to a Bangladesh taka. Multiply the dollar figure by about 30, and the answer reveals the depth of their pain, the subject of a report in this newspaper. The beneficiaries of their misery are labour agents and others who pocket the difference between the $8,000 and the $2,500 to $3,500 that go to the training centres.
That they charge the amount for services such as recruiting the workers and registering them with the centres is shocking. The problem needs to be addressed at source. The Bangladesh government's practice of running newspaper and radio advertisements warning workers about unscrupulous agents is a good move, but more stringent action may be necessary to curb these enemies of labour.
Paying the price are the labourers, who sell land and other belongings or borrow from moneylenders to realise their dreams of arriving in a country where money can be got from walls by touching them (ATM machines). As this tantalising legend shows, it is not difficult to lure poorly-educated and sometimes, barely-literate, workers with tales of fortunes waiting to be made. Admittedly, most manage to pay off their debts by the end of their term in Singapore and make a tidy sum on top of that. But for those who are unlucky enough to fall prey to contractors and labour agents running a racket importing foreign labour to work at construction sites, the disappointment could not be greater. Not only do their hopes of riches remain unfulfilled, but also, their debts back home remain unrepaid. Contrary to what the economist said, to remain unemployed is to be less exploited.
Then there are workers' complaints, ranging from employers cancelling contracts and failing to pay wages to making false deductions from monthly salaries. In one horrific case, a foreign worker came in, expecting to work in construction, but found himself a servant in his employer's house, instead. When the family employed a maid, he was sent home. The momentum of the Manpower Ministry's actions against recalcitrant employers and its warnings to others for infringing the law needs to be maintained and, if necessary, stepped up. "Employers who repeatedly deny the rights of their workers under the Employment Act would not be allowed to employ foreign workers again," the ministry's spokesman said.
The message is clear, and employers hoping to get away with offences against guest workers should take note. Foreign workers are not soft targets. It does not benefit this country to have in its midst desperate labourers whose dreams of a job and a decent life are shattered cynically by errant employers, small in number though they might be. The workers who come here are human beings, and enjoy the protection of laws that the Republic can justly be proud of. Singapore has been built with the sweat of its workers, both local and foreign. Let it not be built with the latter's tears.
Protect them
Straits Times, 14 December 1999
AN ECONOMIST argued that while exploitation at work is a painful thing, it is nothing compared to not being exploited, that is, being unemployed. That logic compels thousands of people in poor countries to seek their fortunes in distant lands, no matter how they are exploited before they get there, and no matter what risks await them in the lands of opportunity. The plight of Bangladeshi workers who have to pay up to $8,000 to get a job here - though a part of that money goes to paying their fees to training centres - would have been serious enough had a Singapore dollar been equivalent to a Bangladesh taka. Multiply the dollar figure by about 30, and the answer reveals the depth of their pain, the subject of a report in this newspaper. The beneficiaries of their misery are labour agents and others who pocket the difference between the $8,000 and the $2,500 to $3,500 that go to the training centres.
That they charge the amount for services such as recruiting the workers and registering them with the centres is shocking. The problem needs to be addressed at source. The Bangladesh government's practice of running newspaper and radio advertisements warning workers about unscrupulous agents is a good move, but more stringent action may be necessary to curb these enemies of labour.
Paying the price are the labourers, who sell land and other belongings or borrow from moneylenders to realise their dreams of arriving in a country where money can be got from walls by touching them (ATM machines). As this tantalising legend shows, it is not difficult to lure poorly-educated and sometimes, barely-literate, workers with tales of fortunes waiting to be made. Admittedly, most manage to pay off their debts by the end of their term in Singapore and make a tidy sum on top of that. But for those who are unlucky enough to fall prey to contractors and labour agents running a racket importing foreign labour to work at construction sites, the disappointment could not be greater. Not only do their hopes of riches remain unfulfilled, but also, their debts back home remain unrepaid. Contrary to what the economist said, to remain unemployed is to be less exploited.
Then there are workers' complaints, ranging from employers cancelling contracts and failing to pay wages to making false deductions from monthly salaries. In one horrific case, a foreign worker came in, expecting to work in construction, but found himself a servant in his employer's house, instead. When the family employed a maid, he was sent home. The momentum of the Manpower Ministry's actions against recalcitrant employers and its warnings to others for infringing the law needs to be maintained and, if necessary, stepped up. "Employers who repeatedly deny the rights of their workers under the Employment Act would not be allowed to employ foreign workers again," the ministry's spokesman said.
The message is clear, and employers hoping to get away with offences against guest workers should take note. Foreign workers are not soft targets. It does not benefit this country to have in its midst desperate labourers whose dreams of a job and a decent life are shattered cynically by errant employers, small in number though they might be. The workers who come here are human beings, and enjoy the protection of laws that the Republic can justly be proud of. Singapore has been built with the sweat of its workers, both local and foreign. Let it not be built with the latter's tears.
Sunday, December 12, 1999
10 construction workers in skills test scam.
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 12 December 1999.
10 construction workers in skills test scam
By SARON VASOO.
Straits Times, 12 December 1999
TEN Bangladeshi workers have been caught trying to pass themselves off here as skilled workers, in the latest scam to hit the scandal-ridden multi-million foreign worker trade.
They tried to deceive the authorities here that they had passed examinations in basic construction and language skills.
But they never took the examinations.
Instead, paid "stand-ins" are believed to have taken the tests using their names at privately-run training centres set up by Singapore construction companies and Bangladeshi businessmen in Bangladesh.
Because the workers come in as "skilled" workers, their Singapore employers pay only a $30 monthly levy for each worker, compared with $470 for an unskilled worker.
So far, no Singapore employer has been implicated in the scam.
But with more than 30,000 Bangladeshi workers coming to Singapore every year, it is not improbable that labour agents and employers here could be involved.
The scam was uncovered by the Building Control Authority between September and last month. BCA's training arm, the Construction Industry Training Institute (Citi) had asked the workers to turn up at the institute to confirm their identities.
Citi officers realised something was wrong when the faces of 10 workers did not match those in the photographs taken by BCA examiners during the tests at the overseas training centres. Earlier this month, a Sunday Times team spent a week in Bangladesh, visiting the training centres and villages. We spoke to contractors, labour agents and government officials in Dhaka and in Singapore.
According to sources, some labour recruiters are paying degree holders to take the tests on behalf of the workers.
In some cases, they said, officials were bribed to fix the test results.
When the workers failed the tests, the labour recruiters applied for social visit passes so they could send the workers to Singapore to work illegally as cleaners, gardeners or coffeeshop attendants, instead of in construction.
To combat the problem, starting next April, all construction firms will be allowed to hire only workers who have passed a test in basic construction and language skills.
Both BCA and Citi are well aware of the temptations the Singapore examiners face when they make their trips to the training centres to conduct and grade the examinations.
BCA's deputy chief executive officer, Mr Lam Siew Wah, said that BCA "periodically invites" officers from the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau to warn the examiners of the consequences of accepting bribes.
The test projects are marked twice by different testers and the results of the tests are released only in Singapore.
To further minimise the chances of corruption, examiners are rotated regularly among test centres.
Mr Lam said that there have been no allegations of corruption brought against the examiners so far.
10 construction workers in skills test scam
By SARON VASOO.
Straits Times, 12 December 1999
TEN Bangladeshi workers have been caught trying to pass themselves off here as skilled workers, in the latest scam to hit the scandal-ridden multi-million foreign worker trade.
They tried to deceive the authorities here that they had passed examinations in basic construction and language skills.
But they never took the examinations.
Instead, paid "stand-ins" are believed to have taken the tests using their names at privately-run training centres set up by Singapore construction companies and Bangladeshi businessmen in Bangladesh.
Because the workers come in as "skilled" workers, their Singapore employers pay only a $30 monthly levy for each worker, compared with $470 for an unskilled worker.
So far, no Singapore employer has been implicated in the scam.
But with more than 30,000 Bangladeshi workers coming to Singapore every year, it is not improbable that labour agents and employers here could be involved.
The scam was uncovered by the Building Control Authority between September and last month. BCA's training arm, the Construction Industry Training Institute (Citi) had asked the workers to turn up at the institute to confirm their identities.
Citi officers realised something was wrong when the faces of 10 workers did not match those in the photographs taken by BCA examiners during the tests at the overseas training centres. Earlier this month, a Sunday Times team spent a week in Bangladesh, visiting the training centres and villages. We spoke to contractors, labour agents and government officials in Dhaka and in Singapore.
According to sources, some labour recruiters are paying degree holders to take the tests on behalf of the workers.
In some cases, they said, officials were bribed to fix the test results.
When the workers failed the tests, the labour recruiters applied for social visit passes so they could send the workers to Singapore to work illegally as cleaners, gardeners or coffeeshop attendants, instead of in construction.
To combat the problem, starting next April, all construction firms will be allowed to hire only workers who have passed a test in basic construction and language skills.
Both BCA and Citi are well aware of the temptations the Singapore examiners face when they make their trips to the training centres to conduct and grade the examinations.
BCA's deputy chief executive officer, Mr Lam Siew Wah, said that BCA "periodically invites" officers from the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau to warn the examiners of the consequences of accepting bribes.
The test projects are marked twice by different testers and the results of the tests are released only in Singapore.
To further minimise the chances of corruption, examiners are rotated regularly among test centres.
Mr Lam said that there have been no allegations of corruption brought against the examiners so far.
Wednesday, November 24, 1999
Test for foreign workers 'too tough'
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 24 November 1999.
Test for foreign workers 'too tough'
By LYDIA LIM.
Straits Times, 24 November 1999
THE written test that foreign construction workers have to pass from next year to qualify as skilled workers is too hard, said several contractors who hire them.
They told The Straits Times that it is unrealistic to expect the workers to pass the test. Workers from Bangladesh and India will find it especially tough, they said, as it can only be taken in English, Chinese and Thai.
Seven contractors who run training centres in Bangladesh wrote to the Building and Construction Authority to request that the test be conducted in Bengali.
They also wanted the syllabus to be "redesigned...to suit construction workers".
In the letter, a copy of which was made available to The Straits Times, they said that in order to pass the test, the workers would need the same level of technical knowledge as first-year university engineering students and second-and third-year polytechnic students.
But the people who set the test disagree.
Officials at the Construction Industry Training Institute (Citi) said the level of technical knowledge needed is "nowhere near what is being taught at the universities and polytechnics".
They said that workers will need some secondary-school education to pass.
This is because the knowledge required is equivalent to what an Institute of Technical Education student will need to obtain the National Trade Certificate 2 (NTC2).
The Citi also maintained it is realistic to expect skilled workers to have this level of knowledge. "Skilled workers should be literate, numerate and knowledgeable about their trade," said Mr Tan Chong Yaw, manager of Citi's training development section.
The written test starts next year. By 2001, all construction workers who want a skills-evaluation certificate (SEC) will have to pass it as well as the practical test they now take. Only then, will they be considered skilled.
Skilled foreign workers get higher pay and their employers enjoy a big cut in foreign-worker levy. The levy for a skilled worker is $30 a month. It is $470 for an unskilled foreign worker.
CITI officials said they have no intention of conducting the test in Bengali. The reason: site supervisors here speak English, Mandarin or Thai, not Bengali.
When site supervisors can communicate effectively with workers, productivity and safety standards go up, officials said.
The test will encourage contractors to bring in workers who can speak English, Mandarin or Thai and who are "more suitable for Singapore", they said.
PASSING THE TEST: Problem is in the English
'Most of the questions can be answered with common sense and do not require much technical knowledge. But... those who don't understand English will have problems figuring out the technical terms.' - Mr Alan Wang, 26, a civil engineer who was shown a sample test paper.
'Some construction workers will be able to read the technical drawings. But the standard of English is high... If a worker understands English so well, he is bound to have other alternatives; he may not even come here at all.' - Mr Steven Tan, 25, civil engineer who was also shown the same paper.
Test for foreign workers 'too tough'
By LYDIA LIM.
Straits Times, 24 November 1999
THE written test that foreign construction workers have to pass from next year to qualify as skilled workers is too hard, said several contractors who hire them.
They told The Straits Times that it is unrealistic to expect the workers to pass the test. Workers from Bangladesh and India will find it especially tough, they said, as it can only be taken in English, Chinese and Thai.
Seven contractors who run training centres in Bangladesh wrote to the Building and Construction Authority to request that the test be conducted in Bengali.
They also wanted the syllabus to be "redesigned...to suit construction workers".
In the letter, a copy of which was made available to The Straits Times, they said that in order to pass the test, the workers would need the same level of technical knowledge as first-year university engineering students and second-and third-year polytechnic students.
But the people who set the test disagree.
Officials at the Construction Industry Training Institute (Citi) said the level of technical knowledge needed is "nowhere near what is being taught at the universities and polytechnics".
They said that workers will need some secondary-school education to pass.
This is because the knowledge required is equivalent to what an Institute of Technical Education student will need to obtain the National Trade Certificate 2 (NTC2).
The Citi also maintained it is realistic to expect skilled workers to have this level of knowledge. "Skilled workers should be literate, numerate and knowledgeable about their trade," said Mr Tan Chong Yaw, manager of Citi's training development section.
The written test starts next year. By 2001, all construction workers who want a skills-evaluation certificate (SEC) will have to pass it as well as the practical test they now take. Only then, will they be considered skilled.
Skilled foreign workers get higher pay and their employers enjoy a big cut in foreign-worker levy. The levy for a skilled worker is $30 a month. It is $470 for an unskilled foreign worker.
CITI officials said they have no intention of conducting the test in Bengali. The reason: site supervisors here speak English, Mandarin or Thai, not Bengali.
When site supervisors can communicate effectively with workers, productivity and safety standards go up, officials said.
The test will encourage contractors to bring in workers who can speak English, Mandarin or Thai and who are "more suitable for Singapore", they said.
PASSING THE TEST: Problem is in the English
'Most of the questions can be answered with common sense and do not require much technical knowledge. But... those who don't understand English will have problems figuring out the technical terms.' - Mr Alan Wang, 26, a civil engineer who was shown a sample test paper.
'Some construction workers will be able to read the technical drawings. But the standard of English is high... If a worker understands English so well, he is bound to have other alternatives; he may not even come here at all.' - Mr Steven Tan, 25, civil engineer who was also shown the same paper.
5 hurt in collision
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 24 November 1999.
5 hurt in collision
By YEOH EN-LAI.
24 November 1999
Straits Times
FIVE people were hurt, three of them seriously, in a chain collision of five heavy vehicles yesterday afternoon.
It happened in heavy rain along the Kranji Expressway. On the northbound expressway, traffic tailed back for at least 5 km.
From the flyover above, about 50 curious onlookers craned their necks to watch the Singapore Civil Defence Force rescuers in action.
The accident happened at around 3 pm, apparently after a lorry carrying computer products stopped in the expressway's extreme left lane under the Choa Chu Kang Road flyover.
A bus that ferries factory workers hit the lorry, and then three more lorries piled in.
