The Transportation Paradox and its Puppet Masters

There have been numerous quality articles written about the current situation of SMRT in recent weeks. Some was insightful, some was spiteful, some simply reiterated the facts and situation of the current climate. It ultimately begs 2 possibilities, why did we let Singapore come to this stage and what is our way forward. While the former could easily be explained and accepted that it was the government, its policies and its electorate that allow the fall into the never ending rabbit hole, the latter part of the question is one that haunts the average Singaporean. Perhaps it is beyond the little man or woman on the street and best left to politicians or should we as an inclusive society wannabe express our views and opinions and hopefully things will turn out just fine.

Firstly allow me to share my view on the problems currently in Singapore. SMRT was just unlucky to be the first on the cross hair. I am sure no matter how much a simpleton we are, we can safely say our suspicion that our infrastructure is failing to support our current population and our aspirations is an undeniable statement. we do not have enough hospitals, enough roads, enough transportation capacity, enough schools, enough jobs and so on.

The ministers who allow such policies to create this bottleneck have since move on and many ministers who took over them simply work their best to ensure the bottleneck don't explode during their term. To put it in a simple analogy, consider the case of a CEO with a 2 year performance appraisal. if he does well and meet the goals within the 2 years, he will received recognition, bonuses and move on to another career in good stead. The motivation therefore for such an CEO is to create short term action plans that will see his goals being met in 2 years irregardless if such actions might create a fundamental or insurmountable problems in the future. Eventually one of the future CEOs will run out of ideas and he will have to be the one to take the blame.

This my friend is the Singapore you are living in. We can form expert groups, committee and do all the necessary to seemingly improve our process, our policies and situation but the cold hard truth is we are unable to solve our fundamental problem. Infinite aspirations Vs Finite resources. We must come to realisation that in order to continue our prosperity, we need a radical approach where no Singaporeans politician would dare suggest except the founding man himself. Let me be the one who you will accused of being unrealistic, absurd and unpatriotic to suggest.

My solution is simple, INTEGRATION.  If we were to continue to pursue aspirations with finite resources, we are will be moving towards a brick wall with increasing speed. The state of Johor is our future. Imagine a special economic zone on certain parts of Johor that would integrate the movement of goods, people, capital and resources. Under a joint jurisdiction independent of each country laws but sovereign in its own right. A close example would be HK and shenzhen. Such an integration will be a win win situation for both countries. Solution will be immediate for all the bottleneck we are facing. The integration of Europe took a mere decade to conceptualise and implement with the common currency being the last step forward. A test pilot project can easily begin within 2 years of planning and full scale integration should be reasonable within a decade. This is nothing new if i may say, our government did consider such options but political will and agenda was the stumbling block. With the Malaysian government moving towards a maturity in democracy evident from it recent elections result, its electorate will be able to put pressure on its government if such a project are truly beneficial. The question is on our side, our government still runs our country very much in a one party manner even though they only garner 60% of the votes. Will they be willing to let a joint effort take up much of the credit of success, will they be willing to give up control, give up the unfair advantages its GLC enjoy currently? I guess we all know the answer.

Let me emphasis that the suggested integration is a quick fix. If we want to take the hard path to reclaim our quality of life, we would probably need to experience a bottom before we make the step forward. It would write off decades of achievement and any new future will be built on the bones of those that was let down.