SINGAPORE - What keeps pioneer civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow awake at night is the fear of Singapore becoming a high-wage and "not so high tech" economy like London and losing its competitiveness. The longtime advocate of technical education said Singapore must ensure its best and brightest continue to become engineers and not just bankers.
Mr Ngiam observed how Singapore started off in the late 1960s with low labour costs and low technology. "In the 1970s and 1980s, we moved to low cost, higher tech. "Today, the question I would like to pose is: Are we in danger of being high cost and low tech? That really gets me very worried at night."
The 70-year-old economics-trained retired civil servant was speaking at a bi-monthly Pioneers seminar at the Arts House, organised by the EDB Society and The Straits Times.
Wages in Singapore had gone up significantly over the decades, he said, but the level of technology not by as much.In comparison, the high labour costs of many Western countries are offset by strong technological capabilities. He cited the example of Finland, where, he was told, "the engineer is more respected than the manager".
His pet theory for the decline of the British economy is that "their best and brightest from Oxbridge, instead of going into engineering and running factories, went into the City of London".
"City of London - they are not creators of wealth, they are just shuffling assets around the place," he said dismissively.The United States has overtaken Britain because "while some of their best went to Wall Street, their best still go into engineering," he said.
Mr Ngiam was a champion of technical education when he was Economic Development Board chairman from 1975 to 1981.
It was partly as a result of his lobbying during this period that Nanyang Technological University was born and the National University of Singapore expanded its engineering faculty.
Recalling those days, he said: "I used to tell everybody, what I want is 1,000 engineers, 5,000 technicians from the polytechnics, and 10,000 Institute of Technical Education workers."You give me that, I grant you a job." Once they knew they could find trained manpower here, the multi-national companies flocked to Singapore, he added.
Mr Ngiam said the beefing up of technical education was very timely, "because now the world talks about global competition and a knowledge-based economy. "How do you become a knowledge-based economy, except through science and technology?"
As a result, if the cream of the education system goes into Shenton Way instead of the technology and industrial parks, "I think we are done for".
Fight inflation? It's mostly PR, but necessary
Attempts to fight inflation are largely "public relations exercises" but politically necessary, former top civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow said at a dialogue yesterday.
The only way is to ride out rising prices, but a cooperative supermarket like FairPrice can counter any market manipulation and ease the pain of food price hikes for Singaporeans.
Mr Ngiam criticised the recent move by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to let the Singapore dollar appreciate against a trade-weighted basket of currencies.
This is an attempt to moderate inflation, which hit a 26-year high of 6.7 per cent in March.
MAS' move amounted to "force-marching the economy", he said. "You can't order an economy that way."
He warned that it could lead to a repeat of the mistakes which led to the 1985 recession, from which Singapore took four to five years to recover.In that recession, rising wages and a strong Singapore dollar were what economist Tan Kong Yam called "twin blades" that cut away at competitiveness, he said.
In a Straits Times interview earlier this month, Mr Ngiam had asked MAS to study the 1985 experience, saying: "Prices in the world are rising, whatever you do. A strong Sing dollar is not going to matter one bit."
Yesterday's seminar was chaired by Singapore Press Holdings' English and Malay Newspapers Division editor-in-chief Patrick Daniel, who worked under Mr Ngiam in the 1980s at the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
At the start of the 1980s, Singapore also faced rising prices, recalled Mr Daniel. Inflation was 8.5 per cent in 1980 and 8.2 per cent in 1981.Could one take a leaf from some of the micro policies deployed at the time to correct inflation, or should Singapore stick to macro adjustments, he asked.
He related how Mr Ngiam, as chairman of a committee tasked to look into inflation, had pored over the prices of items in the Consumer Price Index then. The index measures changes in the prices of a basket of goods and services. Alarmed by a spike in onion prices, Mr Ngiam asked for alternative sources of onions to be found to avoid relying on one supplier.
"Lo and behold, onion prices fell after that," said Mr Daniel.
Laughing at the memory, Mr Ngiam said the committee "was just a public relations exercise", because "as the Government, we must be seen to be doing something". In reality, "no government can fight inflation", he argued.
He cited the global oil crisis of 1972, when other countries tried to curb roaring inflation with kerosene-price subsidies.
"Hon Sui Sen, who was then finance minister, had the guts to say, 'We will swallow our medicine in one gulp'. We won't subsidise oil prices; we will let the inflation work through the system."
Neither could the burden of fighting inflation be put on wages, he argued, as "you can cut CPF only once".
Indeed, the best anti-inflationary weapon the Government has is FairPrice supermarkets, said Mr Ngiam. The cooperative was set up in 1973 to counter local importers who formed cartels to jack up prices of essential food items.
Why admin officers should do the nitty-gritty
Li Xueying
Most of today's younger Cabinet ministers hail from upper-middle class backgrounds, and "so really do not know" the impact of, say, a policy such as a 10-cent bus fare hike on ordinary families, said retired top mandarin Ngiam Tong Dow.
It is thus imperative that the elite of the civil service - the Administrative Service officers - start their careers by doing "nitty-gritty" work on the ground, rather than be catapulted directly into policy-making. This will help them gain "empathy for the people", he said.
Speaking at a dialogue yesterday, Mr Ngiam, 70, said most of today's younger ministers "come from families that are relatively well-to-do, upper-middle class".