One lorry belongs to Ascent Logistics. The second was a Malaysian-registered trailer, and the last was an empty diesel truck, a 10-wheeler registered to Ming Hup Trading Co.
Two people were pinned inside the cab of the 10-wheeler.
Rescuers used a device called the Jaws of Life to pry open the twisted metal. The device works like a huge pair of pliers in reverse.
The diesel had just been unloaded in Tuas.
The driver of the empty Ascent Logistics lorry was also rescued the same way.
All three were taken to the National University Hospital in serious condition, a Singapore Civil Defence Force spokesman said yesterday.
Two others were treated as outpatients.
Yesterday, soon after the mishap, the driver of the factory bus, Mr Sim Koon Lin, 26, and a co-driver of the trailer lorry told The Straits Times what happened.
Mr Sim said that to avoid the lorry that had stopped under the flyover, he tried to get into the next lane.
He said: "But there was traffic so I could not cut out. The next thing I heard was bang, bang, bang.
"It was raining heavily so it was hard to judge the distance."
Mr Azhari Mohamed, 21, who was next to Mr Abdul Rashid Main, 32, the driver of the trailer lorry, said he was stunned because it all happened so fast.
He said in Malay: "The driver had no time to react. We all could not brake in time."
Police are asking eyewitnesses to contact the Traffic Division on 222-2233.
5 hurt in collision
By YEOH EN-LAI.
24 November 1999
Straits Times
FIVE people were hurt, three of them seriously, in a chain collision of five heavy vehicles yesterday afternoon.
It happened in heavy rain along the Kranji Expressway. On the northbound expressway, traffic tailed back for at least 5 km.
From the flyover above, about 50 curious onlookers craned their necks to watch the Singapore Civil Defence Force rescuers in action.
The accident happened at around 3 pm, apparently after a lorry carrying computer products stopped in the expressway's extreme left lane under the Choa Chu Kang Road flyover.
A bus that ferries factory workers hit the lorry, and then three more lorries piled in.
One lorry belongs to Ascent Logistics. The second was a Malaysian-registered trailer, and the last was an empty diesel truck, a 10-wheeler registered to Ming Hup Trading Co.
Two people were pinned inside the cab of the 10-wheeler.
Rescuers used a device called the Jaws of Life to pry open the twisted metal. The device works like a huge pair of pliers in reverse.
The diesel had just been unloaded in Tuas.
The driver of the empty Ascent Logistics lorry was also rescued the same way.
All three were taken to the National University Hospital in serious condition, a Singapore Civil Defence Force spokesman said yesterday.
Two others were treated as outpatients.
Yesterday, soon after the mishap, the driver of the factory bus, Mr Sim Koon Lin, 26, and a co-driver of the trailer lorry told The Straits Times what happened.
Mr Sim said that to avoid the lorry that had stopped under the flyover, he tried to get into the next lane.
He said: "But there was traffic so I could not cut out. The next thing I heard was bang, bang, bang.
"It was raining heavily so it was hard to judge the distance."
Mr Azhari Mohamed, 21, who was next to Mr Abdul Rashid Main, 32, the driver of the trailer lorry, said he was stunned because it all happened so fast.
He said in Malay: "The driver had no time to react. We all could not brake in time."
Police are asking eyewitnesses to contact the Traffic Division on 222-2233.
Sunday, November 21, 1999
Written exams for construction workers
Written exams for construction workers
By Lydia Lim
18 November 1999
Straits Times
CONSTRUCTION workers here will have to sit for a written exam to qualify as skilled workers, starting next year. It will be introduced gradually trade by trade till all 50 trades in the building industry are covered. That should happen by 2001.
There are 200,000 foreign construction workers here, most of them unskilled.
The Government's target is to double the proportion of skilled workers to 45 per cent by 2005.
This move to require written exams will encourage contractors to bring in better skilled and more educated workers, said the Construction Industry Training Institute.
The exam can be taken in English, Mandarin or Thai. It will test the workers' knowledge of basic building processes, using multiple choice questions. This will be in addition to the practical test that workers already must take.
If they pass both written and practical tests, they get a skills evaluation certificate.
For the employer of a foreign worker, this means a drastic cut in the foreign worker levy he has to pay.
The levy for an unskilled foreign worker is $470 a month.
For a skilled one, it is just $30 a month.
The introduction of a "knowledge component" in the skills evaluation certificate is in line with Government efforts to upgrade the construction industry, which has been plagued by low productivity and a poor safety record.
Productivity in the sector dipped by over 13 per cent in the last four years.
At the same time, the number of accidents has been rising steadily since 1994, peaking at 1,532 last year. The Construction 21 report released last month noted that contractors' over-reliance on unskilled foreign labour had resulted in low productivity, poor quality of work and labour-intensive building methods.
Professor Chen Charng Ning, chairman of the Building and Construction Authority, said yesterday that the written exam would be introduced trade by trade.
Speaking at a graduation ceremony of the Construction Industry Training Institute, he said the first written exam, for the steel reinforcement trade, is scheduled for Feb 1 next year. By 2001, people in all 50 trades will have to sit for written exams.
About 80,000 workers sit for the certificate exams every year, according to the training institute, which conducts the part-time course for the workers.
The course now takes three months to complete. They will be lengthened to six months next year, with practical and theory sessions done at the same time.
If a worker fails the exam, he can sit for it again without having to repeat the course.
Contractors are concerned that workers may fail the written exams because of language problems, said the president of the Singapore Contractors Association, Mr Tan Kian Hoon.
Some may not be comfortable in English, Mandarin or Thai, the only languages in which the written exams will be conducted.
Cost is not a concern, he added.
Though it costs more to hire better-educated workers, he said, he is confident that they would be more productive and easier to manage.
TESTING
THE exam can be taken in English, Mandarin or Thai. It will test the workers' knowledge of basic building processes, using multiple-choice questions. This will be in addition to the practical test that workers must already take.
By Lydia Lim
18 November 1999
Straits Times
CONSTRUCTION workers here will have to sit for a written exam to qualify as skilled workers, starting next year. It will be introduced gradually trade by trade till all 50 trades in the building industry are covered. That should happen by 2001.
There are 200,000 foreign construction workers here, most of them unskilled.
The Government's target is to double the proportion of skilled workers to 45 per cent by 2005.
This move to require written exams will encourage contractors to bring in better skilled and more educated workers, said the Construction Industry Training Institute.
The exam can be taken in English, Mandarin or Thai. It will test the workers' knowledge of basic building processes, using multiple choice questions. This will be in addition to the practical test that workers already must take.
If they pass both written and practical tests, they get a skills evaluation certificate.
For the employer of a foreign worker, this means a drastic cut in the foreign worker levy he has to pay.
The levy for an unskilled foreign worker is $470 a month.
For a skilled one, it is just $30 a month.
The introduction of a "knowledge component" in the skills evaluation certificate is in line with Government efforts to upgrade the construction industry, which has been plagued by low productivity and a poor safety record.
Productivity in the sector dipped by over 13 per cent in the last four years.
At the same time, the number of accidents has been rising steadily since 1994, peaking at 1,532 last year. The Construction 21 report released last month noted that contractors' over-reliance on unskilled foreign labour had resulted in low productivity, poor quality of work and labour-intensive building methods.
Professor Chen Charng Ning, chairman of the Building and Construction Authority, said yesterday that the written exam would be introduced trade by trade.
Speaking at a graduation ceremony of the Construction Industry Training Institute, he said the first written exam, for the steel reinforcement trade, is scheduled for Feb 1 next year. By 2001, people in all 50 trades will have to sit for written exams.
About 80,000 workers sit for the certificate exams every year, according to the training institute, which conducts the part-time course for the workers.
The course now takes three months to complete. They will be lengthened to six months next year, with practical and theory sessions done at the same time.
If a worker fails the exam, he can sit for it again without having to repeat the course.
Contractors are concerned that workers may fail the written exams because of language problems, said the president of the Singapore Contractors Association, Mr Tan Kian Hoon.
Some may not be comfortable in English, Mandarin or Thai, the only languages in which the written exams will be conducted.
Cost is not a concern, he added.
Though it costs more to hire better-educated workers, he said, he is confident that they would be more productive and easier to manage.
TESTING
THE exam can be taken in English, Mandarin or Thai. It will test the workers' knowledge of basic building processes, using multiple-choice questions. This will be in addition to the practical test that workers must already take.
Thursday, October 21, 1999
MOM to cut foreign worker numbers
The following article was published in the Business Times on 21 Oct 1999.
MOM to cut foreign worker numbers
By Marissa Chew
Business Times Singapore, 21 October 1999
COME 2005, construction projects in Singapore can only employ 70 per cent of the number of foreign workers they now do.
This recommendation was one of several made by the Construction 21 (C21) Committee that the government will be implementing. Most of the 39 recommendations have been supported by the government and industry bodies. However, three, including the suggestion to license contractors, will be further studied or considered later.
At the launch of the committee's report yesterday, Manpower Minister Lee Boon Yang said, "Many problems in the construction industry can be attributed to the high dependence on unskilled foreign workers."
He noted that while the number of construction workers rose 2.6 times between 1992 and 1998, project volume rose by 1.5 times in the same period.
Productivity in the construction industry grew 4.6 per cent in 1994 but by 1998, it had shrunk by 3.4 per cent. The number of accidents also rose by 80 per cent to 1,532 last year.
Thus, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will be reducing the man-year entitlements (MYE) of projects to 70 per cent of current levels by 2005 and the ratio will drop to 50 per cent by 2010. The MYE formula determines the number of foreign workers that the Manpower Ministry allows a project's main contractor to employ based on the nature and size of the project.
To improve the skill level in the construction workforce, the government will also require contractors to have 45 per cent of their workforce obtain Skills Evaluation Certificates - a test to check that workers have sufficient abilities to qualify as skilled labour - by 2005. The ratio will go up to 60 per cent by 2010.
The move to improve skill levels works hand in hand with the committee's push to raise productivity through mechanisation, use of prefabricated materials and a more integrated work process which will see contractors and designers work more closely to come up with more buildable designs.
Already, the government has amended the Building Control Act to require projects to meet minimum buildability standards from 2001.
As Tan Thai Hong, chairman of integrated systems approach group, said at a briefing last week, "We want to shift from cost competitiveness based on low wages to cost competitiveness based on productivity." Mr Tan is also the chief contracts manager at the Housing and Development Board.
C21 chairman Tan Chin Nam, who is also permanent secretary at MOM, said at the briefing that the report was the industry's answer to Singapore's move to a knowledge-based economy.
While the recommendations will not necessarily lead to lower property prices - given that construction costs are only 20-25 per cent of the total development costs - Dr Lee expects it to benefit consumers all the same.
"Improvement in productivity, accompanied by higher quality, will be welcomed by homebuyers," he said.
MOM to cut foreign worker numbers
By Marissa Chew
Business Times Singapore, 21 October 1999
COME 2005, construction projects in Singapore can only employ 70 per cent of the number of foreign workers they now do.
This recommendation was one of several made by the Construction 21 (C21) Committee that the government will be implementing. Most of the 39 recommendations have been supported by the government and industry bodies. However, three, including the suggestion to license contractors, will be further studied or considered later.
At the launch of the committee's report yesterday, Manpower Minister Lee Boon Yang said, "Many problems in the construction industry can be attributed to the high dependence on unskilled foreign workers."
He noted that while the number of construction workers rose 2.6 times between 1992 and 1998, project volume rose by 1.5 times in the same period.
Productivity in the construction industry grew 4.6 per cent in 1994 but by 1998, it had shrunk by 3.4 per cent. The number of accidents also rose by 80 per cent to 1,532 last year.
Thus, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) will be reducing the man-year entitlements (MYE) of projects to 70 per cent of current levels by 2005 and the ratio will drop to 50 per cent by 2010. The MYE formula determines the number of foreign workers that the Manpower Ministry allows a project's main contractor to employ based on the nature and size of the project.
To improve the skill level in the construction workforce, the government will also require contractors to have 45 per cent of their workforce obtain Skills Evaluation Certificates - a test to check that workers have sufficient abilities to qualify as skilled labour - by 2005. The ratio will go up to 60 per cent by 2010.
The move to improve skill levels works hand in hand with the committee's push to raise productivity through mechanisation, use of prefabricated materials and a more integrated work process which will see contractors and designers work more closely to come up with more buildable designs.
Already, the government has amended the Building Control Act to require projects to meet minimum buildability standards from 2001.
As Tan Thai Hong, chairman of integrated systems approach group, said at a briefing last week, "We want to shift from cost competitiveness based on low wages to cost competitiveness based on productivity." Mr Tan is also the chief contracts manager at the Housing and Development Board.
C21 chairman Tan Chin Nam, who is also permanent secretary at MOM, said at the briefing that the report was the industry's answer to Singapore's move to a knowledge-based economy.
While the recommendations will not necessarily lead to lower property prices - given that construction costs are only 20-25 per cent of the total development costs - Dr Lee expects it to benefit consumers all the same.
"Improvement in productivity, accompanied by higher quality, will be welcomed by homebuyers," he said.
Sunday, October 17, 1999
Just one trip for work permit
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 17 Oct 1999.
Just one trip for work permit
By CHONG CHEE KIN.
Straits Times, 17 October 1999
EMPLOYERS of foreign workers now need to make only one trip to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to apply for a work permit.
This is if they apply for the permit electronically, from home or office.
Then the only trip they need to make to MOM is to have the workers' documents verified. Before, such applications might have taken as many as six trips to the ministry's work permit department.
This excludes the trip the foreign worker must make to have his fingerprints taken, before he is issued with the work permit identification card.
Manpower Minister Lee Boon Yang announced this at the opening of the one-stop service counters at the department yesterday. Applications, cancellations and renewals of work permits were done at separate counters before, and these were on different levels of the ministry's office in Havelock Road.
The new one-stop counters handle all three types of transactions.
Elaborating on the key improvements, Dr Lee said that employers can apply for work permits electronically from their homes and offices, and this would reduce the processing time to a single working day.
He said: "The speedy manner in which decisions on work permit applications are processed and conveyed means substantial time savings for employers."
Another improvement, he said, was that the employers can now authorise the department to verify their income.
Before, employers needed to show the hard copy of their latest income tax assessment to the department.
Doctors can also now fax the results of the medical reports of foreign workers directly to the department, instead of mailing them, said Dr Lee.
In an interview with The Sunday Times yesterday, the department's director, Mr Then Yee Thong, said that employers need to go to the department with only the documents of their foreign workers, if work permit applications had been submitted electronically.
He said: "The employers have to produce only the workers' documents, such as educational certificates and passports, for verification."
The new department, he added, also houses information kiosks where employers can check personally the validity of their workers' work permit identification cards.
"Just by slotting the card into the kiosk, the employers can find out information about their workers, such as whether the permit has been cancelled or if the permit holder is really who he claims to be," he said.
Just one trip for work permit
By CHONG CHEE KIN.
