Singapore - the part Sri Lankans don't know
To most Sri Lankans, Singapore represents an oasis of prosperity, growth, great shopping, a high quality of life and superior wages. But social activist and opposition politicians, who are freer to speak now than decades ago during the iron-clad rule of Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew, the appearance of prosperity and wealth masks a hidden reality: a growing underclass of people not moving up the ladder and a subtle form of repression. "Our per capita income is (Singapore dollars) S$63,000 per (about US$50,000 per year) which is about the 3th-4th highest in the world. However we still have local people who are earning S$500 a month as cleaners and often they tend to be very elderly people, 60 -70 years and sometimes in the early 80s," says Vincent Wijeysingha, a 42-year old social activist cum politician with Sri Lankan roots from the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), where he functions as the treasurer.
Discussing Singapore’s success and its wealth and quality of life that has drawn admiration from across the world, Dr Wijeysingha - in Colombo to attend the annual congress of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats last week, said Singapore is a privatized welfare state with each resident contributing to a fund which tends to marginalize the older people, often tradespersons or cobblers who have no money and are forced to work even in their '80s. Getting work is not easy as most employers could employ unskilled foreign workers for as low as S$450 which in any way is not a living wage.
Last year inflation was 5.5 % and inflation is mainly created by housing and transport - both of which the state controls since 86% of the population live in government flats. "This masks the growing underclass. There are various levels of discrimination in terms of race with the Malay community suffering the worse. There are inequities in how government money is spent, one being the number of nonASEAN foreign students being gives full scholarships to local universities which costs $36 million a year," he said adding that the reason for this spend is in the hope that they would work in Singapore after graduation and secondly to improve the university rankings internationally. There are higher marks given to universities which attract large numbers of overseas students.
He said the other resentment is government wages - that of ministers who are the highest paid in the world. "Compare a cleaner getting 20 cents an hour as against the Prime Minister earning S$1000 per hour? In fact the 10% richest (of the population) are getting richer while the 10% poorest are becoming poorer," noted the politician, who has a social work degree and worked on issues relating to low waged migrant workers before taking to politics.
In a relaxed conversation about his roots, aspirations, where he would like Singapore to be, the Singaporean politician shares his thoughts on a range of political, social and economic issues that should interest Sri Lankans: