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发表于 7-9-2010 11:21:51|来自：新加坡
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A 'better' way to manage PRs: SM Goh
by Imelda Saad Aziz 05:55 AM Sep 07, 2010
SINGAPORE - The ** is moving to encourage more permanent residents in the country to take up citizenship. And in some cases, their PR status "will not be renewed" should they decline to swap for the red passport, said Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong yesterday.
Mr Goh was speaking at a dialogue session with Marine Parade residents to gather feedback on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's National Day Rally speech last month.
Responding to a suggestion from a participant who said Employment Pass holders should take up citizenship, Mr Goh noted that such a move would discourage foreign talent from working in Singapore. Moreover, Employment Pass holders serve as buffers - their numbers can be reduced, during a downturn, said Mr Goh.
But Mr Goh added: "Moving forward, we are going to approach some (PRs) to take up Singapore citizenship. If they don't, then their PR (status) will not be renewed. That's a better way. We now have quite a few PRs, 500,000 in Singapore, so hopefully maybe, 50,000 can be selected to become Singapore citizens, the rest can be PRs, contributing to Singapore's economy."
However, Mr Goh did not elaborate on how the process would work.
The Senior Minister also responded to a suggestion to bar foreigners from buying private property. Doing so would merely lead to developers building more high-rise private apartments.
"At the moment our policy will be, condominium, private sector, they want to buy, let them buy, because they actually bring in money for Singapore. They may not actually stay there but they bring in money. They buy from locals, locals are happy to get the money but it's not actually adding to (congestion)," said Mr Goh.
Mr Goh also spoke on how measures to cool the property sector have resulted in many unhappy Singaporeans. The key, said Mr Goh is to "make the most number of people happy, the most number of times".
Separately, Mr Goh also revealed it will cost $1 billion to upgrade the train signalling system to increase capacity, so waiting time is reduced for commuters. The cost may not be passed down to commuters directly, but Mr Goh pointed out that it has to be defrayed.
To ease traffic congestion, Mr Goh said another idea worth considering was to have a "zero vehicular traffic growth" where the Certificates of Entitlement would be "so high" that people could not afford to buy cars. Under such a policy, motorists would pay less for Electronic Road Pricing.
Said Mr Goh: "But we have opted in the last 10 years or so to give Singaporeans the four wheels ... so we have opted for 3 per cent growth in vehicle population and therefore use ERP to tweak it because one can argue that's fairer."
The participants also wanted to know why the $9,000 award to recognise the contributions of National Servicemen was not extended to all who have served the country. In response, Mr Goh said the authorities can consider giving older Singaporeans a token for their contributions, possibly in the form of top-ups to their Central Provident Fund MediSave accounts. |
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