Straits Times, 17 October 1999
EMPLOYERS of foreign workers now need to make only one trip to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to apply for a work permit.
This is if they apply for the permit electronically, from home or office.
Then the only trip they need to make to MOM is to have the workers' documents verified. Before, such applications might have taken as many as six trips to the ministry's work permit department.
This excludes the trip the foreign worker must make to have his fingerprints taken, before he is issued with the work permit identification card.
Manpower Minister Lee Boon Yang announced this at the opening of the one-stop service counters at the department yesterday. Applications, cancellations and renewals of work permits were done at separate counters before, and these were on different levels of the ministry's office in Havelock Road.
The new one-stop counters handle all three types of transactions.
Elaborating on the key improvements, Dr Lee said that employers can apply for work permits electronically from their homes and offices, and this would reduce the processing time to a single working day.
He said: "The speedy manner in which decisions on work permit applications are processed and conveyed means substantial time savings for employers."
Another improvement, he said, was that the employers can now authorise the department to verify their income.
Before, employers needed to show the hard copy of their latest income tax assessment to the department.
Doctors can also now fax the results of the medical reports of foreign workers directly to the department, instead of mailing them, said Dr Lee.
In an interview with The Sunday Times yesterday, the department's director, Mr Then Yee Thong, said that employers need to go to the department with only the documents of their foreign workers, if work permit applications had been submitted electronically.
He said: "The employers have to produce only the workers' documents, such as educational certificates and passports, for verification."
The new department, he added, also houses information kiosks where employers can check personally the validity of their workers' work permit identification cards.
"Just by slotting the card into the kiosk, the employers can find out information about their workers, such as whether the permit has been cancelled or if the permit holder is really who he claims to be," he said.
Wednesday, October 13, 1999
Better on-site measures can save Thai workers
The following article was published by The Nation (Thailand) on 13 Oct 1999.
Better on-site measures can save Thai workers
The Nation (Thailand), 13 October 1999
SINGAPORE has made much of its reputation as a safe city and of how its citizens can walk the streets generally free of the fear of violent crime and the random hazards that confront residents in many neighbouring capitals.
Like so many things in Singapore, though, the issue of safety is not one of simple good governance and civic mindedness. Maintaining safety serves both a political purpose - that the city-state's model of strict social organisation compares well with more liberal alternatives - and a pragmatic one: its record on safety is used to encourage foreign capital and professional workers and their families to take up residence there.
Yet, when it comes to the underbelly of Singapore's cosmopolitan make-up - the hundreds of thousands of foreign workers who do the dirty and dangerous jobs Singaporeans disdain - that official concern for safety begins to fade.
In the past five years, more than 300 foreign workers have died on Singapore's building sites, almost one a week, including scores of Thais. And the fatality rate grows every year.
With more than 17,000 Thai labourers, Singapore ranks second behind Taiwan as the main destination for Thai foreign workers. The workers, mostly from the Northeast, are drawn by relatively good salaries - at least S$20 a day (about Bt430) plus basic accommodation.
Most are welders, drivers, plumbers, cooks and construction workers. While they take many different jobs, they share common goals - to earn enough to educate their children and to gather seed money to better their lives back home. Few think of ending up flattened by iron beams, thrown to their deaths by poorly-erected scaffolding or crushed by heavy machinery, as happens with appalling regularity.
Part of the secret of Singapore's economic success has been its ruthless approach to maintaining its economic competitiveness. Students are given little choice about what subjects they can pursue, family and social choices are guided by heavy financial penalties and inducements and the population is constantly bombarded with campaigns to increase their education, training and skills so as to "add value" to Singapore's economy.
In such an economy, foreign labour is an easily replaceable resource. While foreign workers account for almost 10 per cent of the population in Singapore they are rarely seen except for the maids who raise so many of Singapore's children and the armies of gardeners which trim its parks. They do jobs that Singaporeans don't want to do, but for the most part are considered expendable.
Indeed, a recent attempt to renovate and open a sports club for Thai construction workers, attracted public complaints that resources intended for Singapore citizens were being wasted on foreigners.
Most public debate on foreign labourers in Singapore has focused on issues such as the social problems of foreign worker enclaves, the impact of maids on the Singapore family and the need for quick solutions to repatriate foreign workers found abandoned in the streets. Little is said about finding a genuine place for them in the social fabric of the city.
To be sure, most Thai workers live in conditions in Singapore that are equal or superior to their counterparts in Thailand, and certainly have it better than Burmese workers in Thailand who follow the same search for gold that brings Thais to the island state. The one difference is that Singapore has the resources, the laws and the government control to enforce safety at work sites. Only the will seems to be missing.
Improving workplace safety awareness should not be difficult. The compulsory wearing of hardhats and belts for workers on high-rise constructions would make a start. Safety training for foremen and managers would also help.
The Thai government could also help by ensuring that more skilled workers are sent overseas. The lack of skills among foreign managers and workers is a key reason for the high level of on-site accidents. Skilled workers also earn more and are more employable, both of which would boost their returns from working abroad.
Since its first day as an independent state, Singapore has been in a rush to reach developed nation status. It will not get there, though, until it understands life has a human as well as economic value.
Better on-site measures can save Thai workers
The Nation (Thailand), 13 October 1999
SINGAPORE has made much of its reputation as a safe city and of how its citizens can walk the streets generally free of the fear of violent crime and the random hazards that confront residents in many neighbouring capitals.
Like so many things in Singapore, though, the issue of safety is not one of simple good governance and civic mindedness. Maintaining safety serves both a political purpose - that the city-state's model of strict social organisation compares well with more liberal alternatives - and a pragmatic one: its record on safety is used to encourage foreign capital and professional workers and their families to take up residence there.
Yet, when it comes to the underbelly of Singapore's cosmopolitan make-up - the hundreds of thousands of foreign workers who do the dirty and dangerous jobs Singaporeans disdain - that official concern for safety begins to fade.
In the past five years, more than 300 foreign workers have died on Singapore's building sites, almost one a week, including scores of Thais. And the fatality rate grows every year.
With more than 17,000 Thai labourers, Singapore ranks second behind Taiwan as the main destination for Thai foreign workers. The workers, mostly from the Northeast, are drawn by relatively good salaries - at least S$20 a day (about Bt430) plus basic accommodation.
Most are welders, drivers, plumbers, cooks and construction workers. While they take many different jobs, they share common goals - to earn enough to educate their children and to gather seed money to better their lives back home. Few think of ending up flattened by iron beams, thrown to their deaths by poorly-erected scaffolding or crushed by heavy machinery, as happens with appalling regularity.
Part of the secret of Singapore's economic success has been its ruthless approach to maintaining its economic competitiveness. Students are given little choice about what subjects they can pursue, family and social choices are guided by heavy financial penalties and inducements and the population is constantly bombarded with campaigns to increase their education, training and skills so as to "add value" to Singapore's economy.
In such an economy, foreign labour is an easily replaceable resource. While foreign workers account for almost 10 per cent of the population in Singapore they are rarely seen except for the maids who raise so many of Singapore's children and the armies of gardeners which trim its parks. They do jobs that Singaporeans don't want to do, but for the most part are considered expendable.
Indeed, a recent attempt to renovate and open a sports club for Thai construction workers, attracted public complaints that resources intended for Singapore citizens were being wasted on foreigners.
Most public debate on foreign labourers in Singapore has focused on issues such as the social problems of foreign worker enclaves, the impact of maids on the Singapore family and the need for quick solutions to repatriate foreign workers found abandoned in the streets. Little is said about finding a genuine place for them in the social fabric of the city.
To be sure, most Thai workers live in conditions in Singapore that are equal or superior to their counterparts in Thailand, and certainly have it better than Burmese workers in Thailand who follow the same search for gold that brings Thais to the island state. The one difference is that Singapore has the resources, the laws and the government control to enforce safety at work sites. Only the will seems to be missing.
Improving workplace safety awareness should not be difficult. The compulsory wearing of hardhats and belts for workers on high-rise constructions would make a start. Safety training for foremen and managers would also help.
The Thai government could also help by ensuring that more skilled workers are sent overseas. The lack of skills among foreign managers and workers is a key reason for the high level of on-site accidents. Skilled workers also earn more and are more employable, both of which would boost their returns from working abroad.
Since its first day as an independent state, Singapore has been in a rush to reach developed nation status. It will not get there, though, until it understands life has a human as well as economic value.
Friday, October 8, 1999
Time to stop these needless deaths
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 8 Oct 1999.
Time to stop these needless deaths
By AHMAD OSMAN.
Straits Times, 8 October 1999
THIS is the awful truth: Every week one construction worker dies on the job in Singapore.
He is almost always a foreign worker, who usually either falls from a height or has his life snuffed out when some object comes crashing down on him.
If safety on worksites does not improve, expect to read about another dozen of these workmen dying before Jan 1 2000.
The record is dismal, the accident rate is alarming, and everyone concerned knows it.
The calls have been made for years: worksites should be made safer, contractors should recruit better-qualified workers, and they should provide more training.
It's all old hat.
But since 1994, the industry's safety record has deteriorated alarmingly.
From 1994 to 1998 there was a sharp increase in the number of accidents and deaths.
From 1994 to September this year, 316 workers died in 301 accidents.
Many of these men need not have died.
There need not be as many deaths in future, if everyone in the industry will sit up and stop construction sites from being death traps.
Minister of State for Manpower Othman Haron Eusofe said yesterday that the industry has been served notice that its record is unacceptable, and tough action must follow.
The ministry will press for stiff sentences against the people who are to blame for these accidents.
Anyone who commits unsafe acts, or fails to take precautionary measures to prevent mishaps can be jailed for up to one year for any accident that results in the death of one person.
If the message still does not get across and there are no clear signs of improvement, Mr Othman said, more severe penalties will be called for.
Another measure will declare a contractor with a bad safety record unfit to employ foreign workers.
As contractors with unsafe worksites cannot manage their workplace, the ministry will not issue them with new work permits to bring in more foreign workers.
It will also not renew their existing workers' work permits.
The only way for a bad employer to get his workers will be for him to take immediate steps to shape up on safety at his worksite.
Otherwise, he may be forced out of business.
Mr Othman spoke at the start of the 16th annual construction safety month at Construction House in Bukit Merah Lane.
Foreigners now make up the majority of construction site workers as there are not many Singaporeans willing to do the jobs available in the industry.
The men who come here from places like Bangladesh and Thailand are mostly agricultural workers unused to working in highrise worksites and unfamiliar with the hazards.
Yet it is such inexperienced work permit holders who are the lifeline of the industry, with the number of foreigners swelling from under 100,000 in 1994 to about 180,000 today.
Mr Othman highlighted yet again yesterday that the industry is relying too heavily on such foreigners who are ill-trained and unprepared for the work they have to do here.
Industry sources say that one problem is that many of these workers do not stay long enough to gain experience.
Most go back home in less than two years, even though the ministry can allow work permit holders to stay for up to four years.
Industry players say that a reason for the high turnover is the the money being made by those who bring in foreign workers.
There is a chain of recruiters and labour contractors in the workers' own countries and here too. They collect and share a few thousand dollars from every foreigner who gets work here.
There is more money to be made from each batch of new workers arriving here, and that is a problem that will be more difficult to fix.
Key industry players accept that there will be fewer accidents if the foreign workforce is skilled.
To encourage contractors to opt for better workers, the monthly levy for skilled foreign construction workers was slashed from $100 to $30 in January this year, whereas it still remains at $470 for an unskilled foreigner.
Training centres have also been set up by construction firms in Bangladesh and Thailand to give those heading here the basic skills they need.
But it will take more than a lower levy and training centres to improve worksite safety.
The ministry, bosses, and the relevant bodies must step up educational efforts to instil the safety culture in the industry.
It must be made clear to workers, for example, that they must wear safety helmets and belts when they are working above ground.
The industry also needs more experienced supervisors and engineers to manage the huge foreign workforce.
At present, the staff of unsafe worksites issued with stop-work orders after an accident have to be sent for re-training.
Everyone from workers to supervisors and project managers have to attend a safety course, and site supervisors and managers must go through a specially-packaged programme that impresses upon them the safety-first message.
More action is coming up, and the industry has been put on notice.
A Construction 21 study was initiated in May last year by the Manpower and National Development ministries, examining the introduction of new design and management regulations.
These will improve the overall management and coordination of the safety, health and welfare of workers at every stage of a building project.
Mr Othman said yesterday that developers, architects, engineers and contractors are receptive to the idea that every building project must be designed from the start with workers' safety and health considerations in mind.
Until things improve, those in the construction industry must live with the shame that they run some of the most unsafe workplaces in Singapore.
Yesterday, Mr Tan Kian Hoon, president of the Singapore Contractors Association, urged his members to prevent more accidental deaths from occurring before the end of the year.
He said: "Surely, we can do something about this and we must do it quickly. Developers, designers, contractors, supervisors and every worker must make safety their obvious priority."
Nice words, those. Action is what matters now.
Time to stop these needless deaths
By AHMAD OSMAN.
Straits Times, 8 October 1999
THIS is the awful truth: Every week one construction worker dies on the job in Singapore.
He is almost always a foreign worker, who usually either falls from a height or has his life snuffed out when some object comes crashing down on him.
If safety on worksites does not improve, expect to read about another dozen of these workmen dying before Jan 1 2000.
The record is dismal, the accident rate is alarming, and everyone concerned knows it.
The calls have been made for years: worksites should be made safer, contractors should recruit better-qualified workers, and they should provide more training.
It's all old hat.
But since 1994, the industry's safety record has deteriorated alarmingly.
From 1994 to 1998 there was a sharp increase in the number of accidents and deaths.
From 1994 to September this year, 316 workers died in 301 accidents.
Many of these men need not have died.
There need not be as many deaths in future, if everyone in the industry will sit up and stop construction sites from being death traps.
Minister of State for Manpower Othman Haron Eusofe said yesterday that the industry has been served notice that its record is unacceptable, and tough action must follow.
The ministry will press for stiff sentences against the people who are to blame for these accidents.
Anyone who commits unsafe acts, or fails to take precautionary measures to prevent mishaps can be jailed for up to one year for any accident that results in the death of one person.
If the message still does not get across and there are no clear signs of improvement, Mr Othman said, more severe penalties will be called for.
Another measure will declare a contractor with a bad safety record unfit to employ foreign workers.
As contractors with unsafe worksites cannot manage their workplace, the ministry will not issue them with new work permits to bring in more foreign workers.
It will also not renew their existing workers' work permits.
The only way for a bad employer to get his workers will be for him to take immediate steps to shape up on safety at his worksite.
Otherwise, he may be forced out of business.
Mr Othman spoke at the start of the 16th annual construction safety month at Construction House in Bukit Merah Lane.
Foreigners now make up the majority of construction site workers as there are not many Singaporeans willing to do the jobs available in the industry.
The men who come here from places like Bangladesh and Thailand are mostly agricultural workers unused to working in highrise worksites and unfamiliar with the hazards.
