Copying Singapore

Ever so often someone trumpets the praises of Singapore with a comparison to Barbados that only matches closely in a few areas – both islands were British colonies, both gained independence around the same time and both have a land mass of approximately the same size.

Having heard these repetitive calls for successive governments in Barbados to look at the model Singapore’s leadership adopted for its outstanding success, this letter writer went on a research expedition to find out the key factors that contributed to such success.

Much information gathered came from three individuals who were well-placed and privileged to learn and know many facts about Singapore, its leaders and its people.

The first of such people is Siau Ming EN, a writer for Today (Online), one of Singapore’s digital news providers.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in 2015 was identified by Siau Ming En as the person who, when speaking about the success factors of Singapore, made three specific and fundamental points:

There was a strong determination to make Singapore a multiracial society.

Promoting a culture of self reliance and mutual support was key.

The maintenance of faith between the government and the people was important.

Prime Minister Lee went on to say that Singapore broke away from Malaysia in 1965 because the Republic of Singapore believed in the ideal of a multiracial society and there was an ideology that above and beyond race, language and religion, the people should be first and foremost Singaporean, and that was the fundamental reason for the foundation of Singapore.

PM Lee added that a bond developed between the government and the people with the government keeping promises made to the people and kept the politics honest. In turn, the people trusted the government to have their best interests at heart.

Another person who gained much insight about the Singaporean society and its governance is Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

In an article, Why Singapore is the world’s most successful society, he mentioned the names of Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Dr Goh Keng Swee, architect of Singapore’s economic miracle, and Mr S Rajaratnam, philosopher par excellence who together formed an exceptional team and implemented three exceptional policies of Meritocracy, Pragmatism and Honesty.

During an interview with Kishore Mahbubani, Dr Swee explained what he called the “secret” MPH formula by making the following statement:

”Meritocracy means that a country picks its best citizens and not relatives of the ruling class to run a country.

Pragmatism means that a country does not try to reinvent the wheel – No matter what problem Singapore encounters, somebody, somewhere has solved it, copy the solution and adapt it to Singapore.

Copying best practices is something any country can do. However, implementing “Honesty” is the hardest thing to do.

Corruption is the single biggest reason why most third world countries have failed and Singapore’s founding fathers were ruthlessly honest, shrewd and cunning, operating with harsh and stringent laws as deterrents against graft and corruption”.

Mahbubani emphasized a point that the greatest strength of Singapore’s founding fathers was that they were ruthlessly honest and it was of great help that they were exceptionally shrewd and cunning.

In spite of these positives, Singapore’s political system is viewed as an “enlightened dictatorship”, with a tame Press controlled by the government rated 153 out of 180 on the Press Freedom Index.

A third person who also had an intimate knowledge about the structure and workings of the Singapore society, along with the policies and modus operandi of Singaporean governance is retired Professor Jon S T Quah, former lecturer and researcher of Political Science, National University Singapore. Since then, he has become a consultant, writer and presenter on corruption and governance across the Asian continent.

In July 2018, Professor Quah authored a Paper titled Why Singapore works: five secrets of Singapore’s success. In fact, the five secrets were the five findings showing the following factors responsible for Singapore’s extraordinary success:

·      The pragmatic leadership of Lee Kuan Yew and his successors.

·      An effective public bureaucracy.

·      Effective control of corruption.

·      Reliance on the best and brightest citizens through investment in education and competitive compensation.

·      Learning from other countries: the importance of policy diffusion.

In a section of his Paper, Professor Quah mentioned the occasion of a meeting in 1992 when the Prime Minister of Nepal asked Goh Chok Tong, Prime Minister of Singapore, what was the reason for Singapore’s success. His simple reply – “Lee Kuan Yew”. The reason for his terse response was to encapsulate the principles, values and determination with which Lee Kuan Yew governed and built Singapore.

On the same occasion, Prime Minister Goh underscored the point that meritocracy in the civil service, politics, business and schools enabled the people of Singapore to achieve excellence in everything they did, allowing them to compete successfully against others.

