I have, on many occasions, raised the observation the govt and its agencies are spending too much on unnecessary spending.
I wish to quote one of them here. There will be more examples that I will raise later.
Take the case of the recent exercise to open up the electricity market for consumers to pick their suppliers. This is supposed to help reduce prices for consumers through competitive pricing by the market.
This is probably true. But we should also realize the added cost to the economy through this practice. Here are the added cost:
a) The suppliers have to spend money on advertising and marketing to get consumers to shift from one supplier to another.
b) When a consumer changes suppliers, a lot of work has to be done to create a record with the new supplier, close the account with the old supplier, and change the banking arrangements.
c) The consumer has to receive bills from different suppliers for different services and make separate payment.
Is there a better way to reduce prices to consumers, rather than adopt a wasteful and costly practice?
My preferred approach is one publicly owned supplier, like in the past. There is a need to check that this supplier, which is operating a monopoly, prices the services at actual cost, rather than to make a profit.
It is not easy to ensure that the monopoly runs efficiently, but it is not difficult either. It can be done through transparency and effective management.
We were able to achieve these goals in the past under the first generation leaders (politicians and civil servants). I do not believe that the market can provide a better solution.
However, if we have to open up the market for consumers to choose their suppliers, can we reduce the wasteful practices?
We can allow SP Services to continue to handle the central billing for all providers. There is no need for each electricity supplier to set up a billing process.
I remembered that SP Services spent more than $40 million for their billing system. (This large sum shocked me). I do not know how much each electricity supplier will be spending on their separate billing systems. This cost could be avoided.
I lament that we are spending money wastefully. It seemed that the people in charge take the attitude of "not my money". Maybe, they think that if they spend more, the vendors that provide these services, e.g. billing systems, will reward them back in some way in the future. Is this not another form of corruption?
If Singapore is to survive and prosper in the future, we have to stop the wasteful spending. We need to be prudent and frugal. We should spend on the necessary things to improves lives for the people. We should not spend on expensive computer and other systems, just to make some people rich or some people look important.
Tan Kin Lian
I wish to quote one of them here. There will be more examples that I will raise later.
Take the case of the recent exercise to open up the electricity market for consumers to pick their suppliers. This is supposed to help reduce prices for consumers through competitive pricing by the market.
This is probably true. But we should also realize the added cost to the economy through this practice. Here are the added cost:
a) The suppliers have to spend money on advertising and marketing to get consumers to shift from one supplier to another.
b) When a consumer changes suppliers, a lot of work has to be done to create a record with the new supplier, close the account with the old supplier, and change the banking arrangements.
c) The consumer has to receive bills from different suppliers for different services and make separate payment.
Is there a better way to reduce prices to consumers, rather than adopt a wasteful and costly practice?
My preferred approach is one publicly owned supplier, like in the past. There is a need to check that this supplier, which is operating a monopoly, prices the services at actual cost, rather than to make a profit.
It is not easy to ensure that the monopoly runs efficiently, but it is not difficult either. It can be done through transparency and effective management.
We were able to achieve these goals in the past under the first generation leaders (politicians and civil servants). I do not believe that the market can provide a better solution.
However, if we have to open up the market for consumers to choose their suppliers, can we reduce the wasteful practices?
We can allow SP Services to continue to handle the central billing for all providers. There is no need for each electricity supplier to set up a billing process.
I remembered that SP Services spent more than $40 million for their billing system. (This large sum shocked me). I do not know how much each electricity supplier will be spending on their separate billing systems. This cost could be avoided.
I lament that we are spending money wastefully. It seemed that the people in charge take the attitude of "not my money". Maybe, they think that if they spend more, the vendors that provide these services, e.g. billing systems, will reward them back in some way in the future. Is this not another form of corruption?
If Singapore is to survive and prosper in the future, we have to stop the wasteful spending. We need to be prudent and frugal. We should spend on the necessary things to improves lives for the people. We should not spend on expensive computer and other systems, just to make some people rich or some people look important.
Tan Kin Lian
6 comments:
Welcome to capitalism.Create jobs for people to do rather than play computer at home.lol.
Captialism,transfer money from the masses to the business owner and CEO??even the product or services does not increase the stardard of living.
Trying to reduce dementia in Singapore.
The various private operators are able to give up to 30% lower electricity prices. This means that a stat board provider with national monopoly should be able to charge electricity prices that is 40% cheaper and still able to operate properly.
It's a great blog about maitaining money thanks for sharing the blog to know more about finance..
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