Yet it is such inexperienced work permit holders who are the lifeline of the industry, with the number of foreigners swelling from under 100,000 in 1994 to about 180,000 today.
Mr Othman highlighted yet again yesterday that the industry is relying too heavily on such foreigners who are ill-trained and unprepared for the work they have to do here.
Industry sources say that one problem is that many of these workers do not stay long enough to gain experience.
Most go back home in less than two years, even though the ministry can allow work permit holders to stay for up to four years.
Industry players say that a reason for the high turnover is the the money being made by those who bring in foreign workers.
There is a chain of recruiters and labour contractors in the workers' own countries and here too. They collect and share a few thousand dollars from every foreigner who gets work here.
There is more money to be made from each batch of new workers arriving here, and that is a problem that will be more difficult to fix.
Key industry players accept that there will be fewer accidents if the foreign workforce is skilled.
To encourage contractors to opt for better workers, the monthly levy for skilled foreign construction workers was slashed from $100 to $30 in January this year, whereas it still remains at $470 for an unskilled foreigner.
Training centres have also been set up by construction firms in Bangladesh and Thailand to give those heading here the basic skills they need.
But it will take more than a lower levy and training centres to improve worksite safety.
The ministry, bosses, and the relevant bodies must step up educational efforts to instil the safety culture in the industry.
It must be made clear to workers, for example, that they must wear safety helmets and belts when they are working above ground.
The industry also needs more experienced supervisors and engineers to manage the huge foreign workforce.
At present, the staff of unsafe worksites issued with stop-work orders after an accident have to be sent for re-training.
Everyone from workers to supervisors and project managers have to attend a safety course, and site supervisors and managers must go through a specially-packaged programme that impresses upon them the safety-first message.
More action is coming up, and the industry has been put on notice.
A Construction 21 study was initiated in May last year by the Manpower and National Development ministries, examining the introduction of new design and management regulations.
These will improve the overall management and coordination of the safety, health and welfare of workers at every stage of a building project.
Mr Othman said yesterday that developers, architects, engineers and contractors are receptive to the idea that every building project must be designed from the start with workers' safety and health considerations in mind.
Until things improve, those in the construction industry must live with the shame that they run some of the most unsafe workplaces in Singapore.
Yesterday, Mr Tan Kian Hoon, president of the Singapore Contractors Association, urged his members to prevent more accidental deaths from occurring before the end of the year.
He said: "Surely, we can do something about this and we must do it quickly. Developers, designers, contractors, supervisors and every worker must make safety their obvious priority."
Nice words, those. Action is what matters now.
Obscene VCDs used to bribe officer
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 8 Oct 1999.
OBSCENE VCDS USED TO BRIBE OFFICER
Straits Times, 8 October 1999
A NIGHTCLUB manager under investigation for work permit violations tried to bribe a Ministry of Manpower (MOM) employment inspector with four obscene VCDs.
Terence Lim Kok Joo (above), 36, hoped that employment inspector Adam Yusop would convince his colleague to be lenient with him in a work permit case pending against him.
For that, Lim was fined $20,000 in a district court on Tuesday. Ministry officer Edwin Seah was investigating Lim last year for employing 10 Malaysians without valid work permits at a KTV nightclub where he was the general manager.
When Lim was at the ministry for questioning on July 27, 1998, he met Mr Adam and recognised him as a customer of his shop, Music Buzz, at Change Alley Aerial Plaza.
Lim then offered Mr Adam free VCDs and asked the inspector to speak to Mr Seah to reduce the penalty in the case against him.
On Aug 7 1998, when Mr Adam was at Lim's shop, Lim gave him four obscene VCDs worth $60. Lim pleaded guilty to one bribery count. Three other charges - advertising VCDs not approved by the Board of Film Censors for sale, distributing uncensored VCDs and distributing films without a licence - were taken into consideration.
On July 6, he was also fined $9,240 for employing workers without valid work permits.
He could have been jailed for five years or fined $100,000.
COMPANY BOSS FINED FOR $50 BRIBE
THE boss of a company dealing in construction and industrial machinery was fined $7,000 on Tuesday for trying to bribe an Environment Ministry officer with $50.
Chua Sim Lim (above), 56, had hoped that Mr Rahmat Sjawaltul, an ENV technical support officer, would not take action against him for smoke pollution.
A district court heard that on Aug 23, Mr Rahmat and another colleague were conducting inspections along Sungei Kadut Avenue.
They saw smoke at Chua's factory and found a foreign worker burning wood in the scrap yard area.
The officers then told Chua that it was an offence to burn combustible materials in the open.
Chua handed a white envelope containing $50 to Mr Rahmat and asked him not to tell anyone about the matter.
But Mr Rahmat refused the bribe and reported the incident to his supervisor.
Chua pleaded guilty to the bribery charge.
He could have been jailed for five years and fined $100,000.
OBSCENE VCDS USED TO BRIBE OFFICER
Straits Times, 8 October 1999
A NIGHTCLUB manager under investigation for work permit violations tried to bribe a Ministry of Manpower (MOM) employment inspector with four obscene VCDs.
Terence Lim Kok Joo (above), 36, hoped that employment inspector Adam Yusop would convince his colleague to be lenient with him in a work permit case pending against him.
For that, Lim was fined $20,000 in a district court on Tuesday. Ministry officer Edwin Seah was investigating Lim last year for employing 10 Malaysians without valid work permits at a KTV nightclub where he was the general manager.
When Lim was at the ministry for questioning on July 27, 1998, he met Mr Adam and recognised him as a customer of his shop, Music Buzz, at Change Alley Aerial Plaza.
Lim then offered Mr Adam free VCDs and asked the inspector to speak to Mr Seah to reduce the penalty in the case against him.
On Aug 7 1998, when Mr Adam was at Lim's shop, Lim gave him four obscene VCDs worth $60. Lim pleaded guilty to one bribery count. Three other charges - advertising VCDs not approved by the Board of Film Censors for sale, distributing uncensored VCDs and distributing films without a licence - were taken into consideration.
On July 6, he was also fined $9,240 for employing workers without valid work permits.
He could have been jailed for five years or fined $100,000.
COMPANY BOSS FINED FOR $50 BRIBE
THE boss of a company dealing in construction and industrial machinery was fined $7,000 on Tuesday for trying to bribe an Environment Ministry officer with $50.
Chua Sim Lim (above), 56, had hoped that Mr Rahmat Sjawaltul, an ENV technical support officer, would not take action against him for smoke pollution.
A district court heard that on Aug 23, Mr Rahmat and another colleague were conducting inspections along Sungei Kadut Avenue.
They saw smoke at Chua's factory and found a foreign worker burning wood in the scrap yard area.
The officers then told Chua that it was an offence to burn combustible materials in the open.
Chua handed a white envelope containing $50 to Mr Rahmat and asked him not to tell anyone about the matter.
But Mr Rahmat refused the bribe and reported the incident to his supervisor.
Chua pleaded guilty to the bribery charge.
He could have been jailed for five years and fined $100,000.
Friday, August 6, 1999
'Set up job centres for aged'
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 6 Aug 1999.
'Set up job centres for aged'
By Salma Khalik
Straits Times, 6 August 1999
Work group also suggests reducing quota on lower skilled foreign workers in jobs that older Singaporeans can fill
SET up Silver Manpower Centres to train, counsel and find jobs for the elderly. At the same time, reduce the quota on lower-skilled foreign workers in jobs that can be done by older Singaporeans.
This will force employers here to turn to older Singaporeans to fill the vacancies.
The Government should also emphasise the training of older workers and have more skills-oriented programmes, rather than general training, for them.
These are the key suggestions from the inter-ministerial work group looking into the employment and employability of older people.
If accepted by the Government, work group chairman Yaacob Ibrahim said the first Silver Manpower Centre can be set up next year by the Central Community Development Council, which serves a largely elderly population.
The Parliamentary Secretary of Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said the idea for the Silver Manpower Centres was borrowed from Japan, where such centres find employment for over 300,000 elderly people every year.
The work group is one of six set up to look at how best Singapore can cope with a rapidly ageing population. By the year 2030, almost one in five people here will be aged 65 or older.
Dr Yaacob was speaking at the launch of the Tsao Ng Yu Shun award for excellence in ageing study at the National University of Singapore yesterday. The first award went to a group of sociology students for their poster which showcased trends on ageing.
The Silver Manpower Centres, which should be located in housing estates, will look for job openings for people who are 60 years and older, said Dr Yaacob.
Many such jobs exist within the community, he said.
Petrol stations already employ older workers. Older women could help families with their cooking, cleaning or baby-sitting.
He said there were also many possibilities in the service sectors like food preparation, retail and cleaning services, and called for the gradual reduction of foreign worker quotas in these areas.
"It is only when foreign workers are not allowed or restricted that employers tend to turn to older workers," he said.
To ensure they remain employable, more attention should be paid to the training of older workers. Courses can be conducted in mother tongue, and be modular rather than in long stretches.
Dr Yaacob also urged government agencies and union co-operatives to "set the standard and be model employers in job and workplace redesign, flexible work arrangement and employment of older workers".
'Set up job centres for aged'
By Salma Khalik
Straits Times, 6 August 1999
Work group also suggests reducing quota on lower skilled foreign workers in jobs that older Singaporeans can fill
SET up Silver Manpower Centres to train, counsel and find jobs for the elderly. At the same time, reduce the quota on lower-skilled foreign workers in jobs that can be done by older Singaporeans.
This will force employers here to turn to older Singaporeans to fill the vacancies.
The Government should also emphasise the training of older workers and have more skills-oriented programmes, rather than general training, for them.
These are the key suggestions from the inter-ministerial work group looking into the employment and employability of older people.
If accepted by the Government, work group chairman Yaacob Ibrahim said the first Silver Manpower Centre can be set up next year by the Central Community Development Council, which serves a largely elderly population.
The Parliamentary Secretary of Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said the idea for the Silver Manpower Centres was borrowed from Japan, where such centres find employment for over 300,000 elderly people every year.
The work group is one of six set up to look at how best Singapore can cope with a rapidly ageing population. By the year 2030, almost one in five people here will be aged 65 or older.
Dr Yaacob was speaking at the launch of the Tsao Ng Yu Shun award for excellence in ageing study at the National University of Singapore yesterday. The first award went to a group of sociology students for their poster which showcased trends on ageing.
The Silver Manpower Centres, which should be located in housing estates, will look for job openings for people who are 60 years and older, said Dr Yaacob.
Many such jobs exist within the community, he said.
Petrol stations already employ older workers. Older women could help families with their cooking, cleaning or baby-sitting.
He said there were also many possibilities in the service sectors like food preparation, retail and cleaning services, and called for the gradual reduction of foreign worker quotas in these areas.
"It is only when foreign workers are not allowed or restricted that employers tend to turn to older workers," he said.
To ensure they remain employable, more attention should be paid to the training of older workers. Courses can be conducted in mother tongue, and be modular rather than in long stretches.
Dr Yaacob also urged government agencies and union co-operatives to "set the standard and be model employers in job and workplace redesign, flexible work arrangement and employment of older workers".
Sunday, August 1, 1999
Risky business in Little India
Risky business in Little India
Straits Times, 1 August 1999
EVERY Sunday evening, thousands of dollars change hands in a carpark and a field near Serangoon Plaza.
As evening shadows deepen, the handful of foreign workers swells to thousands and small clusters form around each hundi man. Hundi means "remittance" in Bengali.
People who live and work in Little India told The Sunday Times team it was on dangerous ground looking into the hundi business. "They are fearsome men," one said of the hundi and their bodyguards. As we approached a hundi, his burly phalanx of protectors tightened. A man demanded coarsely: "What you want?" He gesticulated at the team and shouted something in Bengali.
As four or five bodyguards closed in, The Sunday Times team sought the relative safety of Serangoon Plaza.
ATTRACTIVE RATES
THE hundi is the Bangladeshis' link to home, the channel through which they send money to their families.
Though there are five official remittance agencies here for Bangladeshis, they prefer the hundi's rates.
At this money market, the hundis and their runners broadcast their rates. A worker picks his hundi, tells him who the money should go to and his address, and hands over the cash.
The hundi records the details in a notebook, sealing the deal with a handshake and a promise.
"They offer attractive rates," said Mr Ripon Miah, 25, a cleaner who has used a hundi since 1997.
Where an official agency may offer 28 taka for S$1, hundis can offer 29 taka or more, because, unlike the agencies, they can avoid being taxed in Bangladesh.
Official agencies first exchange Singapore money for US dollars, then for taka in Bangladesh. They levy an administrative fee; the hundis do not.
The hundi's way: Collect money, buy electronics goods or gold here to sell back home. Deliver the promised sum. Make a tidy profit.
"They carry the goods in their luggage, so they can say it's for their own use," said a Bangladeshi High Commission spokesman.
They jet in on tourist visas and go home laden. They stand out in the clusters, carrying cellular phones and wearing long-sleeved shirts.
An "average" operator may take $30,000 each trip since a worker usually sends home about $400 each time.
Some workers act as runners for the hundis. This led the Singapore Contractors Association to remind its members in a circular in April - "on police advice" it said - that such work-permit holders violate the Foreign Workers Act.
It said: "Recently, many remitters who remit money on behalf of foreign workers, have become victims of snatch thefts, robberies and even murder."
HOODWINKED
YET it could give no figures on workers caught moonlighting in this way, or cite any report of a foreign worker getting cheated.
Nor could the Manpower Ministry supply such figures. The large sums they carry make this a risky business for hundis, runners and clients alike because they are such tempting targets.
Between January and June, there were six robberies involving people who visited banks or money-changers. The police would not say if foreigners were involved.
On June 27, Bangladeshi worker Rony Rahman, 28, was robbed of $20,000, had three fingers on his right hand chopped off and three on his left were almost severed.
He was waylaid by six men with parangs while taking money to a remittance agency. He was fortunate they did not find the other $20,000 he had kept in another pocket.
On May 23, Mr Mohamed Matin, 36, was robbed of about $10,000 and slashed with a chopper.
Workers have been known to beat up a hundi if they think he has cheated them.
So the hundi must show proof of delivery: perhaps a strip of paper, bearing the name and signature of the person in Bangladesh.
Like some, Mr Miah, calls home to double-check. "When I see my father's signature, I telephone to confirm he has got the money." He was confident he would not be bilked because he knows where his hundi lives.
"If anything wrong, I can find him at his house in Bangladesh," he said.
FIGHTS AND CHEATS
OTHERS are not so lucky.
A 28-year-old man, who gave his name only as Robbi, said it worked the first time, but the $500 he sent the second time never got to his parents, and he could not track the hundi down.
"You work so hard, then they just take your money and run. I don't want to trust them again," he said. He now uses an official agency. Fights often break out when workers find that a hundi has not done the job.
Mr Munurul Islam recalled that once, several of his friends helped someone who had been cheated to find his hundi, who denied ever receiving the money.
A fight broke out and the hundi's bodyguards pulled out knives. They fled when the police arrived.
