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Dare-to-speak
Posts : 14
Location : N/A
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One of the essential services affecting our daily lives is electricity or 'power'. Hitherto, Temasek had controls of the bulk of power generations. Recently the BOD of Temasek had decided to divest this line of business. Just a few days ago, Senoko had been sold to a Japanese led comglomerate. As power generation and supply are important to public as an essential services, I am both worried and concerned:-
My wary is whether or not more public essential services will be divested in the near future to pirvate companies. For example,the public utility board (of statutory status) is running our water supplies. Will it be divested off in the near future to private companies?
My concern is whether or not with the ensued disposals of such business line, does the government or the relevant authority retain the same level of governance or control on future important management decisions made by a private enterprise providing essential utilities and services to the public and the state.
Finally, I question the rationale in liberating or privatizing all essential public services hitherto run by the statutory boards, state-owned or locally listed public companies to purely foreign-owned companies. My fear is that when there is a conflict of interest arising from a state of emergency (caused either by war or world wide economic depression), foregin interests will prevail on local interests.
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Anonymous
Posts : 6039
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Watch HK on their electricity arrangements - splendid altho given to private administration still govt retains control. Is ours the same? Perhaps relevant authroities should give Singaporeans assurance that our assets are not being sold with the double whammy of loss control to future price increases which affect the people most.
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Dare-to-speak
Posts : 14
Location : N/A
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Your example is a good one but we must know Singapore and HK have very distinctive features in their political systems and social environments. What could be done in HK might not be so in Singapore!
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Anonymous
Posts : 6039
Location : N/A
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My wary is whether or not more public essential services will be divested in the near future to pirvate companies. For example,the public utility board (of statutory status) is running our water supplies. Will it be divested off in the near future to private companies?
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Valid worry. I suppose the government owes us an explanation of how our utility systems are structured? Does it mean that SP only ownes and manages distribution systems, and sells utilities as a 3rd hand? So, we pay SP one round, and SP pays these foreign owners another round? Won't that ultimately means higher cost to the consumer? What happens if after Power Seraya is sold and the 3 foreign owned plants ganged up and up prices in the name of rising fuel cost? Who knows the truth of the matter then?
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Dare-to-speak
Posts : 14
Location : N/A
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So here we are! SP Services had just announced an average price hike, 22% approx., on electricity tariffs for the last quarter of the year. It is ironic to note that the tariffs revision happens to be the 'biggest' since year 2000. More so, this is a double whammy to the majority of consumers who have already been badly hit by rising costs of living. The economy ahead of us looks bleak! We are not too optimistic that 'inflation is under control' or that our economy is resilient enough to cushion an impending recession.
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Anonymous
Posts : 6039
Location : N/A
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Come what may, the Ministers can weather them. I repeat the Ministers, not the people, can weather them.
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Dare-to-speak
Posts : 14
Location : N/A
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Having read through in the past two weeks from the ST Forum as well as having listened to Capital 958 (of Media Corp) on the phone-in program titled "Eu hoa kang kang suo" or "Say what you dare" in English, I must reiterate that the concerns I raised are also shared by the men in the street including my good virtual friend, Anonymous herein. In order to abide by the rules of fair comment or fair play, I would not wish to make innuendoes on the Ministers for having played a part in the matter raised; after all , they are the 'public servants' who have been working very hard (I guess?) during the global financial and economic turmoils to lessen our peoples' burdens on bread and butter issues.
Now that we had been told that electricity tariffs would be revised upwards in the last quarter of 2008, my concerns as expressed had been justified. The tariffs hike came in a tripple whammy: global financial meltdown, prevalent high recession and technical recession (will it mutate into a recession next year?).
Are our government leaders ignorant of the public outcries on the power hike issue? Or are they adopting a 'couldn't be careless' attitude to the peoples' voices and pleas for help? I leave it to my readers to comment on.
One more thing before I sign off, please watch out for further hikes in other things such as water and city gas. For any raise in the power tariiffs will create a multiplier effect on other amenities/services generated by power plant.
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Anonymous
Posts : 6039
Location : N/A
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One more thing before I sign off, please watch out for further hikes in other things such as water and city gas. For any raise in the power tariiffs will create a multiplier effect on other amenities/services generated by power plant.
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Next hike, hawker food. Then we'll have a further inflation.
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