In Professor Quah’s paper, he mentioned how Lee Kuan Yew himself emphasized the importance of good leadership when he wrote his memoirs saying, “My experience of developments in Asia has led me to conclude that we need good men to have good government. However good the system of government, bad leaders will bring harm to their people. […..] The single decisive factor that made for Singapore’s development was the ability of its ministers and the high quality of the civil servants who supported them.”

The pragmatic leadership of PM Lee Kuan Yew came to the fore when Dutch economist Albert Winsemius advised that Singapore should get rid of the Communists and embrace partners from the western bloc because they possessed the technology Singapore needed to grow its economy. The Prime Minister did this, playing careful attention to being pragmatic rather than being dogmatic and at every turn attracted investment partners from America, Japan and European countries.

In July 2009, during an interview with American journalist Tom Plate, Kuan Yew elaborated on his pragmatism saying, “I do not work on a theory. Instead I ask: what will make this work? If, after a series of such solutions, I find that a certain approach worked, then I try to find out the principle behind the solution. […] What is my guiding principle? Presented with the difficulty or major problem or an assessment of conflicting facts, I review what alternatives I have if my proposed solution doesn’t work. I choose a solution which offers a higher probability of success, but if it fails, I have some other way. Never a dead end.”   

The second factor contributing to Singapore success according to Professor Quah is its effective public bureaucracy.

The World Bank defines “government effectiveness” as “the quality of public service provision, the quality of the bureaucracy, the competence of civil servants, the independence of the civil service from political pressures, and the credibility of the government’s commitment to policies”.

Singapore has performed consistently well on the World Bank’s governance indicator of effectiveness for a number of years and has consistently attained 100 percentile ranking between the years 1996 and 2016.

Professor Quah does not fail to mention that meritocracy and training both play important roles in ensuring an effective and efficient public bureaucracy.

For a number of years, only Denmark and New Zealand have ranked higher than Singapore as the least corrupt country in the world. With an effective Corruption Practices Investigation Bureau operating with a high level of independence and autonomy and a tough Prevention of Corruption Act, Singapore has maintained a conviction rate of 98 per cent between 2014 and 2018.

The Peoples’ Action Party of Singapore has always moved to invest heavily in the education of its citizens in order to have the best trained, educated and compensated people to run the affairs of the country. Such a policy should help in the effort to contain corruption and graft in Singapore with politicians being some of the highest paid any part of the world.

The idea of not re-inventing the wheel and learning from other countries has served Singapore well over the years. The Changi airport was modelled after Schiphol in the Netherlands which, at the time, was considered the best airport in the world. Officials visited countries such as West Germany, Japan, Israel and Switzerland, adopting global best practices with modifications to suit Singapore’s requirements.

Best practices were not only adopted, but what did not work for others was also taken into consideration. For example, what did not work at JFK International airport in America and Heathrow in England was considered. A perfect example of pragmatic decision-making was to send officials to several countries all over the world to examine the best and the worst airports to determine what to implement and what to disregard prior to construction of the Changi airport.

Social welfare programs have been rejected by Singapore officials based on what was happening in Western Europe and the United States of America as far back as 1976. It was thought that welfare schemes dampened initiative and investments with individuals better off unemployed. The printing of money instead of increasing taxes is seen in Singapore as simply increasing inflation. In fact, Singapore has built up such a healthy surplus, there is no need for the printing of money. Or called by another name, “deficit financing” is not necessary.

Ultimately, indiscriminate social welfare is seen in Singapore as a consumption good sapping individual initiative and enterprise that further undermines economic growth and only suited for the handicapped and the very old.

There is no doubt that the People’s Action Party, as the government of Singapore since 1959, has learned from other countries how to turn a small undeveloped Asian island into one of the most prosperous nations of the modern world.

It is not enough to simply say, “Look at what has been done in Singapore.” The challenge is to go beyond looking at what has happened and implement some, if not all, of the good things.

Does the leadership of Barbados have the wherewithal to implement any of the initiatives that were fundamental to shaping the Singaporean way of life?

Does the leadership of Barbados have the courage and the will to construct a model that can mimic the Singapore miracle?

Michael Ray