SOCIAL: Keeping Our Environment Clean And Green

More people we know seem to be stricken by cancer and more young people are dying from  explainable  illnesses. What has gone wrong?

Much blame has been placed on our stress levels, lifestyles and the foods and drinks that we consume. These are undeniably contributory factors but there is something else that has an equally important, if not a greater impact on our health. Our living environment.

We generate as much as 1,370 kg of waste per person each year according to  Singapore 2014 Waste Statistics and that's a whopping total of 7,514,500 tonnes each year. Imagine producing so much waste and not knowing how to protect the environment that we live in. What will happen?

A healthy living environment is definitely important to help us to keep diseases at bay. Wash your hands before you eat and try to keep public eating places as clean as possible after you are done eating or drinking. Throw your litter into the refuse bin. Do not litter to create a breeding ground for rodents and pests. Learn to properly recycle waste and be environmentally friendly. Stop your engine from running when your vehicle is parked to reduce air pollution. Save electricity and water whenever you can as these are precious limited resources that we need for our daily living.

Keep our city clean and green always. Trees and shrubs not only beautify our landscape but add colour and vibrancy to a healthy living environment. Do not destroy our natural environment. If we do, we are harming ourselves. Take care of mother earth and mother earth will take care of you.

Let's work together to keep each other healthy. And happy.

Improvement Projects in NRP Constituencies - The use of CIPC funding

The idea of forming grassroots organisations like Residents' Committees (RCs) and Citizens' Consultative Committees (CCCs) was to enable volunteers in the community to help the government in implementing its policies and reaching out to residents. Those who manage RCs and CCCs are invariably identified as supporters of the ruling party though many may be motivated to volunteer by a desire to serve the people in their community.

It is often lamented that an MP from a non-ruling party (NRP) taking over the running of a constituency from a ruling party MP has to countenance difficulties from RCs and CCS in the implementation of their programmes. Both MPs and NCMPs have expressed that major obstacles still remain for opposition parliamentarians (Click HERE). One of these obstacles is in tapping on state funds which are set aside for improving infrastructural and recreational facilities for the benefit of residents in their constituencies which include covered walkways, footpaths, cycling tracks and playgrounds.

In one parliamentary session, the Minister for National Development ("MND") was asked for the guidelines for the utilisation of the Community Improvement Projects Committee (CIPC) funding (Click HERE). In his reply, the Minister answered that "CIPC funds are disbursed through the CCCs as they are close to the ground and will be better able to decide on the projects which will be most useful for the local residents. The CCCs are given flexibility to assess the relevance of any proposal and to prioritise them for implementation so that the CIPC funds are optimally utilised. The operating principle for the CCCs is to ensure that the approved CIPC projects are useful, functional, represent value for money, freely accessible to the community and properly planned." 

In short, CCCs have the power to decide if an elected MP may go ahead with his plans to improve infrastructural and recreational facilities for his residents. Given that CCCs are not apolitical in character,  this arrangement poses a serious obstacle to an elected NRP MP's programmes to benefit his constituents. The question that arises is whether funds meant for community improvements should be disbursed to CCSs if the CCC and the MP do not share the same political affiliation. Obviously, if all political contests are confined only to the election period and are not carried over into the term of whoever may be elected as MP to the detriment of the constituents, there will be no necessity for us to review the present arrangement. 

However, as we all know, political contests tend to spill into even the most mundane things that CCCs do for their residents. Until grassroots leaders learn to rise over politics and are no longer seen to be taking sides with the ruling party, there is a need to ensure that these community improvement funds do not become an instrument of politics. As a step towards developing a more positive political culture, why not let the MND decide on the applications to use such funds by all MPs?

SOCIAL: Sports - Nurturing True Sportsmanship

In the recent SEA Games, Singapore collected 84 Golds, 73 Silvers and 102 Bronzes with Thailand finishing top with 95 Golds, 83 Silvers and 69 Bronzes. This has been an impressive record and a fitting tribute to SG50. 

Our 259 medals have surpassed our precious haul of of 164 medals (50 golds, 40 silvers and 74 bronzes) in 1993, when the Games was last held at home. We are all absolutely thrilled that we have done well as a nation that seeks to excel in everything that we do. But let's pause for a moment to look at the results and ask some questions.

The medals tell us which sports we are good at. One report (Click HERE)  said as follows:

“Over the past 18 days in 36 sports, Singapore’s largest-ever contingent of 747 athletes also delivered 25 Games records, 29 national records, 74 personal bests, and many first-time medalists. 421 were also making their official Games debut. Of the 36 sports, the Republic’s swimmers achieved the highest medal count of 42 (23 golds, 12 silvers and 7 bronzes).

Swimmers Joseph Isaac Schooling and Quah Zheng Wen were the most bemedalled athletes, winning one in every event they competed in. Schooling won nine gold medals and set Games records in all nine events, while teammate Quah finished with 12 medals (7 golds, 4 silvers and 1 bronze).”

One piece of glaring information comes across from the wins. A great majority of the medals were won by local-born Singaporeans.  And we are able to clearly identify the sports that we can be really good at. So, do we still need foreign talents to buttress our sports achievements when we could save our money on them and groom our own talent pool from young in the sports that we are potentially good at?

Say what you like, there can be no real pride in winning medals through the Foreign Talent Scheme which started in 1996. One sport that relies heavily on the scheme is table tennis. Even after 20 years, we are still relying on table–tennis players from China to win our medals. If we are unable to produce local-born table-tennis players to lead our nation in this sport after all these years, we need to ask whether the scheme has usurped the need to nurture our local talent or is table-tennis not really our cup of tea?

We also need to ask ourselves whether it is necessary for us to excel in every sport? To-date, more than 60 foreign athletes have been granted citizenship since the Foreign Talent Scheme started in 1996 (Click HERE). We do not know exactly how much we have spent in the scheme but it should run into the millions which could have been used more productively and meaningfully. 

Since we can now identify a number of sports where our potentials lie, wouldn’t it be make more sense to save our money on foreign athletes and invest in our local sports talents instead? We can bring in foreign coaches instead of foreign athletes? Afterall, sports is not about winning medals alone. It's about the spirit of true sportsmanship.