Sometimes, workers may complain to their High Commission, but little can be done since there is no receipt or documentation that money has changed hands.
The Registry of Companies and Businesses said that running an unlicensed hundi business is an offence under Section 5 of the Business Registration Act. Offenders can be jailed up to six months or fined up to $1,000, or both.
The high commission advises workers to remit money through official agencies. It also plans to tell Bangladeshi workers before they come here about the dangers of using a hundi. Meanwhile, this evening, the unofficial money market goes on.
Straits Times, 1 August 1999
EVERY Sunday evening, thousands of dollars change hands in a carpark and a field near Serangoon Plaza.
As evening shadows deepen, the handful of foreign workers swells to thousands and small clusters form around each hundi man. Hundi means "remittance" in Bengali.
People who live and work in Little India told The Sunday Times team it was on dangerous ground looking into the hundi business. "They are fearsome men," one said of the hundi and their bodyguards. As we approached a hundi, his burly phalanx of protectors tightened. A man demanded coarsely: "What you want?" He gesticulated at the team and shouted something in Bengali.
As four or five bodyguards closed in, The Sunday Times team sought the relative safety of Serangoon Plaza.
ATTRACTIVE RATES
THE hundi is the Bangladeshis' link to home, the channel through which they send money to their families.
Though there are five official remittance agencies here for Bangladeshis, they prefer the hundi's rates.
At this money market, the hundis and their runners broadcast their rates. A worker picks his hundi, tells him who the money should go to and his address, and hands over the cash.
The hundi records the details in a notebook, sealing the deal with a handshake and a promise.
"They offer attractive rates," said Mr Ripon Miah, 25, a cleaner who has used a hundi since 1997.
Where an official agency may offer 28 taka for S$1, hundis can offer 29 taka or more, because, unlike the agencies, they can avoid being taxed in Bangladesh.
Official agencies first exchange Singapore money for US dollars, then for taka in Bangladesh. They levy an administrative fee; the hundis do not.
The hundi's way: Collect money, buy electronics goods or gold here to sell back home. Deliver the promised sum. Make a tidy profit.
"They carry the goods in their luggage, so they can say it's for their own use," said a Bangladeshi High Commission spokesman.
They jet in on tourist visas and go home laden. They stand out in the clusters, carrying cellular phones and wearing long-sleeved shirts.
An "average" operator may take $30,000 each trip since a worker usually sends home about $400 each time.
Some workers act as runners for the hundis. This led the Singapore Contractors Association to remind its members in a circular in April - "on police advice" it said - that such work-permit holders violate the Foreign Workers Act.
It said: "Recently, many remitters who remit money on behalf of foreign workers, have become victims of snatch thefts, robberies and even murder."
HOODWINKED
YET it could give no figures on workers caught moonlighting in this way, or cite any report of a foreign worker getting cheated.
Nor could the Manpower Ministry supply such figures. The large sums they carry make this a risky business for hundis, runners and clients alike because they are such tempting targets.
Between January and June, there were six robberies involving people who visited banks or money-changers. The police would not say if foreigners were involved.
On June 27, Bangladeshi worker Rony Rahman, 28, was robbed of $20,000, had three fingers on his right hand chopped off and three on his left were almost severed.
He was waylaid by six men with parangs while taking money to a remittance agency. He was fortunate they did not find the other $20,000 he had kept in another pocket.
On May 23, Mr Mohamed Matin, 36, was robbed of about $10,000 and slashed with a chopper.
Workers have been known to beat up a hundi if they think he has cheated them.
So the hundi must show proof of delivery: perhaps a strip of paper, bearing the name and signature of the person in Bangladesh.
Like some, Mr Miah, calls home to double-check. "When I see my father's signature, I telephone to confirm he has got the money." He was confident he would not be bilked because he knows where his hundi lives.
"If anything wrong, I can find him at his house in Bangladesh," he said.
FIGHTS AND CHEATS
OTHERS are not so lucky.
A 28-year-old man, who gave his name only as Robbi, said it worked the first time, but the $500 he sent the second time never got to his parents, and he could not track the hundi down.
"You work so hard, then they just take your money and run. I don't want to trust them again," he said. He now uses an official agency. Fights often break out when workers find that a hundi has not done the job.
Mr Munurul Islam recalled that once, several of his friends helped someone who had been cheated to find his hundi, who denied ever receiving the money.
A fight broke out and the hundi's bodyguards pulled out knives. They fled when the police arrived.
Sometimes, workers may complain to their High Commission, but little can be done since there is no receipt or documentation that money has changed hands.
The Registry of Companies and Businesses said that running an unlicensed hundi business is an offence under Section 5 of the Business Registration Act. Offenders can be jailed up to six months or fined up to $1,000, or both.
The high commission advises workers to remit money through official agencies. It also plans to tell Bangladeshi workers before they come here about the dangers of using a hundi. Meanwhile, this evening, the unofficial money market goes on.
Sunday, July 4, 1999
Keeping the maid at arm's length
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 4 July 1999.
Keeping the maid at arm's length
By TUMINAH SAPAWI
Straits Times, 4 July 1999
Most maids are fine. But you just may be the unlucky guy. How to minimise risks of false accusations?
BANGLADESHI Mozammal Hoque and a 32-year-old Singaporean man share a common ordeal.
Both men were accused of rape by maids who worked for them here but courts found them innocent. Yet, the stigma of the charge remained.
Hoque, a foreign worker, left here to flee the shame. The Singaporean lost his job and his friends, and the future looks bleak.
They are not alone. Police statistics reveal that, in 1997 and 1998, 38 people lied to the police about being raped, robbed or attacked.
Among those who made false accusations to cover up their own problems were domestic maids.
There are 100,000 of them in Singapore. Most are obviously not going to give their employers such problems.
But one cannot blame some Singaporean men for becoming increasingly wary of being the target of a false-molest or rape charge by a maid.
Letters from some concerned men that appeared in The Straits Times Forum Page last week suggested that penalties for people found guilty of making such false accusations be raised.
Meanwhile, there are ways men can minimise the potential risks. Sunday Plus spoke to maid agents, a psychologist and several employers of maids to compile a survival guide.
* Make it clear to the maid that Singapore has strict laws against such false accusations, even before she arrives.
Maid agent Sulaiman Salim says one effective deterrent is to make them aware of the consequences and the other tough laws here.
The owner of Le Mann Employment Agency makes it a point to visit his maid training centre in Jakarta to reinforce this.
Still, an agent can only do so much, says the vice-chairman of Foreign Maid Employment Agency Association (FMEAA), Mr J. S. Chua. "At the end of the day, it is whether the maid wants to remember this and fear the consequences."
* Open lines of communication between the maid and employer.
Mr Peter Ong, chairman of FMEAA, says it is important for the maid to know that the employer is there to help her when she has a problem.
"There is no problem that cannot be solved. But a maid who thinks that all avenues for communicating her problem are closed, may just take the easy option, like pointing an accusing finger at someone when she finds herself pregnant, with the hope of getting away with false claims," he says.
* Let the wife handle all maid matters - including communicating with her.
Mr J.S. Chua, who owns a maid agency, says this would minimise interaction between the maid and the male employer.
It would also be a way of telling the maid to steer clear of the husband.
He cites several cases in which he advised the client to change maids because of a language barrier between the maid and the wife.
* Have a well-defined employer-employee relationship and role.
Ideally a maid should be made to feel at home so that it would foster a sense of belonging and make her stay here more pleasant. This, however, could lead to the maid going over the line, says a psychologist in private practice.
It is thus important for the employer to make it clear to the maid that her responsibilities do not go beyond the domestic chores.
* Provide no opportunities for the maid to be left alone with the husband or any male member of the family.
Mr Sulaiman advises his clients to ensure that at no time should a husband or other adult male be left alone with the maid at home.
This is so that there will always be witnesses should the maid make an accusation.
"If your wife goes on overseas assignment, try and get a relative or your parents-in-law to stay over for the period she is away," he says.
One man who takes his maid to his parents' house each time his wife has an overseas assignment is sales manager Kenneth Ong, 40.
He does this not only to avoid being alone with the maid in his home, but also to ensure that his two children are being looked after by his parents when their mother is not around.
* Give the maid her own room.
This is especially important if you are a single male employer, says Mr Sulaiman.
"A room in which the maid can lock herself at the end of the day is important for her privacy," he says.
For the maid, it would be more than just a place to sleep. There, she can change her clothes and attend to private matters like writing letters.
A single man who has a domestic maid must also set clear rules - areas like the master bedroom that are out-of-bounds to her, except when they require cleaning.
The master bedroom is one such area. Any cleaning that needs to be done is best carried out when the employer is at work.
All said and done, the best thing a man can do is to treat the maid as a human being and respect her as one, and never never see her as a slave or sex toy.
Keeping the maid at arm's length
By TUMINAH SAPAWI
Straits Times, 4 July 1999
Most maids are fine. But you just may be the unlucky guy. How to minimise risks of false accusations?
BANGLADESHI Mozammal Hoque and a 32-year-old Singaporean man share a common ordeal.
Both men were accused of rape by maids who worked for them here but courts found them innocent. Yet, the stigma of the charge remained.
Hoque, a foreign worker, left here to flee the shame. The Singaporean lost his job and his friends, and the future looks bleak.
They are not alone. Police statistics reveal that, in 1997 and 1998, 38 people lied to the police about being raped, robbed or attacked.
Among those who made false accusations to cover up their own problems were domestic maids.
There are 100,000 of them in Singapore. Most are obviously not going to give their employers such problems.
But one cannot blame some Singaporean men for becoming increasingly wary of being the target of a false-molest or rape charge by a maid.
Letters from some concerned men that appeared in The Straits Times Forum Page last week suggested that penalties for people found guilty of making such false accusations be raised.
Meanwhile, there are ways men can minimise the potential risks. Sunday Plus spoke to maid agents, a psychologist and several employers of maids to compile a survival guide.
* Make it clear to the maid that Singapore has strict laws against such false accusations, even before she arrives.
Maid agent Sulaiman Salim says one effective deterrent is to make them aware of the consequences and the other tough laws here.
The owner of Le Mann Employment Agency makes it a point to visit his maid training centre in Jakarta to reinforce this.
Still, an agent can only do so much, says the vice-chairman of Foreign Maid Employment Agency Association (FMEAA), Mr J. S. Chua. "At the end of the day, it is whether the maid wants to remember this and fear the consequences."
* Open lines of communication between the maid and employer.
Mr Peter Ong, chairman of FMEAA, says it is important for the maid to know that the employer is there to help her when she has a problem.
"There is no problem that cannot be solved. But a maid who thinks that all avenues for communicating her problem are closed, may just take the easy option, like pointing an accusing finger at someone when she finds herself pregnant, with the hope of getting away with false claims," he says.
* Let the wife handle all maid matters - including communicating with her.
Mr J.S. Chua, who owns a maid agency, says this would minimise interaction between the maid and the male employer.
It would also be a way of telling the maid to steer clear of the husband.
He cites several cases in which he advised the client to change maids because of a language barrier between the maid and the wife.
* Have a well-defined employer-employee relationship and role.
Ideally a maid should be made to feel at home so that it would foster a sense of belonging and make her stay here more pleasant. This, however, could lead to the maid going over the line, says a psychologist in private practice.
It is thus important for the employer to make it clear to the maid that her responsibilities do not go beyond the domestic chores.
* Provide no opportunities for the maid to be left alone with the husband or any male member of the family.
Mr Sulaiman advises his clients to ensure that at no time should a husband or other adult male be left alone with the maid at home.
This is so that there will always be witnesses should the maid make an accusation.
"If your wife goes on overseas assignment, try and get a relative or your parents-in-law to stay over for the period she is away," he says.
One man who takes his maid to his parents' house each time his wife has an overseas assignment is sales manager Kenneth Ong, 40.
He does this not only to avoid being alone with the maid in his home, but also to ensure that his two children are being looked after by his parents when their mother is not around.
* Give the maid her own room.
This is especially important if you are a single male employer, says Mr Sulaiman.
"A room in which the maid can lock herself at the end of the day is important for her privacy," he says.
For the maid, it would be more than just a place to sleep. There, she can change her clothes and attend to private matters like writing letters.
A single man who has a domestic maid must also set clear rules - areas like the master bedroom that are out-of-bounds to her, except when they require cleaning.
The master bedroom is one such area. Any cleaning that needs to be done is best carried out when the employer is at work.
All said and done, the best thing a man can do is to treat the maid as a human being and respect her as one, and never never see her as a slave or sex toy.
Friday, April 30, 1999
Rules on carrying people in lorries - LTA
This letter was published in the Straits Times on 30 April 1999.
Rules on carrying people in lorries
30 April 1999
Straits Times
Goods vehicles can be used to transport workers if the owners meet certain safety requirements.
WE THANK Mr Chan Kin Seng for his feedback in "Ban people sitting in the backs of lorries" (ST, April 17).
Currently, owners of goods vehicles are allowed to transport their workers on their trucks only if they can comply with a set of rules to ensure the safety of theworkers. These rules specify the manner and the conditions under which workers can be transported on a goods vehicle. There is also a 50 kmh speed limit imposed on all goods vehicles.
The Land Transport Authority and Traffic Police will take enforcement action against drivers who fail to comply with the safety requirements.
Drivers found flouting the rules for the first time are liable to be fined up to S$1,000 or to be jailed up to three months. Repeat offenders can be fined up to S$2,000 or jailed up to six months. JOHN CHANG Head, Media Relations Division Public Affairs Department Singapore Police Force
TOH SU FEN Deputy Director Corporate Communications Land Transport Authority.
Rules on carrying people in lorries
30 April 1999
Straits Times
Goods vehicles can be used to transport workers if the owners meet certain safety requirements.
WE THANK Mr Chan Kin Seng for his feedback in "Ban people sitting in the backs of lorries" (ST, April 17).
Currently, owners of goods vehicles are allowed to transport their workers on their trucks only if they can comply with a set of rules to ensure the safety of theworkers. These rules specify the manner and the conditions under which workers can be transported on a goods vehicle. There is also a 50 kmh speed limit imposed on all goods vehicles.
The Land Transport Authority and Traffic Police will take enforcement action against drivers who fail to comply with the safety requirements.
Drivers found flouting the rules for the first time are liable to be fined up to S$1,000 or to be jailed up to three months. Repeat offenders can be fined up to S$2,000 or jailed up to six months. JOHN CHANG Head, Media Relations Division Public Affairs Department Singapore Police Force
TOH SU FEN Deputy Director Corporate Communications Land Transport Authority.
Wednesday, April 28, 1999
S'pore Moves for Stricter Foreign Workers Management
The following article was published by Xinhua News Agency on 28 April 1999.
S'pore Moves for Stricter Foreign Workers Management
Xinhua News Agency, 28 April 1999
SINGAPORE, April 28 (Xinhua)-Singapore launched a new work permit identification system Wednesday as part of its efforts to evolve a tougher and more comprehensive foreign manpower management system.
Officiating the new work permit services center, Minister of State for Manpower Othman Haron Eusofe said every foreign worker in Singapore will have to replace his or her current Work Permit Card from May 3, 1999, with the new work permit identification card.
The new card combines the current Work Permit Card, the Immigration Disembarkation/Embarkation Card and the Visit Pass in one card as well as carry his or her photograph and fingerprint record and incorporate more effective security features.
The security features will minimize the likelihood of forgery and the fingerprints impressions will allow the enforcement agencies a conclusive means of identifying the card holder, Eusofe said.
Eusofe said there are more than 450,000 foreign work permit holders in Singapore and the presence of a large pool of foreign workers has brought some social problems. "It has become imperative for us to better manage these foreign workers during their stay in Singapore."
According to Eusofe, a total of 2,952 foreigners were found working illegally in Singapore without valid work permits in 1998, about twice the number of such cases in 1997, and an increasing number of illegal workers were also immigration offenders which accounted for 44 percent of illegal workers compared with the 21 percent in 1997.
Eusofe said the increasing number of illegal workers and the rising incidence of forged work permit cards have made it more difficult for enforcement officers to identify foreign workers.
He said the new cards will be jointly issued to its holders in phases by the Singapore Immigration and Registration and the Work Permit Department.
Eusofe reiterated that work permit holders are required to carry work permit cards with them and the government intends to enforce this work permits condition strictly.
Employers who retain the original work permit identification card will risk being debarred from employing foreign workers while the workers may be liable to have their work permits canceled or themselves repatriated for not carrying the work permit card, he said.
S'pore Moves for Stricter Foreign Workers Management
Xinhua News Agency, 28 April 1999
SINGAPORE, April 28 (Xinhua)-Singapore launched a new work permit identification system Wednesday as part of its efforts to evolve a tougher and more comprehensive foreign manpower management system.
Officiating the new work permit services center, Minister of State for Manpower Othman Haron Eusofe said every foreign worker in Singapore will have to replace his or her current Work Permit Card from May 3, 1999, with the new work permit identification card.
The new card combines the current Work Permit Card, the Immigration Disembarkation/Embarkation Card and the Visit Pass in one card as well as carry his or her photograph and fingerprint record and incorporate more effective security features.
The security features will minimize the likelihood of forgery and the fingerprints impressions will allow the enforcement agencies a conclusive means of identifying the card holder, Eusofe said.
Eusofe said there are more than 450,000 foreign work permit holders in Singapore and the presence of a large pool of foreign workers has brought some social problems. "It has become imperative for us to better manage these foreign workers during their stay in Singapore."
According to Eusofe, a total of 2,952 foreigners were found working illegally in Singapore without valid work permits in 1998, about twice the number of such cases in 1997, and an increasing number of illegal workers were also immigration offenders which accounted for 44 percent of illegal workers compared with the 21 percent in 1997.
Eusofe said the increasing number of illegal workers and the rising incidence of forged work permit cards have made it more difficult for enforcement officers to identify foreign workers.
He said the new cards will be jointly issued to its holders in phases by the Singapore Immigration and Registration and the Work Permit Department.
Eusofe reiterated that work permit holders are required to carry work permit cards with them and the government intends to enforce this work permits condition strictly.
Employers who retain the original work permit identification card will risk being debarred from employing foreign workers while the workers may be liable to have their work permits canceled or themselves repatriated for not carrying the work permit card, he said.
Sunday, March 21, 1999
Foreign talent and the global city
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 21 March 1999.
Foreign talent and the global city
By Brenda Yeoh and T. C. Chang.
Straits Times, 21 March 1999
BRENDA YEOH and T. C. CHANG examine the issues involved in shaping Singapore into a truly "global city' of transnational flows.
IN A 1993 article, Humanising The City, Stockholm University academic Ulf Hannerz described four groups of people who are engaged actively in the transnational flow of culture and who, in some sphere or other, give cities their "global" character.
These are:
* Transnational business, involving high-waged, highly skilled professional, managerial and entrepreneurial elites usually associated with finance, banking and business services;
* Third World populations comprising low-waged immigrants who occupy insecure niches in the unskilled or semi-skilled sectors of the urban service economy;
* Expressive specialists who participate in the cultural scene in areas such as art, fashion, design, photography, film-making, writing, music and cuisine; and
* Tourists who are present in considerable numbers, attracted by the cosmopolitan intensity of the global city.
These transnational flows - and, perhaps more importantly, the interconnections among the different streams - are what ensures that global cities remain cultural marketplaces and business epicentres par excellence.
At the same time, while taking up their positions in the global economy as the centres of transnational flows, cities must also integrate their local societies. For, without a solid base in the citizens, city governments will not have the strength that is needed to navigate those global circuits.
Within the world city hierarchy, Singapore is ranked in the second tier, among those aspiring for "superleague" status.
At the same time, the construction of nationhood has been a major state-driven project since independence. Singapore's leaders have chosen to frame the new challenges of globalisation in terms of the need to navigate between the countervailing pulls of transnationalism and localism.
This is clear, for example, in the terms of reference of the Singapore 21 Committee commissioned to address the challenge of, on the one hand, making Singapore a city with global reach - international, cosmopolitan and creative - and on the other hand, "the best home for Singaporeans".
In recent months, the question as to how best to cope with transnational "outsiders" has provoked debates over new ways of thinking about the local, whether this be a questioning of the meaning of citizenship or a revalorisation of local heritage, or simply a concern for community benefits.
THE BUSINESS CLASS
IN ASPIRING towards global city status, the Singapore state has not only emphasised building up Singapore's total business and human resource capabilities to attract global transnational corporations to the city-state, it has also promoted Singapore as a major engine of foreign direct investments into the rest of Asia through the Regionalisation 2000 scheme.
The vision for Singapore involves criss-crossing circulatory streams of people moving in multiple directions: Not only is the city-state to draw in elite professionals and specialists from all corners of the globe, it is also to become a springboard for venturing into the region.
Another related initiative is the promotion of Singapore as a "wired" world city, one deeply embedded in global circuits of information flows and equipped with advanced telecommunications facilities and the integration of wide-scale information technology strategies.
The corollary of these major strategies to position Singapore as a significant node in the global space of flows is the development of a highly skilled human resource base.
Besides investing heavily in information technology and human capital to meet global competition, the state has emphasised the strategy of attracting foreign talent from all corners of the globe.
The vision is to create "an oasis of talent" in the city-state which will serve as a global hub for business, information and knowledge skills.
Even with the economic downturn in the region, the state has reiterated its stand that Singapore is determined to remain open and to welcome foreign talent. Incentives have included fast-track employment pass applications for foreign professionals, easing restrictions on measures such as allowing foreign husbands to qualify as dependants and offering subsidised state housing to foreign professionals and skilled workers.
Other strategies include the launch of the Contact Singapore programme which involves establishing Singapore centres in major cities around the world as contact points to encourage an inflow of foreign talent into Singapore.
At the same time, despite the regional crisis, "going regional" and "going global" remain strategic thrusts in expanding the reach of the Singapore economy. It remains important to build upon Singapore's global city capabilities so that when the region picks up in three to five years, Singapore will emerge with its competitiveness strengthened.
Such globalising strategies inevitably bring into play a whole series of presences (of foreigners in our midst) in, and absences (of citizens abroad) from, the nation-state.
As a result, not only are the spatial boundaries of the nation-state rendered permeable, the national ideology of "one people, one country" also needs to be recast anew.
While the project of nation-building and forging national identity among Singaporeans - which has been a key prong of state programmes since independence - has not been diminished, the cultivation of "an oasis of talent" requires a re-orientation of Singaporeans' "mental and cultural spaces" from internal concerns to outward visions.
These initiatives have been debated hotly in a number of forums, most recently during the Budget debate in Parliament last week.
Proponents of the need for more foreign talent argue that the logic of importing talent is irrefutable, given that Singapore's small size will never produce enough to maintain a competitive edge in the face of escalating regional and global competition.
The strategy is to draw foreigners to help us compete against others, erasing the divides between nationalities to fuel the competition between places.
Others point to the country's roots as an immigrant society, extending the argument for welcoming foreigners by locating Singapore's success in the ancestral genealogy of "immigrant forefathers" on whose toil the country was built.
Those against the initiative argue that the onslaught of alien values will fray the country's social fabric; competition for space and amenities will heighten; and that policies intended to attract such talent will result in preferential treatment of non-citizens.
Citizenship will not only lose its advantages but citizens will lose out altogether. If foreigners admitted are mainly skilled workers able to command high salaries, there will be no room for the local population, especially those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.
THE UNSKILLED UNDERBELLY
THE Government has been careful to add that the call to absorb foreign talent to create a more creative, cosmopolitan Singapore is not tantamount to opening the floodgates but will be a highly selective process.
Of the categories of foreigners to be brought in to fill the gaps identified in government pronouncements, selectivity is exercised in terms of the degree of permanence accorded to each group.
At the bottom of the pecking order, unskilled workers such as domestic workers and construction workers are relegated to the most transient of categories - work permit holders subject to the "use and discard" philosophy - obviating the need to create any form of social support facilities which may encourage a more permanent presence.
It must be noted, however, that the global city does not only concentrate on skilled professional and managerial workers but is also sustained by low-skilled, low-status migrants who service the needs of the privileged in both residential and commercial settings.
Indeed, it has been argued that low-waged immigrant sector labour is not a residual category in the economy of the global city, but a basic pre-condition, enmeshed in processes which represent "the under-belly of globalisation".
To dampen the rising demand for foreign workers, stringent legislation and levies have been put in place not only to restrict their number and ensure their short-term migrant status, but also to govern their employment.
There are therefore definite limits to cosmopolitanism in Singapore's vision of a global city.
To date, public discourse on foreign workers has focused on issues such as the social problems of foreign worker enclaves, the impact of maids on the Singapore family and the need for quick solutions to repatriate foreign workers found abandoned in the streets rather than their incorporation into the social fabric of the global city.
There is little in public discourse to suggest that they are considered anything more than a transient workforce with little role to play in Singapore's globalising vision.
A recent attempt to renovate and open a constituency sports club to Thai construction workers, for example, attracted public complaints that resources intended for Singapore citizens are being alienated to foreigners.
Even as the dynamics of a globalising world challenge traditional concepts of citizenship and problematises the relative access of citizens and non-citizens to rights and responsibilities, public discourse is highly uneven across the skills divide.
TOURISTS AND THEIR CAPITAL
SINGAPORE aspires to a pivotal position in tourism by serving the tripartite roles of destination, business centre and hub: a dream destination for visitors, a conducive location for tourism investments, and a tourism gateway to South-east Asia.
It is envisaged that in the new millennium, tourism will refer not only to the business of attracting visitors, but also attracting entrepreneurs to invest in the country.
With this in mind, Singapore's tourism future is underpinned by an ambitious plan in which economic wealth is generated not just through the capricious flows of visitors but also through stable investment streams.
Transnational flows of visitors are therefore to be augmented by the transnational flows of capital, expertise and corporate elites.
According to Fortune magazine's listing of top global business cities, quality of life indices such as pleasant urban environments and lively cultural scenes are as important to businesses and corporate elites as quality of business indices.
In response, Singapore's tourism architects have outlined a wide-scale urban enhancement scheme. Eleven "experiential themes" have been selected to accentuate Singapore's cultural and aesthetic resources, while also focusing urban redevelopment in strategic sites.
For example, the "Night Zone" theme highlights the need to develop Singapore's nocturnal food and entertainment spots, while "Ethnic Singapore" emphasises the importance of multicultural diversity and festivity through the revitalisation of Chinatown and Little India.
The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has also adopted a transborder tourism approach by going beyond the nation's physical boundaries.
The transborder approach encourages businesses in Singapore to expand to the rest of South-east Asia as well as visitors to travel to neighbouring places after visiting Singapore. As the gateway to the region, Singapore positions itself as a primal node in the regional hierarchy of cities.
An example is the harnessing of its pre-existing strengths in air and sea port development to serve as a cruise hub of the region.
This "vision of a tourism capital" (STB's tagline) has been contested in the public domain. The notion of urban thematic development may be perceived negatively as yet another form of tourism promotion rather than an avenue to enrich Singaporean lifestyle, as evident in the recent furore over the redevelopment of Chinatown.
Rather than make Singapore attractive to and liveable for its own people, thematic development may run the risk of packaging the country through slick marketing and memorable soundbites directed solely at tourists and tourism investments.
It must also be remembered that Singapore's ambition to be a tourism gateway cannot presuppose an unchallenged hegemony given the tourism-politics of the region.
Rival cities like Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, and those afar like Hongkong are investment centres in their own rights and compete aggressively as spatial sponges for tourism investments. With the opening of new airports in the region, alternative gateways are being churned up constantly in the forms of Kuala Lumpur, Macau, Hongkong and Bangkok.
Indeed, Singapore's quest to be a nodal city in the urban regional hierarchy is highly contested because of the constant threat of "dehubbing" by rival localities, and the fluctuating fortunes of neighbouring countries.
THE CREATIVE SPECIALISTS
"SOFTWARE" businesses such as the arts, media and leisure constitute a form of "cultural capital" which imparts places with an image of social vibrance and economic supremacy.
Cultural industries have been described as "symbolic economies" which play a seductive role in attracting other forms of capital, tourists and skilled professionals.
A thriving cultural industry fulfils a symbolic function in projecting the country multifariously as a global city, a tourist destination, a viable investment venue and a good home in which to live.
An important strategy has been to market Singapore as a "Global City for the Arts".
Allowing Singapore to focus on a particularly high-yield and long-staying market, arts tourism has led to the staging of arts attractions and events such as the Tresors International Arts and Antiques Fair; Broadway productions of Cats, Phantom Of The Opera and Les Miserables; as well as popular entertainment events ranging from DisneyFest to pop, jazz, and new-age music concerts.
Capitalising on Western art forms, Singapore caters to a burgeoning Asian market by providing an alternative to Western cultural hubs such as New York, London and Paris.
Replicating its successful hub concept in manufacturing, finance, transport and communications, a similar ambition is also envisioned for arts and culture.
Towards this end, new incentive schemes, subsidies and infrastructure have been developed to fuel the arts as a source of jobs, revenue and investment. Ambitious plans have been drawn up to develop new venues for the performing arts, museums and galleries.
The "Global City for the Arts" vision fulfils both economic goals and socio-political agendas.
In an era in which people flows are as fluid as capital flows, the cultural industry takes on the symbolic role of strategic place marketing to satisfy the needs of its key constituencies which include citizens, investors and workers, as well as to attract potential new businesses, tourists and residents.
Singapore's cultural production has also provoked debates. The very concept of hubbing emphasises massive infrastructural development; the import of cultural specialists; and recognises the needs of tourists.
The benefits to local practitioners and experimental arts groups, and the attention to smaller-scale development projects are less visible. The development of The Esplanade - Theatres On The Bay project, the largest scale and most expensive infrastructural development in the arts, also reinforces the country's keen interest in hosting hallmark events and foreign entertainment acts.
