Don’t be a wasteful Singapore

Amid public discourse on the appropriate operating model for the MRT system and the more recent discussion about whether our 51st National Day celebrations could be held at the National Stadium, I wonder if we have become short-sighted in our views and thus wasteful.

We have barely begun to reap the fruits of our labour since Singapore’s independence.

Undeniably, however, many of us have been raised in an age of plenty. As things have come easy, we cherish little of what we have.

In our housing estates, we replace lights and tiles that are still serviceable. Some think nothing of vandalising them because repairing them is only a phone call away.

We clamour for more amenities because our neighbouring estates have them. The mushrooming of behemoth town hubs is a case in point. We are accustomed to being fed the latest and the best symbols of success.

We think we can milk the market system for perpetual profits to feed our need for grandeur.

The recent rail breakdowns are perhaps symptomatic of this fervour for market forces. We are faced with the current infrastructural woes perhaps because we have taken a myopic view of the essential public good of transport.

The rebuilt National Stadium is another case in point. It remains pristine and clean because of underuse (“High costs ‘a new reality’ with new National Stadium”; Dec 17).

While we are awed by it, few get to see the inside because few events are staged there. Even the hosting of the nation’s birthday there was subject to bargaining between private and public interests.

Meanwhile, more modest neighbourhood facilities, which are no less functional, get more bookings. Can we call it “National Stadium” if ordinary citizens cannot relate to it? Perhaps ego got the better of us.

Amid uncertain economic realities, we should be fiscally prudent as a people and nation. We should look further to the horizon and stash away resources for a rainy day.