Bus Fare Increase!

I read with disbelief the headline in the papers today what Minister Lui said. I am perturbed why an increase in salary for staff in a public listed company is the concern of the government.  As if pumping $1.1b tax payer money into these companies is not enough – now they expect the public to pay for the increase in the salary through higher fares! They might as well put a donation box on each bus and train and ask the commuters to donate money for the staff!

For goodness sake, if the transport sector is so unprofitable, then the transport company should exit the business and let somebody else take over. Minister Lui asked and as quoted in the papers “where is that money coming from?”

Let me tell you where:

SBS and SMRT are the 2 main public transport operators together with Comfort Delgro which operates mainly taxis and private hired buses.

In their latest financial announcements, SBS and SMRT reported net profit for the current year up to the current quarter at $16m and $70m respectively. For their last full financial year end, the profits were $37m and $120m respectively. Shareholders' fund was $332m and $791m. If that isn’t money to be used to pay for the salary increase what is?

Aside from that, from their annual report, salary cost was $305m and $340m for SBS and SMRT out of which $2.4m and $9.7m went to directors and senior management respectively. No wonder SMRT has such human resource problems. Look at the amount that they pay their top as compared to SBS! Me think, they should cut the pay of the bloody incompetent management at SMRT and give it to the bus drivers.

  

Annual Reports for SBS
Annual Report for SMRT

Both SBS and SMRT are listed on the SGX and answerable to its shareholders for its bottom-line but yet it is operating a public service which may necessitate some loss making operations. Public service and profit driven objectives cannot be easily reconciled and where there is a conflict, the interest of the owners will always take precedent over the provision of public service. After all, the logic will be that the company cannot fail otherwise greater harm will be done so these companies are allowed to get away with slipshod services like not providing buses to far flung places like Kranji; Senoko etc or operating the trains at later hours.

Since the government is pumping so much money into these companies, I think the government might as well take back the operation of public transport in Singapore. At least than there will be justification to use tax payer money to fund them!

View from the top of Swissotel Hotel

Managed to go up to the roof top of Swissotel Hotel at Stamford Rd while covering the Vertical Marathon. Although view was great, it was cloudy but for what's its worth, these are the view right from the top.

The financial district

The Bugis area and beyond

Orchard area

Marina Bay area

Meat and Greed 3

Next on my Meat and Greed hunt was this place in Ang Mo Kio. Not being very familiar with the neighbourhood, we walked around in the rain before we finally stumbled upon it only to discover that it was just next door to the famous Pine Garden's Cake Shop.

Which makes me wonder why they name themselves Next Door Deli. Are they related? I am quite sure they are caused

The dessert which we had at the end of the meal

came from there.

Anyway back to the food. The tv program highly recommended the chicken wing. They had 2 versions  - fried and grilled. Naturally we ordered both. Unfortunately, I didn't think it live up to its fame though.

We also had the grilled chicken chop. It came with 2 sides and a piece of garlic bread

 We also had one of their house specialities the fried laksa. It comes with prawn, fish cake but no chicken. The one in the picture was extra. It tasted a bit weird and need some getting use to but it kinda grew on me.

This is the meatball spaghetti. Err I had to say it but I think the one at Ikea is much better.

Finally we also had the sausage platter. It came with 3 different type of sausage and fries and this was probably the biggest dismantlement of all. Just look at the 3 small little bangers.

The saving grace was the price. At an average of about $7.00 on average, it is a very decent and filling meal and even if the food is not up to the mark as I expected, it is certainly value for money.

Not all birds are lovable

I stayed in an estate where just by walking short distance, I can see lot and lot of birds. From the common mynahs and sparrow to the more exotic birds like the heron, egret, parakeets and many others whom I cannot identify.

Every morning I wake up to the chirping of birds from the birds on the trees just behind my place. This is the tree. This tree is flowering now and attracts many birds including this beauty

Now that the tree is flowering, it is attracting more birds including bats and this bird

Photo from The Hindu newspaper

I like birds. I enjoyed listening to them and waking up to them. On my runs in Pasir Ris Park, I always try to look out for the heron screeching away. So I was quite disturbed to read in the papers about some complaints by people about the Koels and asking for them to be culled! What the hell. It's just some bird calls so why kick such a big fuss. After all we should be thankful that we have such a wide variety of birds.

And then a koel decided to join the crowd on the tree behind my place. And it makes its presence felt at 4am in the morning when the night is still as quite as dead. And all of sudden, I understand the sentiments of those who complained about the bird. Imagine being waken up at 4am by this

(Video from xeno-canto Asia)

Thankfully the bird has so far make it appearance on alternate day but always at about 4am and will perform until about 7am. Sighed..... how to like something like that?