Some have commented that while much capital has been invested in bringing the world to Singapore, disproportionately little has been done to encourage the local artistic fraternity to "bring Singapore to the world".
It has been argued that more could be done at the grassroots level to stimulate local talent and create modest-scale arts infrastructure.
Another area of debate pertains to conforming to international norms in artistic and cultural practices, a requirement which many creative specialists feel the government has been slow to adhere to.
The policing of pop concerts offers an illuminating case in point. Prior to the relaxing of regulations in October last year, concert organisers had to follow strict rules such as not allowing performers to interact with audience; preventing dancing by members of the public; and installing barricades in front of stages.
These regulations are hostile to international performers and tourists, and conflict with Singapore's ambition to be an entertainment hub.
It has also given rise to criticisms that pop concerts in Singapore are "sub-standard" because performers are cowed by police regulations to practice self-censorship.
Only recently has greater responsibility been devolved to concert organisers, with the police taking on a new role "not to ban and restrict, but to advise and consult".
The Government's gradual programme of prudent liberalisation aimed at relaxing rules on censorship of films, media and live performances is informed by its desire to compete internationally with other global cities and cultural capitals.
Cynics, however, question whether an artistic society can be fostered through an economics-driven programme of change.
It has also been asked whether the current climate of liberalisation is the outcome of social progress, or whether it is a simple knee-jerk response to the exigencies of tourism promotion and capitalist accumulation.
CITIZENS VS NON-CITIZENS
THE distinctive character and problems of global cities emerge from their disparate communities comprising transients, sojourners, immigrants and citizens, and their interactions with each other.
In many ways, Singapore has always been a community of locals and cosmopolitans, of insiders and outsiders.
As an immigrant society, the earliest challenge of independence was to create a cohesive community among disparate ethnic groups.
As a transnational society in the '90s, the challenge is to quell tensions between multiple local and foreign groups.
Perhaps the most obvious tension lies in the local-foreign divide. Singaporeans' attitudes towards foreigners have been expressed in three ways:
* "Looking up to them" (the colonial mentality that the expatriate is always right);
* "Looking down on them" (antagonism towards foreign domestic and manual workers); and
* "Fear of them" (fear of their physical presence and their "taking our jobs, our children's places in schools, and marrying our daughters").
None of these attitudes help resolve the tensions between "us" and "them" or cope with the true breadth and depth of cosmopolitanism.
Another issue which has to be grappled with is the whole notion of "home/citizenship".
Marked by significant citizen-absences and non-citizen-presences, citizenship and the rights to participate in the public sphere within the global city-state can no longer be defined solely on the basis of presence in a residential community or place.
The category "citizen" (and its converse "non-citizen") has to be dismantled and reconstructed to remain relevant to the reality of the kaleidoscopic "ethnoscape" of the global city, perhaps by associating rights and responsibilities to different degrees of permanence rather than binary categories of citizen/non-citizen.
This will be a difficult political manoeuvre, given the anxieties about foreigners who invade the terrain of citizenry embedded in the Singaporean psyche.
It is also unclear how notions of the "global citizen" and "cosmopolitan living" will dovetail with the on-going project of nation-building based on the racial arithmetic of the four foundational "races" as closed categories, a formula with little room for foreign others.
At a different end of the spectrum, citizen-absences also have to be addressed. The idea of the "virtual state" predicated on information networks binding Singaporeans wherever they are in the world to their "home" has been mooted.
Recent debates on the question of overseas voting however suggest that the teasing apart of "nationality" and "place" has yet to be resolved.
Finally, insufficient attention has been given to the interconnections and interdependence of the different transnational streams whose itineraries meet in the global city.
For example, the social reproduction of the elite workforce including "foreign talent" in the global city is predicated on the services of the low-wage, low-skilled sector which often comprised other foreigners.
Similarly, the transnational business class and creative specialists in Singapore are two groups which the government wants to attract simultaneously to fulfil Singapore's goal as a "Global City with Total Business Capabilities".
A pool of creative specialists in the arts and culture will in turn attract another group of transnationals, namely international and regional tourists.
Corporate elites, immigrant communities, creative specialists and world tourists are all transnational communities which people the contemporary global city. It is their interaction with one another and with the local citizens that constitutes the greatest challenge for policy makers in seeking, to quote Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, "the ferment of a new society, yet the cohesion of a mature one".
There is a need to understand global cities as meeting places for multiple communities whose intersection in place reflects their symbiotic though not always conflict-free relationship with each other.
As Singapore aims to be a "global city" as well as the "best home" for its citizens, the tensions between its global aspirations and local assertions have to be re-negotiated constantly. * Brenda Yeoh is an associate professor, and T. C. Chang an assistant professor, in the Geography Department, National University of Singapore. Dr Yeoh is also director of the NUS' Centre for Advanced Studies.
Foreign talent and the global city
By Brenda Yeoh and T. C. Chang.
Straits Times, 21 March 1999
BRENDA YEOH and T. C. CHANG examine the issues involved in shaping Singapore into a truly "global city' of transnational flows.
IN A 1993 article, Humanising The City, Stockholm University academic Ulf Hannerz described four groups of people who are engaged actively in the transnational flow of culture and who, in some sphere or other, give cities their "global" character.
These are:
* Transnational business, involving high-waged, highly skilled professional, managerial and entrepreneurial elites usually associated with finance, banking and business services;
* Third World populations comprising low-waged immigrants who occupy insecure niches in the unskilled or semi-skilled sectors of the urban service economy;
* Expressive specialists who participate in the cultural scene in areas such as art, fashion, design, photography, film-making, writing, music and cuisine; and
* Tourists who are present in considerable numbers, attracted by the cosmopolitan intensity of the global city.
These transnational flows - and, perhaps more importantly, the interconnections among the different streams - are what ensures that global cities remain cultural marketplaces and business epicentres par excellence.
At the same time, while taking up their positions in the global economy as the centres of transnational flows, cities must also integrate their local societies. For, without a solid base in the citizens, city governments will not have the strength that is needed to navigate those global circuits.
Within the world city hierarchy, Singapore is ranked in the second tier, among those aspiring for "superleague" status.
At the same time, the construction of nationhood has been a major state-driven project since independence. Singapore's leaders have chosen to frame the new challenges of globalisation in terms of the need to navigate between the countervailing pulls of transnationalism and localism.
This is clear, for example, in the terms of reference of the Singapore 21 Committee commissioned to address the challenge of, on the one hand, making Singapore a city with global reach - international, cosmopolitan and creative - and on the other hand, "the best home for Singaporeans".
In recent months, the question as to how best to cope with transnational "outsiders" has provoked debates over new ways of thinking about the local, whether this be a questioning of the meaning of citizenship or a revalorisation of local heritage, or simply a concern for community benefits.
THE BUSINESS CLASS
IN ASPIRING towards global city status, the Singapore state has not only emphasised building up Singapore's total business and human resource capabilities to attract global transnational corporations to the city-state, it has also promoted Singapore as a major engine of foreign direct investments into the rest of Asia through the Regionalisation 2000 scheme.
The vision for Singapore involves criss-crossing circulatory streams of people moving in multiple directions: Not only is the city-state to draw in elite professionals and specialists from all corners of the globe, it is also to become a springboard for venturing into the region.
Another related initiative is the promotion of Singapore as a "wired" world city, one deeply embedded in global circuits of information flows and equipped with advanced telecommunications facilities and the integration of wide-scale information technology strategies.
The corollary of these major strategies to position Singapore as a significant node in the global space of flows is the development of a highly skilled human resource base.
Besides investing heavily in information technology and human capital to meet global competition, the state has emphasised the strategy of attracting foreign talent from all corners of the globe.
The vision is to create "an oasis of talent" in the city-state which will serve as a global hub for business, information and knowledge skills.
Even with the economic downturn in the region, the state has reiterated its stand that Singapore is determined to remain open and to welcome foreign talent. Incentives have included fast-track employment pass applications for foreign professionals, easing restrictions on measures such as allowing foreign husbands to qualify as dependants and offering subsidised state housing to foreign professionals and skilled workers.
Other strategies include the launch of the Contact Singapore programme which involves establishing Singapore centres in major cities around the world as contact points to encourage an inflow of foreign talent into Singapore.
At the same time, despite the regional crisis, "going regional" and "going global" remain strategic thrusts in expanding the reach of the Singapore economy. It remains important to build upon Singapore's global city capabilities so that when the region picks up in three to five years, Singapore will emerge with its competitiveness strengthened.
Such globalising strategies inevitably bring into play a whole series of presences (of foreigners in our midst) in, and absences (of citizens abroad) from, the nation-state.
As a result, not only are the spatial boundaries of the nation-state rendered permeable, the national ideology of "one people, one country" also needs to be recast anew.
While the project of nation-building and forging national identity among Singaporeans - which has been a key prong of state programmes since independence - has not been diminished, the cultivation of "an oasis of talent" requires a re-orientation of Singaporeans' "mental and cultural spaces" from internal concerns to outward visions.
These initiatives have been debated hotly in a number of forums, most recently during the Budget debate in Parliament last week.
Proponents of the need for more foreign talent argue that the logic of importing talent is irrefutable, given that Singapore's small size will never produce enough to maintain a competitive edge in the face of escalating regional and global competition.
The strategy is to draw foreigners to help us compete against others, erasing the divides between nationalities to fuel the competition between places.
Others point to the country's roots as an immigrant society, extending the argument for welcoming foreigners by locating Singapore's success in the ancestral genealogy of "immigrant forefathers" on whose toil the country was built.
Those against the initiative argue that the onslaught of alien values will fray the country's social fabric; competition for space and amenities will heighten; and that policies intended to attract such talent will result in preferential treatment of non-citizens.
Citizenship will not only lose its advantages but citizens will lose out altogether. If foreigners admitted are mainly skilled workers able to command high salaries, there will be no room for the local population, especially those at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder.
THE UNSKILLED UNDERBELLY
THE Government has been careful to add that the call to absorb foreign talent to create a more creative, cosmopolitan Singapore is not tantamount to opening the floodgates but will be a highly selective process.
Of the categories of foreigners to be brought in to fill the gaps identified in government pronouncements, selectivity is exercised in terms of the degree of permanence accorded to each group.
At the bottom of the pecking order, unskilled workers such as domestic workers and construction workers are relegated to the most transient of categories - work permit holders subject to the "use and discard" philosophy - obviating the need to create any form of social support facilities which may encourage a more permanent presence.
It must be noted, however, that the global city does not only concentrate on skilled professional and managerial workers but is also sustained by low-skilled, low-status migrants who service the needs of the privileged in both residential and commercial settings.
Indeed, it has been argued that low-waged immigrant sector labour is not a residual category in the economy of the global city, but a basic pre-condition, enmeshed in processes which represent "the under-belly of globalisation".
To dampen the rising demand for foreign workers, stringent legislation and levies have been put in place not only to restrict their number and ensure their short-term migrant status, but also to govern their employment.
There are therefore definite limits to cosmopolitanism in Singapore's vision of a global city.
To date, public discourse on foreign workers has focused on issues such as the social problems of foreign worker enclaves, the impact of maids on the Singapore family and the need for quick solutions to repatriate foreign workers found abandoned in the streets rather than their incorporation into the social fabric of the global city.
There is little in public discourse to suggest that they are considered anything more than a transient workforce with little role to play in Singapore's globalising vision.
A recent attempt to renovate and open a constituency sports club to Thai construction workers, for example, attracted public complaints that resources intended for Singapore citizens are being alienated to foreigners.
Even as the dynamics of a globalising world challenge traditional concepts of citizenship and problematises the relative access of citizens and non-citizens to rights and responsibilities, public discourse is highly uneven across the skills divide.
TOURISTS AND THEIR CAPITAL
SINGAPORE aspires to a pivotal position in tourism by serving the tripartite roles of destination, business centre and hub: a dream destination for visitors, a conducive location for tourism investments, and a tourism gateway to South-east Asia.
It is envisaged that in the new millennium, tourism will refer not only to the business of attracting visitors, but also attracting entrepreneurs to invest in the country.
With this in mind, Singapore's tourism future is underpinned by an ambitious plan in which economic wealth is generated not just through the capricious flows of visitors but also through stable investment streams.
Transnational flows of visitors are therefore to be augmented by the transnational flows of capital, expertise and corporate elites.
According to Fortune magazine's listing of top global business cities, quality of life indices such as pleasant urban environments and lively cultural scenes are as important to businesses and corporate elites as quality of business indices.
In response, Singapore's tourism architects have outlined a wide-scale urban enhancement scheme. Eleven "experiential themes" have been selected to accentuate Singapore's cultural and aesthetic resources, while also focusing urban redevelopment in strategic sites.
For example, the "Night Zone" theme highlights the need to develop Singapore's nocturnal food and entertainment spots, while "Ethnic Singapore" emphasises the importance of multicultural diversity and festivity through the revitalisation of Chinatown and Little India.
The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) has also adopted a transborder tourism approach by going beyond the nation's physical boundaries.
The transborder approach encourages businesses in Singapore to expand to the rest of South-east Asia as well as visitors to travel to neighbouring places after visiting Singapore. As the gateway to the region, Singapore positions itself as a primal node in the regional hierarchy of cities.
An example is the harnessing of its pre-existing strengths in air and sea port development to serve as a cruise hub of the region.
This "vision of a tourism capital" (STB's tagline) has been contested in the public domain. The notion of urban thematic development may be perceived negatively as yet another form of tourism promotion rather than an avenue to enrich Singaporean lifestyle, as evident in the recent furore over the redevelopment of Chinatown.
Rather than make Singapore attractive to and liveable for its own people, thematic development may run the risk of packaging the country through slick marketing and memorable soundbites directed solely at tourists and tourism investments.
It must also be remembered that Singapore's ambition to be a tourism gateway cannot presuppose an unchallenged hegemony given the tourism-politics of the region.
Rival cities like Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, and those afar like Hongkong are investment centres in their own rights and compete aggressively as spatial sponges for tourism investments. With the opening of new airports in the region, alternative gateways are being churned up constantly in the forms of Kuala Lumpur, Macau, Hongkong and Bangkok.
Indeed, Singapore's quest to be a nodal city in the urban regional hierarchy is highly contested because of the constant threat of "dehubbing" by rival localities, and the fluctuating fortunes of neighbouring countries.
THE CREATIVE SPECIALISTS
"SOFTWARE" businesses such as the arts, media and leisure constitute a form of "cultural capital" which imparts places with an image of social vibrance and economic supremacy.
Cultural industries have been described as "symbolic economies" which play a seductive role in attracting other forms of capital, tourists and skilled professionals.
A thriving cultural industry fulfils a symbolic function in projecting the country multifariously as a global city, a tourist destination, a viable investment venue and a good home in which to live.
An important strategy has been to market Singapore as a "Global City for the Arts".