"So you do not know the effect of a 10-cent bus fare increase on a family. But if you're from a poor family like my generation...you know very well if the bus fare goes up by 10 cents, multiply by three or four times, 50 cents a day for the whole family.
"So I don't know how are they going to get this sort of empathy for the people."
One way, he suggested, is for administrative officers to spend their first three years working "at the ground level in HDB, in EDB...and really know what is reality before you formulate policies".
But it would not be a popular move, he acknowledged. Indeed, he tried to introduce it when he was in the service, but "none was happy to be sent to, say, the People's Association", he revealed to chuckles from the audience that included civil servants, past and present.
"Maybe they were not made good use of. But it's the attitude, you see. Unless you know what's on the ground, how are you ever going to formulate policies?"
Mr Ngiam speaks from experience.Indeed, he was "quite disappointed" when in 1964 - on his return from Harvard with a Master of Public Administration - then-EDB chairman Hon Sui Sen sent him to Jurong Town Corporation (JTC).
"Being a Harvard MPA, I thought I had the right to be (in) the directorate," Mr Ngiam admitted with a laugh. "But he sent me to JTC. And he had a great purpose. He wanted this young fellow, who thinks he's so smart, to really deal with the nitty-gritty of managing an industrial estate."
And he did pick up lessons, whether it was on flexibility in dealing with tenants or solving their water supply woes.
Mr Ngiam was responding to a question from Straits Times reader Jeremy Lim, who asked if the current system of grooming administrative officers was adequate and how it should be strengthened.
Another reader, Mr Steven Liew, voiced his unease with the new crop of political leaders who hail mostly from the same educational background, and are mined from the Administrative Service.
Mr Ngiam recounted what he told Mr Teo Chee Hean in 1997, when he was appointed Education Minister.
Then, the ministry would send letters to the top 400 pupils in the PSLE, inviting them to join Raffles Institution and Raffles Girls' School."By slotting, by training our elite in just a limited number of institutions, we're missing something because the world is not so simple."
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Run for the presidency? No, not me, says Ngiam
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Ngiam Tong Dow for President? Nay. The man himself yesterday categorically ruled out running in the next presidential election, quashing the hopes of his supporters. The 70-year-old said simply: "The presidency is the highest office of the land and I don't aspire to such an office. "And that's my answer." Despite prompting from moderator Patrick Daniel, editor-in-chief of Singapore Press Holdings' English and Malay Newspapers Division, Mr Ngiam did not elaborate.
He was replying to a question from Straits Times reader Lim Lee Ching, who asked Mr Ngiam if he would consider it.
Mr Lim, 34, a teaching fellow, told The Straits Times he felt Mr Ngiam had been "the voice of conscience" and would be able to provide "moral and ethical checks and balances" as President. "A lot of what he has said made sense," said Mr Lim. "His experience (as a civil servant) also means he can stay above the fray of politics." It was not the first time the possibility was broached.
In the last presidential election in 2005, Mr Ngiam's name had surfaced, and a fan site was even set up, asking people to consider him for the post. Mr Ngiam, an old friend of President S R Nathan, had then made it clear he backed the re-election of Mr Nathan.
Yesterday, Mr Ngiam indicated he had far more domestic priorities in mind. "My priorities at this stage of my life is to spend as much time with my wife as possible," he said to loud applause from the audience and a beaming smile from his wife, Madam Jeanette Gan.
"I'm just waiting for our granddaughter to finish her PSLE so my wife and I can go on holiday whenever we like." Asked by reader Chutima-Sarah, 56, for his message for today's young, he said: "The world is what you make of it. So you just go out, grab opportunities, grab education and help to build the nation of Singapore."
On what his biggest regret is, he said: "I never regret. I've made mistakes, yes. But no regrets."Mr Daniel asked if his constitution made him "incapable of regretting or...?"
Mr Ngiam retorted: "No, no, Patrick, don't look back. Look to the future. I'm an optimist. I'm not a pessimist." - LI XUEYING
Singapore swings from euphoria to depression
Lee Siew Hua
Singapore policymakers tend to swing from euphoria to depression, says Mr Ngiam Tong Dow, quoting Dr Albert Winsemius, who was Singapore's long-time economic adviser.
Mr Ngiam made this point when he told the story of policy U-turns on doctor numbers.In the late 1970s, the Economic Development Board (EDB) wanted to promote Singapore as a health hub, and so decided to get more Singaporeans trained as doctors, said Mr Ngiam, who was EDB chairman from 1975 to 1981.
But he ran into opposition from then-health minister Howe Yoon Chong, who felt that Singapore was experiencing high health costs, and wanted to curb the number of doctors. His ministry argued that the EDB was "overtraining doctors'', and that in health, supply created its own demand.
The last argument left Mr Ngiam flummoxed, recalled moderator Patrick Daniel, who was then working in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, where Mr Ngiam was permanent secretary. "Where did they learn their economics?" he remembered Mr Ngiam asking.
Picking up on the story, Mr Ngiam recounted how a committee of doctors also set about to restrict accreditation of overseas-trained doctors to a very small number of foreign universities, and slammed it as "anti-competitive" behaviour.
Today, however, "they have swung to the other extreme, where any university will do", he noted. Quoting Dr Winsemius to underscore his point, he pictured Singapore sitting in a pond: "You soak in the pond. When the sun is shining and the water is below your nose, you think everything is hunky-dory."
But the moment the water reaches the nose, you think it's all gloom and doom."Singapore has no sense of balance. You swing from euphoria to depression."
