Why can’t S’pore produce firms capable of tackling projects like HSR?

An American firm has been appointed to design the infrastructure of the High-Speed Rail in Singapore and to conduct an advance engineering study (“US firm Aecom to design S’pore HSR infrastructure”; Feb 9).

On the same day, a Dutch firm was appointed to develop a detailed master plan for the Jurong Lake District.

After decades of national master plans, engineering studies, design and construction works, and highly ranked universities that are supposed to produce quality graduates, it is disappointing that no local company is capable of leading such work.

Instead of showing technical prowess and excellence after years of developing Singapore with taxpayers’ dollars, we are often reduced to being bureaucrats and project managers.

Perhaps such inadequacy is one of the causes of the economy’s lacklustre performance in recent years.

Finally, having suffered from mosquito-borne diseases for decades and after boosting Singapore as a medical hub with high research and development spending on talents and projects, it is painful to note that we must continue to rely on foreign talent.

For example, professors Neil Ferguson and Duane Gubler are leading Project Wolbachia-Singapore while we again assume the roles of bureaucrats and project managers receiving the data (“Trial to curb Aedes mosquito numbers yields ‘valuable data’”; Feb 9).

It would be imprudent to stand idle with no sense of urgency, spend our monies generously on others and carry on like this for much longer.