In case you don't already know what RECORD is, the cute acronym represents "Recognise the Contributions of Operationally Ready National Servicemen to Total Defence". The "V" is not for victory but to denote the fifth committee comprising 20 individuals this round who represent, "different sectors of society".
Let's examine how useful (or useless) some of the 18 recommendations are from a perspective of an ex-Reservist who has served his 2.5 years of full-time national service in operational armour unit and 10 years of annual in-camp training in a people's defence force battalion.
Record V Recommendations
Record's recommendations fall under the following themes. Full report here (opens pdf file).
- Rising aspirations
- Importance of leadership
- Encouraging fitness
- Globalisation and increased work demands
- Building cohesion
1. Enhancing the rank allowance increments and combat allowance for NSmen and Full-time NSFs (Specialists)
In Singapore, money talks, so overall more money is always better than less, all (other) things being equal. However, for NSmen, it doesn't make much of a difference because most of us are compensated for loss of wages. Hence, if I'm a CEO making $1 million a year, it doesn't help much if the SAF calls me back to become a clerk. But then, the money could be useful to reservists who are in-between job where rank pay does help them somewhat.
But if you talk to reservists, the grouse is by self-employed who under-declare their income tax or CPF contributions as Mindef uses these to compensate for loss of wages. Self-employed small business operators get hit more relative to wage earners who have IR8 and company pay slips to substantiate their specific wages lost to the SAF.
For full-time NSFs, more money is good. They are already earning below minimum wage (which Singapore doesn't have) of about $600-$800 for basic cleaner job in the marketplace. Hence, any upward revision is welcome.
2. Family recognition vouchers to attractions such as the Singapore Discovery Centre and SAF chalets
Is this a way to help boost up poor utilisation and take-up rates at Singapore Discovery Centre and SAF chalets or what? This is so lame. If they were serious about family recognition vouchers they should do what the Red Cross did which was to sponsor a pair of tickets for family members to go to the Jurong Bird Park. Seriously, Singapore Discovery Centre does not appeal IMHO.
Globalisation and increasing work demands:
3. NSmen be allowed to bring in company-configured laptops and mobile devices for use during In-Camp Training (ICT).
This recommendation is way behind the times. The SAF is now in the 2009 and IT was hot in the mid to late 90s and prior to dot-com crash of 2001-2ish. In addition, I witnessed first hand how officers and key appointment holders could bring their own computers into camp without much scrutiny but the specialists and men had to jump through many hoops to get clearance from RSM etc in the name of "security".
In today's 24x7x365 business world, not having your 3.5G phone or blackberry equivalent device is to cripple your effectiveness as a corporate warrior while you are off playing SAF warrior.
Encouraging fitness:
4. Improving the equipment at existing fitness corners in public housing estates, as well as building new fitness corners if needed
This is missing the point. Most NSmen lack not facilities to train but rather TIME to do so. If you are working 60 hours a week and overtime nights and sometimes weekends, how much time can you have to go and train for your IPPT? It's not the facilities, to its credit, the Government through NParks has invested lots of taxpayers funds in the park connectors. I myself use to run along such connectors near my home to train for my 2.4km run.
It's not the facilities, it's about time! But hey, Singapore's approach is to throw money and facilities into the problem. The problem should be tackled by telling employers to look into work-life balance issues for NSmen so that they can have enough time to train so as not to fail IPPT and not have to go for RT which wastes the company's time as well!
Building cohesion:
5. Create online social network for NSmen to strengthen camaderie
This is lame. There is already a few social networks, they are hardwarezone thread on NS knowledge base. Many blogs in Singapore e.g. Singaporedaily and theonline citizen touch on NS issues (in a non-flattering way to the gahmen).
6. Develop a new clubhouse in Punggol
Again, building another Safra clubhouse using Safra and taxpayers (Mindef) money. Please come up with something more original that costs less. Mind you, Safra facilities are not free, they charge memberships that are lower than commercial country clubs but they are not free.
The recommendations to me doesn't break much new ground.
In the area of education, the recommendation only go so far to ask for letters of support to augment university applications for NSF commanders. In our meritocratic system, these letters mean little because grades, grades and to some extent CCA and/or interview make or break your application to popular faculties such as medicine, accountancy, law. Everything else is decoration.