Allowing Singapore to focus on a particularly high-yield and long-staying market, arts tourism has led to the staging of arts attractions and events such as the Tresors International Arts and Antiques Fair; Broadway productions of Cats, Phantom Of The Opera and Les Miserables; as well as popular entertainment events ranging from DisneyFest to pop, jazz, and new-age music concerts.
Capitalising on Western art forms, Singapore caters to a burgeoning Asian market by providing an alternative to Western cultural hubs such as New York, London and Paris.
Replicating its successful hub concept in manufacturing, finance, transport and communications, a similar ambition is also envisioned for arts and culture.
Towards this end, new incentive schemes, subsidies and infrastructure have been developed to fuel the arts as a source of jobs, revenue and investment. Ambitious plans have been drawn up to develop new venues for the performing arts, museums and galleries.
The "Global City for the Arts" vision fulfils both economic goals and socio-political agendas.
In an era in which people flows are as fluid as capital flows, the cultural industry takes on the symbolic role of strategic place marketing to satisfy the needs of its key constituencies which include citizens, investors and workers, as well as to attract potential new businesses, tourists and residents.
Singapore's cultural production has also provoked debates. The very concept of hubbing emphasises massive infrastructural development; the import of cultural specialists; and recognises the needs of tourists.
The benefits to local practitioners and experimental arts groups, and the attention to smaller-scale development projects are less visible. The development of The Esplanade - Theatres On The Bay project, the largest scale and most expensive infrastructural development in the arts, also reinforces the country's keen interest in hosting hallmark events and foreign entertainment acts.
Some have commented that while much capital has been invested in bringing the world to Singapore, disproportionately little has been done to encourage the local artistic fraternity to "bring Singapore to the world".
It has been argued that more could be done at the grassroots level to stimulate local talent and create modest-scale arts infrastructure.
Another area of debate pertains to conforming to international norms in artistic and cultural practices, a requirement which many creative specialists feel the government has been slow to adhere to.
The policing of pop concerts offers an illuminating case in point. Prior to the relaxing of regulations in October last year, concert organisers had to follow strict rules such as not allowing performers to interact with audience; preventing dancing by members of the public; and installing barricades in front of stages.
These regulations are hostile to international performers and tourists, and conflict with Singapore's ambition to be an entertainment hub.
It has also given rise to criticisms that pop concerts in Singapore are "sub-standard" because performers are cowed by police regulations to practice self-censorship.
Only recently has greater responsibility been devolved to concert organisers, with the police taking on a new role "not to ban and restrict, but to advise and consult".
The Government's gradual programme of prudent liberalisation aimed at relaxing rules on censorship of films, media and live performances is informed by its desire to compete internationally with other global cities and cultural capitals.
Cynics, however, question whether an artistic society can be fostered through an economics-driven programme of change.
It has also been asked whether the current climate of liberalisation is the outcome of social progress, or whether it is a simple knee-jerk response to the exigencies of tourism promotion and capitalist accumulation.
CITIZENS VS NON-CITIZENS
THE distinctive character and problems of global cities emerge from their disparate communities comprising transients, sojourners, immigrants and citizens, and their interactions with each other.
In many ways, Singapore has always been a community of locals and cosmopolitans, of insiders and outsiders.
As an immigrant society, the earliest challenge of independence was to create a cohesive community among disparate ethnic groups.
As a transnational society in the '90s, the challenge is to quell tensions between multiple local and foreign groups.
Perhaps the most obvious tension lies in the local-foreign divide. Singaporeans' attitudes towards foreigners have been expressed in three ways:
* "Looking up to them" (the colonial mentality that the expatriate is always right);
* "Looking down on them" (antagonism towards foreign domestic and manual workers); and
* "Fear of them" (fear of their physical presence and their "taking our jobs, our children's places in schools, and marrying our daughters").
None of these attitudes help resolve the tensions between "us" and "them" or cope with the true breadth and depth of cosmopolitanism.
Another issue which has to be grappled with is the whole notion of "home/citizenship".
Marked by significant citizen-absences and non-citizen-presences, citizenship and the rights to participate in the public sphere within the global city-state can no longer be defined solely on the basis of presence in a residential community or place.
The category "citizen" (and its converse "non-citizen") has to be dismantled and reconstructed to remain relevant to the reality of the kaleidoscopic "ethnoscape" of the global city, perhaps by associating rights and responsibilities to different degrees of permanence rather than binary categories of citizen/non-citizen.
This will be a difficult political manoeuvre, given the anxieties about foreigners who invade the terrain of citizenry embedded in the Singaporean psyche.
It is also unclear how notions of the "global citizen" and "cosmopolitan living" will dovetail with the on-going project of nation-building based on the racial arithmetic of the four foundational "races" as closed categories, a formula with little room for foreign others.
At a different end of the spectrum, citizen-absences also have to be addressed. The idea of the "virtual state" predicated on information networks binding Singaporeans wherever they are in the world to their "home" has been mooted.
Recent debates on the question of overseas voting however suggest that the teasing apart of "nationality" and "place" has yet to be resolved.
Finally, insufficient attention has been given to the interconnections and interdependence of the different transnational streams whose itineraries meet in the global city.
For example, the social reproduction of the elite workforce including "foreign talent" in the global city is predicated on the services of the low-wage, low-skilled sector which often comprised other foreigners.
Similarly, the transnational business class and creative specialists in Singapore are two groups which the government wants to attract simultaneously to fulfil Singapore's goal as a "Global City with Total Business Capabilities".
A pool of creative specialists in the arts and culture will in turn attract another group of transnationals, namely international and regional tourists.
Corporate elites, immigrant communities, creative specialists and world tourists are all transnational communities which people the contemporary global city. It is their interaction with one another and with the local citizens that constitutes the greatest challenge for policy makers in seeking, to quote Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, "the ferment of a new society, yet the cohesion of a mature one".
There is a need to understand global cities as meeting places for multiple communities whose intersection in place reflects their symbiotic though not always conflict-free relationship with each other.
As Singapore aims to be a "global city" as well as the "best home" for its citizens, the tensions between its global aspirations and local assertions have to be re-negotiated constantly. * Brenda Yeoh is an associate professor, and T. C. Chang an assistant professor, in the Geography Department, National University of Singapore. Dr Yeoh is also director of the NUS' Centre for Advanced Studies.
Tuesday, March 9, 1999
He accepted the blame - for S$3,300
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 9 March 1999.
He accepted the blame - for S$3,300
Straits Times, 9 March 1999
A MAN accepted more than S$3,000 in bribes from a stall owner, to take the blame for the employment of seven illegal immigrants, a district court heard.
Odd-job labourer Ng Buck Yong, 30, admitted to five charges of corruption and was jailed 12 months yesterday. He also has to pay a penalty of S$7,800.
Five other similar charges were considered in sentencing. The court heard that between June and October 1997, Ng accepted a total of S$3,300 in bribes.
This was from Wang Wang Fish Head Bee Hoon stall owner, Madam Ng Kwee Ling, who had employed seven illegal foreign workers at her stalls in Jurong East, Yishun Central and Woodlands Drive. The odd-job labourer faces two other Ministry of Manpower summonses for helping another person to employ a foreign worker without a valid work permit. He claimed trial for these two charges.
He has previous convictions for affray, impersonating a police officer, and employing illegal immigrants.
His lawyer, Mr Richard Lim, pleaded for leniency, saying that his client, who is from a poor family, needed money to repay loansharks.
He had borrowed the money because his own food stall business had suffered heavy losses, said Mr Lim.
He accepted the blame - for S$3,300
Straits Times, 9 March 1999
A MAN accepted more than S$3,000 in bribes from a stall owner, to take the blame for the employment of seven illegal immigrants, a district court heard.
Odd-job labourer Ng Buck Yong, 30, admitted to five charges of corruption and was jailed 12 months yesterday. He also has to pay a penalty of S$7,800.
Five other similar charges were considered in sentencing. The court heard that between June and October 1997, Ng accepted a total of S$3,300 in bribes.
This was from Wang Wang Fish Head Bee Hoon stall owner, Madam Ng Kwee Ling, who had employed seven illegal foreign workers at her stalls in Jurong East, Yishun Central and Woodlands Drive. The odd-job labourer faces two other Ministry of Manpower summonses for helping another person to employ a foreign worker without a valid work permit. He claimed trial for these two charges.
He has previous convictions for affray, impersonating a police officer, and employing illegal immigrants.
His lawyer, Mr Richard Lim, pleaded for leniency, saying that his client, who is from a poor family, needed money to repay loansharks.
He had borrowed the money because his own food stall business had suffered heavy losses, said Mr Lim.
Saturday, January 16, 1999
Flexi-wages passed test, says Boon Heng
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 16 January 1999.
Flexi-wages passed test, says Boon Heng
Straits Times, 16 January 1999
"If we can achieve 8 to 10 per cent from the cutting of annual bonuses, we need the balance to come from the monthly variable component. So we're talking about 3 to 6 per cent at least.' - NTUC secretary-general Lim Boon Heng, on what needs to be done to make wages even more flexible
Singapore Wages
Labour chief says system proved itself in current slump; cites report that said S'pore's competitive edge over its neighbours even increased
THE flexible wage system built up since the last recession in the mid-1980s has passed the test in the current economic downturn, Minister-without-Portfolio and labour chief Lim Boon Heng said yesterday.
He cited last year's wage figures and a Jan 6 report by Merrill Lynch Securities to show that the labour movement's confidence in the system was founded.
Some, he noted, were sceptical about trade unions' calls for employers to use the system to cut business costs.
He said a reputable financial analyst, which he did not name, told its clients that "it remained to be seen whether the much vaunted system would work".
But the unions' confidence was borne out by the results. The average negotiated annual pay rise fell from about 4 per cent at the start of last year to about 2 per cent by the third quarter.
Some unions even accepted a wage freeze to save jobs in several companies. The Merrill Lynch report to clients said wages became remarkably flexible even without recent initiatives to cut the CPF rate for employers. It added: "In the third quarter, for the first time, Unit Labour Cost (ULC) growth moderated despite the contraction in output.
"This suggested that in this downturn, the decline in wages has actually moved ahead of the fall in output.
"ULC growth slowed to 1.8 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter from 3.1 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter."
Wages were "not sticky downwards", it said, adding that there would be cost savings of S$7.5 billion a year through cuts in bonuses, foreign worker levies, and the employer's CPF rate.
"In short, thanks to the regional crisis, the competitiveness gap that Singapore enjoyed over its neighbours appears to widen dramatically."
Speaking at a ceremony where Singapore Pools donated S$250,000 to the union movement's education and training fund, Mr Lim said wages could be made more flexible with a variable monthly component built up over a period of time.
He said that wages here could be lowered without the kind of labour unrest seen elsewhere because "workers know that we have their interest at heart."
"They know that we will help retrenched workers find new jobs. They know that we spare no efforts in training or retraining workers in new skills so that they can find new jobs."
He added that workers must upgrade to narrow the skills gap with developed countries.
Flexi-wages passed test, says Boon Heng
Straits Times, 16 January 1999
"If we can achieve 8 to 10 per cent from the cutting of annual bonuses, we need the balance to come from the monthly variable component. So we're talking about 3 to 6 per cent at least.' - NTUC secretary-general Lim Boon Heng, on what needs to be done to make wages even more flexible
Singapore Wages
Labour chief says system proved itself in current slump; cites report that said S'pore's competitive edge over its neighbours even increased
THE flexible wage system built up since the last recession in the mid-1980s has passed the test in the current economic downturn, Minister-without-Portfolio and labour chief Lim Boon Heng said yesterday.
He cited last year's wage figures and a Jan 6 report by Merrill Lynch Securities to show that the labour movement's confidence in the system was founded.
Some, he noted, were sceptical about trade unions' calls for employers to use the system to cut business costs.
He said a reputable financial analyst, which he did not name, told its clients that "it remained to be seen whether the much vaunted system would work".
But the unions' confidence was borne out by the results. The average negotiated annual pay rise fell from about 4 per cent at the start of last year to about 2 per cent by the third quarter.
Some unions even accepted a wage freeze to save jobs in several companies. The Merrill Lynch report to clients said wages became remarkably flexible even without recent initiatives to cut the CPF rate for employers. It added: "In the third quarter, for the first time, Unit Labour Cost (ULC) growth moderated despite the contraction in output.
"This suggested that in this downturn, the decline in wages has actually moved ahead of the fall in output.
"ULC growth slowed to 1.8 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter from 3.1 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter."
Wages were "not sticky downwards", it said, adding that there would be cost savings of S$7.5 billion a year through cuts in bonuses, foreign worker levies, and the employer's CPF rate.
"In short, thanks to the regional crisis, the competitiveness gap that Singapore enjoyed over its neighbours appears to widen dramatically."
Speaking at a ceremony where Singapore Pools donated S$250,000 to the union movement's education and training fund, Mr Lim said wages could be made more flexible with a variable monthly component built up over a period of time.
He said that wages here could be lowered without the kind of labour unrest seen elsewhere because "workers know that we have their interest at heart."
"They know that we will help retrenched workers find new jobs. They know that we spare no efforts in training or retraining workers in new skills so that they can find new jobs."
He added that workers must upgrade to narrow the skills gap with developed countries.
Sunday, January 3, 1999
7 malaria cases in Mandai area
The following article was published in the Straits Times on 3 Jan 1999.
7 malaria cases in Mandai area
Straits Times, 3 January 1999
SEVEN foreign workers, working and staying in the Mandai area, have come down with malaria.
The source of the outbreak has been traced to a foreign worker who was infected in his home country, said an Environment Ministry statement yesterday.
It said that the workers had been working and staying between Lorong Asrama and Mandai Estate, an area which is mostly forested, with a few work sites, a civil defence training camp, an army camp and an old folks' home.
The cases were mild, said the ministry, and all the infected workers had already recovered and left hospital.
The statement added that ENV had taken all appropriate measures to prevent the disease from spreading to the local population. All potential mosquito breeding grounds were destroyed and the area had been fogged heavily with insecticide.
ENV officers have also been searching for unreported malaria cases, said the statement.
It added that residents in the area and others who had been to the area in the past three weeks should see a doctor immediately, if they develop a fever.
7 malaria cases in Mandai area
Straits Times, 3 January 1999
SEVEN foreign workers, working and staying in the Mandai area, have come down with malaria.
The source of the outbreak has been traced to a foreign worker who was infected in his home country, said an Environment Ministry statement yesterday.
It said that the workers had been working and staying between Lorong Asrama and Mandai Estate, an area which is mostly forested, with a few work sites, a civil defence training camp, an army camp and an old folks' home.
The cases were mild, said the ministry, and all the infected workers had already recovered and left hospital.
The statement added that ENV had taken all appropriate measures to prevent the disease from spreading to the local population. All potential mosquito breeding grounds were destroyed and the area had been fogged heavily with insecticide.
ENV officers have also been searching for unreported malaria cases, said the statement.
It added that residents in the area and others who had been to the area in the past three weeks should see a doctor immediately, if they develop a fever.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)