In school this semester, I am required to assist a golfing firm in its marketing campaign for its golf resort in Pulau Ubin as part of my assessment for the marketing module. After much discussion with my group, we decided to segment the population according to their income levels and we are targeting the rich and affluent.

Similarly, the Singapore Tourism Board announces details for the development of the Southern Islands and is seeking request-for-concepts as early as next March.

The Southern islands – Kusu, St John’s. the Sisters’ Islands, Kias, Lazarus and Seringar – draw at least 100,000 visitors a year and have been said to have the potential to be similar to Italy’s Isle of Capri, a marine village, or Dubai’s The Palm island, a development for the ultra wealthy.

On top of this next mega-tourism project, Sentosa looks set to have a new resort hotel with a beach front as well.

While there have been arguments along the line of environment and heritage, I would like to look at this issue from a totally different angle.

It is said that when there’s a demand, there will be a supply. And in this case, there is an increasing demand for products servicing the rich and famous in Singapore. As of 2004, there were 202,500 individuals with liquid wealth of more than US$200,000 each. This figure is expected to increase to 272,800 individuals by 2009, growing annually by 6.4%.

According to the latest World Wealth Report by Cap Gemini and Merrill Lynch, the number of millionaires in Singapore - defined as having liquid assets of US$1 million - grew by 22.4% over the past year to hit some 55,000. The Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore puts the number of people here earning over $1 million in taxable income at 1,724 – a 15% increase compared to the previous financial year

In fact, high-end properties such as The Sail@Marina Bay, Sentosa Cove and St Regis Residences – which don’t go for any less than $1,000 per sq ft – aren’t the only objects of desire to sell out like hot cakes.

Luxury cars like Lamborghini and Ferraris have seen brisk sales with 21 units and 32 units sold respectively this year.

Furthermore, fine dining clubs like The China Club has seen membership revenue increase by 85% over the past year, with average therespending per client up by 30%.

My point is this. Singapore has seen remarkable economic progress and this has allowed many Singaporeans to alleviate itself away from the poverty cycle in a span of a generation. While there are a lot of rich people here, there are also some poor people around us, and I am particularly worried about this burgeoning income gap between the rich and the poor.

"We will be starting on a wrong footing if we proceed on the premise that thus far nothing has been done to help our low-income, the poor and the elderly. In fact, through the Progress Package, ComCare Fund, workfare bonus and other initiatives, the Government has spent billions of dollars to help needy Singaporeans. With the many-helping-hands approach, the labour movement too has done its part to help our low-income workers. This year alone, NTUC distributed $6.4 million in the form of hardship grants, transport vouchers, Fairprice vouchers, Family Recreation Fund and through the Back-to-School programme as well as through bursaries and scholarships."

Mdm Halimah Yacob, MP for Hong Kah GRC, speaking in Parliament, 8th November 2006.

I fully support the fact that the government has been reluctant to institutionalise a welfare system into our social politic. However, there must be an institutional way to help our poor. At the moment, we are only seeing consistent and repetitive one-time handouts especially during times of economic growth. This has also resulted in Singaporeans being used to receiving yearly monetary rewards.

I believed that this will reduce the resilience of Singaporeans when the country faces a crisis. We are told that as long as we swallow the bitter pills and take the plunge to boldly cuts our cost and restructure our economy, we will be fine. There will be light at the end of tunnel. What happened if our economy plunges into a recession? It doesn’t matter as Singaporeans are already so used to receiving their share of the nation wealth year-in-year-out. When that comes, the government rationale of economic restructuring might not be that appealing to Singaporeans anymore.

In that case, there is a need to institutionalise our “progress package” for our lower-income families. Here is what I recommend:

We should set up a totally new government ministry with its own budget to directly tackle the needs of our poor. A cabinet minister should be appointed so that the poor will have its needs directly addressed to the Prime Minister. In this way, this will reduce the impression that the poor and disadvantaged are being marginalised.

This ministry for the poor and disadvantaged will set and oversee policies (to be revised)like

a. GST for basic necessities will be set at 3% - four percentage points lower than the approved tax rate. The implementation and enforcement of such a tax policy will be overseen by this particular ministry.

b. A better definition of the lower income and the middle income. More often than not, the people found at the lower spectrum of the middle income category suffered more from the increase in the cost of living.

c. Education costs must be addressed. School fees should be waiver until the college level. Subsidies should be given to ensure that each child’s expenses on education, from school books to stationary are being well taken care of.

d. GST on health cost expenses should be waiver.

While these recommendations required that huge amount of government expenditure are required, but the government should see it as a moral crusade and take this heavy burden upon its shoulders. In the first place, these people gave them the mandate and confidence so that their needs will be addressed. From their perspective, the PAP government is the best people to help. In this case, its more than a moral crusade, the government need to ensure that the poor are not left behind by society.

In the words of Mr Low Thia Khiang, secretary general of the Workers’ Party and MP for Hougang SMC at the recent parliamentary sitting:

“I feel that the transition into a globalised economy and the Government’s determination to maintain its principle of a low tax regime, the uneven distribution of wealth and the widening income gap will become an insurmountable social problem in future. The Government should help the low-income people as soon as possible to correct the mechanism that causes the anomaly in the distribution of the fruits of our economic development, and incorporate the appropriate measures into our social safety net structure.”

There’s no time to lose. It’s now or never.