There is no mention of subsidies to NSmen/NSF to study at local universities. There is no mention of medical subsidies for NSmen/NSF by public hospitals.
Education and health, important things to NSmen since you are behind by 2 years to foreigners and Singaporean women in studies and also you risk your life and limb but gain no real commensurate benefit medically.
Personally, you don't need to have a 20 person committee putting up all these common sense items that talking to 20-30 NSmen/NSF will yield. 1 Admin officer plus 2-3 MXOs can put up these recommendations in 2-3 weeks. Better yet, put up a real survey online for NSmen to tell you what they really think and feel and you can forget about RECORD.
Majullah Singapura.
P.S. I just took a look at the members of RECORD. It is chaired by Assoc Prof Koo Tsai Kee, Minister of State for Defence. How independent can such recommendations be? Enough said.
They seriously lack imagination. Same old, same old.
ReplyDeleteHi Ian
ReplyDeleteYup, rehashing stuff that reservists would have been telling Mindef through surveys and through the chain of command.
Real recognition e.g. medical benefits because NSmen/NSF bear real risks of injury/death from national service would be useful.
So too would education subsidies. Currently, the "subsidy" is that NSFs gets their university tuition fees locked in at the 2 year old level. That helps but I think more can be done.
Tax reliefs also don't mean much for those low income earners since they don't pay much income tax in the first place. The additional GST rebates of $50-100 are a real insult for risking your life for the country.
Majullah Singapura.
Well written. Guess its not a humanistic approach to NSmen.
ReplyDeletenow they want u to do office work and pump gdp into their pockets while simultaneously charging up a hill during reservist!!
ReplyDeletewhile the FT is outside robbing ur job,wife/gf.
bravo!
Which fools in RECORD came up with the stupid suggestion of using laptops during ICTs?
ReplyDeleteIf your training programme is packed, you think you got time to logon, is it?
You mean SAF is going to upgrade training camps with a lot of power sockets and wireless hotspots, is it?
Who cares about the rank allowance as how much can they give IMHO? However on the grouses by the self-employed on wage compensation during ICT, give and take dudes, for under-declaring income tax. Be grateful that the taxmen won't come knocking on their doors.
ReplyDeleteLike I mentioned before, 2 big yummies for reservists (sorry NSF, do your bit, your turn will come when you become NSmen) are tax rebates (more possible) and shorter stints (less possible unless we have Brotherhood of Steel power armour issued to all troops to make up for shortage of conscripts).
The current tax give-backs are $3000 and $1500 for active and inactive IIRC, and key appt holders get $2000, and wives get $750.
Come on dudes. If NS is that important, put a price to it. IMHO, the so-called key appt holders can get more and those who serve ICT that year can certainly get more. How much more? Depends on how much they want to put a price to the sacrifice we still carry even after our NSF servitude. Ball park figure as a gesture of sincerity, up to $6000 tax rebate for ICT served a tax year, depending on whether high key or low key. Of course the govt doesn't want to give handouts without strings attached, as they should be as all Spore shouldn't subsidise reservists freely and fully without some critria.
@The Void Deck
ReplyDeleteFor those of us who are accounting/tax trained, the $3,000 or $1,500 is a tax RELIEF and not rebate.
A relief knocks off your assessable income, i.e. assuming you make $40,000 a year in income, the NSman tax relief allows you to deduct $3,000 or $1,500 resulting in $37,000 or $38,500 taxable at your effective tax rate.
A tax REBATE means assuming you pay tax of $5,000, a rebate of $3,000 means you pay net tax of only $2,000!
So relief is PEANUTS in terms of actual tax savings versus rebates. And look what the Gahmen chooses to give us reservists.
You risking life and limb is worth only a few dollars (literally) of tax savings. But if you are gone, your entire lifetime potential earnings for you and your depends are WIPED OUT.
Majullah Singapura.
Hi Panzer
ReplyDeleteMuchos gracias for the correction! My bad! LOL damn it! Give us rebates instead of relief!
Damn it!!!! Just Raise taxes on Women and Foreigners and pay us the market rate!!!
ReplyDeleteWe demand it from our millionaire ministers!