水和电是现代生活不可或缺的必需品。在乡村时代，付不起水费可到水井打水，付不起电费买盏煤油灯就可在夜间照明，请问在现代社会的新加坡你还能这么做吗？因此，水电收费率的波动对家庭的开支产生直接的冲击。不久前，因为燃油的市场价格突然上扬，电费上涨了22%，不少家庭就因此而面对电费突然增加而焦虑不堪。

如何确保一般的家庭不会因水电费大幅度波动而捉襟见肘是一个负责任的政府所应思考的问题。政府的应对，如以往一般向人民解释电供的收费率和燃油市场挂勾，是“市场”的问题。工人党认为这不单是“市场”的问题，也应该是政府的问题和责任。政府应该探讨电源供应公司所订立的价格，所赚取的回报率是否合理。如何设立有效的机制以避免“市场”问题造成家庭开支大幅度上涨而引起不安，如何通过电供收费率架构的改变使一般的家庭支付较低的电费并同时鼓励人们节省用电。 (more…)

As a law student in the 1980’s, I was imbued with idealism and a pretty strong sense of justice and how governments should behave in a liberal democracy. I lapped up what my lecturers taught. But before I could even complete my law degree, I discovered that Singapore was not made in the image and likeness of Western democracies.

In 1986, the government decided that it was not happy with the way the Law Society had conducted itself i.e. having Francis Seow as its President, and actively campaigning against restrictions on the foreign press. So it decided to amend the Legal Profession Act to place conditions on who could run for office in the Society. Select Committee proceedings were held and televised. One by one, the lawyers in the Law Society Council were grilled on national television about how they were not fit to hold office. One was even quizzed about her connections with the Workers’ Party. Detentions under the Internal Security Act of alleged Marxist conspirators followed soon after. Exactly what did the rule of law mean in Singapore? As a young law student, I was perplexed, and in need of answers.

At about the same time, Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, or JBJ as we know him, was fighting huge personal battles. He was the incumbent MP in Anson constituency, having won the by-election in 1981 and been re-elected in 1984. News broke about him being convicted of an offence involving a donor’s cheque to him; he was seen clutching his Bible as he entered Queenstown Remand Prison to serve a prison sentence. Consequently, JBJ was also disqualified from law practice. He appealed against his disqualification to the Privy Council in London, our highest appeal court then.  In the course of their judgment, the Law Lords in London observed that JBJ’s conviction was wrong and that he had suffered a “grievous injustice”. This was basically brushed aside by the authorities. JBJ’s disqualification from law practice and from standing for elections for 5 years remained. Within a few months, the government abolished legal appeals to London in disciplinary cases involving lawyers, specifically citing JBJ’s appeal!

Nearly 10 years later, campaigning began for the General Elections held in Jan 1997. Tang Liang Hong had teamed up with JBJ to contest Cheng San GRC. The atmosphere was meteoric, with the ruling party marshalling its full arsenal to label Tang a Chinese chauvinist. As I think back now, Tang’s shouts of “Merdeka” at a lunch time rally at UOB Plaza still ring in my ears to this day. So high, it seems, were the stakes at GE 1997. On New Year’s Day 1997, on the eve of Polling Day, JBJ stood at the WP rally stage at Yio Chu Kang stadium and said that he had with him Tang’s police reports against “Goh Chok Tong and his people”.  For that statement, 8 legal suits were commenced in the High Court against JBJ. Deeply troubled and upset, I wrote to JBJ enclosing a donation. Thus we became friends.
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In an article in The Sunday Times on 2 Nov 2008¹ , the Minister for Health Mr Khaw Boon Wan announced that he planned to amend the Human Organ Transplant Act to allow people who donate their kidneys to get monetary compensation from the recipient or a voluntary organisation. He said that “the World Health Organisation and countries such as the United States believe that it is ethical to compensate donors so they do not suffer for their act of altruism.” He hinted that the sum would be “at least five figures, possibly six”.

However, such an approach and argument is flawed on three counts:

True altruism is priceless
First, altruism is “the act of caring about the needs and happiness of other people more than your own”². Such acts are considered noble and worthy of admiration precisely because there is no material benefit for their self-sacrifice. Such people and such acts are valued because they encourage the suppression of individual need for the good of others and for the good of the greater community. The greater the capacity of a society to do this, the better it is able to survive difficult times.

The act of compensating donors for kidneys removes the altruistic component from the act, and makes it a commercial transaction. By allowing compensation, we are saying that as a society, we do not really value altruistic acts, and that with money and power, all things, including the denial of death, is possible. This will encourage individualism, and a “me first” mentality found in some other countries. This cannot possibly be good for us as a nation.

The poor will be disadvantaged
Second, organ trading will exacerbate the rich-poor divide. In an environment where all prospective organ recipients are in a queue regardless of whether they are rich or poor, the lives of both rich and poor are valued equally. Legalising organ trading creates an environment where those who can afford it “bypass the queue” – meaning there will be preferential treatment of one group over another.

Lower or even middle-class Singaporeans are unlikely to be able to afford sums that are five or six figures. The argument that “the National Kidney Foundation could step in to help” does not work in a situation where there are two prospective recipients with hard-to-match donor requirements competing for a single kidney. Would the wealthy recipient outbid the National Kidney Foundation? And would a poor or middle-class Singaporean die because he wasn’t rich enough to afford a kidney?

In the National Longevity Insurance Committee (NLIC) Report³, Professor Lim Pin noted that there were public concerns that “the scheme benefits those who are wealthier as they will live longer”. However, the NLIC noted that “there is as yet no robust local data to support the use of any other factor (apart from age and gender) to price the premiums”. The NLIC Report is silent on whether such robust data exists in other countries, and did not propose that we try to obtain such robust data before making a key policy decision. Why? Will legalising organ trading allow the rich to live longer? Will it create a situation where the poor and middle class end up subsidising the rich when the National Lifelong Income Scheme kicks in?
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