Civil servants make political statements

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Why are senior civil servants starting to sell the PAP policies? Civil servants are supposed to be neutral. They are tasked to implement the policies of the government but they are NOT supposed to be selling those policies. The ministers and elected MPs are supposed to defend or sell the polices.

Civil servants who crosses into the political arena should be fired. The neutrality of the bureaucracy is important as the next government could be one that is from other parties and if bias is shown by the bureaucracy now, the incoming government will have to clean house to get rid of the PAP lackeys.

Quote:
Govt's goal to create good jobs for S'poreans

The Straits Times
Sunday, May 26, 2013

SINGAPORE

We thank Mr Leon Perera for sharing his thoughts on economic planning in his commentary ("Different spin on wheels of productivity"; Tuesday).

The Government's aim is to create good jobs for Singaporeans by building a competitive and vibrant economy, with productivity as a key driver. By 2030, we project that two in three Singaporeans will be in professional, managerial, executive or technical jobs, up from one in two today.

Our strategy is directed towards achieving good employment outcomes for Singaporeans, including raising median wages. For instance, the Economic Development Board attracts foreign investments that create well-paying jobs, such as those in design engineering, branding and marketing, that Singaporeans aspire to.

In addition to the number of skilled jobs created, we also track traditional economic indicators as a check on economic vibrancy, to ensure that our economic strategies are progressing well.

We agree with Mr Perera that productivity is a key driver of quality and broad-based growth. Productivity improvements are necessary before workers at all levels can see sustainable real wage gains.

The Government has instituted productivity strategies at all levels: national schemes like the Productivity and Innovation Credit, as well as specific efforts at the sector, enterprise and worker levels. We provide grants to help companies make the required investments to improve productivity, increase revenues and lower costs.

The National Productivity and Continuing Education Council closely tracks the productivity performance of the sectors identified for productivity enhancements and refines our strategies proactively. We also look at broad-based productivity enablers, which help to raise productivity and wages, such as the Inclusive Growth Programme.

Mr Perera has suggested using wage share as an indicator of quality jobs. Wage share, while important, does not reflect the wages of Singaporeans. Compared to those in many developed countries, Singaporeans earn higher real wages even though our wage share is lower. A more detailed analysis of wage shares can be found in the 1Q 2013 Quarterly Economic Survey released yesterday.

Another important enabler to improve productivity is research and development (R&D). The Agency for Science, Technology and Research and Spring Singapore work closely with companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), through programmes such as GET-Up to leverage technology to improve productivity.

The R&D capabilities we have developed make us attractive to companies. When large companies anchor their R&D facilities in Singapore, they create good jobs for Singaporeans in both research and non-research roles. These companies also take part in multi-party research consortia that benefit and upgrade our SMEs.

Cindy Keng (Mrs)

Director, Corporate Communications Division

Ministry of Trade and Industry




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