Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew family, their cronies and high level foreign talent enjoy prosperity. Not ordinary Singaporeans.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The state owned and controlled Singapore newspaper the Straits Times, just as all the other Singapore newspapers are; reports with pride the A380 Singapore Airlines aircraft made its first flight from Singapore to Sydney. Great. Should Singaporeans now go home and celebrate. Should they now open their champagne bottles; provided they can afford one? Or should they be asking what do they get out of it all? Nothing!

Don't forget, Lee Kuan Yew got Singapore Airlines with your money paid for through your CPF, by the ordinary Singaporeans; the taxi driver, the plumber and the hawker. Hard earned money, which Lee forcefully takes; I say forcefully, because it is illegal not to pay the government CPF and other forms of taxation such as HDB payments. Its your money which he uses to run his Singapore Airlines.

But who actually benefits from the success of the Airline which by the way is being run with your money? Not you, let me be clear. Not the average Singaporean worker. Here is who benefits.

First the directors of the airline who are comprised of Lee family members and his cronies and friends. Lee Kuan Yew and personal family members who pay themselves huge chunks of solid cash as directorship fees and salaries and dividends. Next come the high level executives, Lee Kuan Yew cronies, with mind boggling salaries which they take at will. Next comes the pilots, half or more of whom are foreigners, Australian, New Zealand, British and other nationalities, experienced pilots each with several thousand hours flight time. The other half are Singapore pilots. These you could say enjoy the benefits of the success of the world airline.

The vast majority of Singaporean employees, the ramp attendants, the cargo handlers, the traffic marshals, the cleaners and the grease monkeys do not. It does not matter how much the airline makes, these jobs will continue to be minimum wage jobs. And if the Singaporean is so stupid as to complain; the job will be taken away from him and immediately given to a recently arrived Chinese national from Harbin, who by the way is quite prepared to work for the peanuts!

So my dear Singaporean, don't let Lee Kuan Yew, deceive you as he appears very successful in doing. He has no plans to share the success of Singapore Inc with any one of you. He is happy that you are around to work and contribute your CPF monies to him, because he needs money. With your money, he will run Singapore Airlines intent on making profits. But the profits are not intended for you, mind you. He wants more and more money; and he needs you to be around to enable it.

And in doing this, in order to successfully deceive you; he has the help of his propaganda machine, the Straits Times, which will report on a daily basis to you that the company has done brilliantly, in Singapore, in London and all over the world; and they do this in the hope that you will feel a sense of gratification because of your airline's success. Please return to reality from somnolence, from your daydream and reverie. You are sleepwalking my friends. Realise that you are being deceived.

The truth of the matter is that the average Singaporean is worse off today than he was 10 years ago. There are many reports published on this. A380 may have made its maiden flight. But you are not on that aircraft. You may have a chance to clean it. But not more than that.

Take it from me. There is nothing in it for you. As for you, Lee Kuan Yew has one plan and it is not encouraging. He expects you to work at your job as a cargo handler until you drop dead, literally; as he has made it clear that he will not permit you to retire nor withdraw your CPF savings. You will work until you die. I am sorry but that is the plan. I have only tears for you.

It is the same with everything else in the country that they flaunt. The Port of Singapore Authority, the Formula I, Tumasek Holdings with assets all over the world, GIC trading with your money in Timbuktu, Republic of Mali? I do not know where, but they are all over the world. Singapore Inc International. All this buzz and activity carried out with the hard earned moneys of local Singaporeans CPF contributions, which Lee uses at his pleasure with totally no accountability. Not to you, not to me, not the world, not to anyone. He does whatever he wants, with your money. And what happens to the profits? Well, you know the answer. He and his family and friends eat that money. Nothing goes to you. As for you, just shut up, stop complaining and work until you drop dead.

Ordinary Singaporeans should know by now that they have no say in how their country is run. No say in where their money is going. No right to demand a share of the profits which is rightfully theirs, since it is their money that made these investments possible in the first place.

Making new malls, building new roads and building a new symphony orchestra will not make the average man feel any better because he cannot eat the new roads or the mall. Just looking at it gives him no satisfaction.

So next time my friend the average Singaporean reads in the state controlled local newspaper that Tumasek Holdings has made a billion dollars in profits, they should ask what is there in it for them? And if they do not get a satisfactory answer, it is about time to join Dr. Chee in his next protest and demand

"All right my boy, Lee Kuan Yew, congratulations. Now where is the bacon?"

as the huge Russian bear had asked Boris Yeltsin when he won the Russian elections; the bear balancing the diminutive Yeltsin in the palm of his hand; ready to be crushed at any moment. A caricature.

Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: gopalnair@us-immigrationlaw.com