,
13 tweets,
4 min read
Read on Twitter
How Singapore 🇸🇬 copy pasted THOMAS JOSEPH ODHIAMBO MBOYA'S Sessional Paper Number 10 of 1965 and become an Asian Tiger 🐯... THREAD 🔥🔥🔥@DumeSingh, @jjogola, @Hidhow @BenjiNdolo, @FredAsira, @fndaga, @Belive_Kinuthia, @I_am_Gathoni, @FauzKhalid, @surambaya, @WanjikuRevolt 
Kenya 🇰🇪 and Singapore 🇸🇬 have a common history. They were both declared independent from Britain in 1963.
But my interest is in Singapore 🇸🇬; a country that was faced with rapidly growing, poor and uneducated population living in slums.
With precarious markets, small land, water scarcity and few natural resources it struggled along until 1965 when it became an Independent Nation from Malaysia 🇲🇾 with Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in control.
Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew borrowed ideas from Tom MBOYA'S Sessional-Paper-No-10 and the first thing he did was to endorse Singapore 🇸🇬 as a free- market state attracting thousands of multinational corporations. In just two decades Singapore's economy had grown by 800% 👌🏾👌🏾👌🏾.
Singaporeans' average life expectancy hit 71 years with practically almost everyone having a decent job and a home 🏡. In Yew's mind was Switzerland 🇨🇭. He wanted Singapore airlines to outcomplete Swiss air with the focal goal being to reach Switzerland economic level.
To produce these economic miracles, the Benouvelent Dictator controlled population through the setting up of free family planning clinics. This was followed by a campaign dubbed "Plan your family small".
Inhibitive strategies such as shorter maternity leave, higher hospital charges and less income tax relief were also implemented to discourage women from giving birth to more children.
Women who agreed to be sterilized after their second child were rewarded USD 5000, given priority to public housing and their kids were taken to good schools. To date Singaporeans think 2 is the right number of kids.
Perhaps the most enduring move was the requirement that all workers save a minimum of 25% of their salaries. They would claim the money only after reaching 55 years of age. This formed one of the secrets behind Singapore's incredible economic growth.
The money would go into a Central Provident Fund, with which the government built roads, schools, hospitals and housing.
Lee Kuan Yew's administration saw 74% of Singaporeans owning their own homes, his goal however was 100%. It's hard to define Singapore 🇸🇬, this is a dictatorship nation blended with free flow of information.
It's however important to note that there is no corruption in this economy that uses capitalist means to attain socialists ends. To Scholars, Singapore 🇸🇬 is a meritocratic, elitist and beauracratic state.
