THE fact that water prices have not changed in the last 17 years means that a large part of the investment and technology that went into producing Swiss-quality water levels in Singapore have not been covered by the users themselves.

“It’s therefore inevitable there needs to be a price that reflects the investment and the cost of running a sophisticated water system,” Jochen Krauss, a partner at Simon-Kucher & Partners, told The Business Times yesterday.

The economist was rationalising why the water price increase, announced at Budget 2017 last month, is necessary.

The cost of operating and maintaining the water system has risen over the years, prompting the government to review the price of water.

Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat told the House during the Budget debate that, including taxes, water prices will go up by 30 per cent in two phases: July 2017 and July 2018.

The previous hike was phased in from 1997 to 2000, and it saw tariffs go up by 20 per cent to 100 per cent on a scale depending on usage.

But costs have gone up sharply since then.

Last month, national water agency PUB said it cost about S$500 million to run the water system in 2000. By 2015, this had risen to S$1.3 billion. This includes collecting used water, treating water, producing NEWater and desalination, as well as maintaining water pipelines.

Read also: Cost of supplying water has more than doubled: PUB

“As a consumer, I would say there’s never a right time for a price change,” said Dr Krauss.

“But at some point, a good government that cares for its people has to make a decision and force measures that, on the outside, are unpopular.

“If you were to look deeper into why price changes are made or why price systems need to work in a certain way, then I would say this is actually a sign of a good government.”

Dr Krauss said countries such as Singapore, where there is no natural resources and has high water stress, it is only through right pricing that everyone will learn to value water as a strategic resource.

Read also: Price hike reflects scarcity value of water: Masagos

He also said how Singapore is pricing its water is “moving in the right direction” and is fair.

“For instance, the current price system has what is referred to as the sanitary appliance fee, which is S$2.80 per fitting. It is a proxy of water usage. Just because I have another fitting in my home doesn’t necessarily mean I consume more water.

“By changing that into a variable fee, you are essentially creating a fairer system because you are basing the cost of a variable consumption pattern.”

Citing the United Nations’ report, Dr Krauss said that what a household has to contribute is actually still a “marginal amount that is being spent on the water bill itself”.

“Even with the 30 per cent hike, I don’t think the price of water really fully covers the true value of the investment the government has put in to provide good, clean water.”

Referring to the recent launch of the fifth NEWater plant in Changi, Dr Krauss pointed out that although it is a new resource for water, “that resource is not infinite”.

“I still have the marginal cost of producing that additional litre of water, and that additional litre is again scarce resource that falls under the purveyance of a price system.

“Singapore is striving to provide Swiss-quality water levels and that has a price. It may have new technology (to do so), but it’s still the volume of water that needs to be produced and paid for.”

Dr Krauss added that as long as pricing works hand in hand with public education, the government will be able to communicate why there is a need to safeguard water for the future.

Read also: 
Challenging times ahead for Singapore’s water security
Water price hike necessary, but why now?
Budget 2017’s water price hike: What you’re not hearing about the 30 per cent increase

This article was first published on March 16, 2017.
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March 8 was International Women’s Day – an annual worldwide movement that celebrates the socio-economic roles and contributions of women.

While it is hard to imagine gender inequality in a developed society like Singapore – where females enjoy equal access to education, and comprise close to half of the resident work force – achieving gender parity in corporate leadership roles remains a challenge.

A recent study by the National University of Singapore (NUS) Business School’s Centre for Governance, Institutions and Organisations was particularly illuminating: female directors of Singapore Exchange-listed companies are on average paid markedly less than their male counterparts, indicating a gender pay gap of 43.2 per cent.

While the disparity could partly be explained by the types of director roles that women typically held – where they were less likely to serve as committee chairs or lead independent directors, which come with more responsibilities and pay – clearly advancing gender parity on boards is not just about the number of seats but the quality of those seats and the associated remuneration.

LEGISLATION OR PURPOSEFUL CHANGE?

The Government’s focus on board gender parity has been apparent with the setting up of the Diversity Task Force, followed by the Diversity Action Committee in recent years.

Despite this, women’s representation on boards in Singapore stands at just 9.7 per cent as at June 2016 – a rather dismal increase from 9.1 per cent a year ago.

While legislation may hasten the pace of change, surely a true appreciation of board gender parity and a deep-seated business-driven desire to achieve that would be more purposeful and enduring.

By now, many business leaders would already have heard that gender parity is not a feminist but a business issue.

Research by EY and the Peterson Institute for International Economics, which surveyed some 22,000 organisations globally, found that a company with female leaders will outperform one with none.

In fact, if 30 per cent of a company’s leaders are women, its net margin would be six percentage points higher than one without women in their executive ranks.

An analysis of the S&P Composite 1500 has shown that companies with women in leadership positions enjoy an “increase in innovation intensity”.

The question for businesses is: Do you know how much you are losing out without appropriate female representation on your boards?

The reality is that many do not have a good sense of that.

This points to one of the key challenges that confronts businesses today – that there is insufficiently clear metrics or data for boards and management to enable them to measure the need for, or the efficacy of their gender diversity efforts and the impact on business performance.

Many look at existing boards and think there is a shortage of female board talent. Various reasons – or misconceptions – could account for that. Regardless, it is the responsibility of both genders to address the issue of the talent pipeline.

IT TAKES BOTH WOMEN AND MEN

Women executives with board service aspirations need to firstly proactively understand what it takes to serve on a board and how their skills and experience can be enhanced to prepare for the role.

Also, women executives can broaden their board potential by seeking mentors to provide advice and guidance, as well as sponsors to endorse them across wider networks.

Some argue that women need to do a better job of advocating for themselves.

On the other hand, given that most senior business leaders are male currently, men can certainly close the gender gap by making diversity both a personal and corporate priority.

They can lead company cultural change with progressive policies that support flexible work arrangements for women.

Making female role models visible is another way to build an inclusive environment – so people throughout the company can visualise what it means to rise to the leadership ranks.

Finally, male leaders can mentor or sponsor female colleagues with leadership potential and endorse them within their networks.

THE RIGHT THING TO DO

Ultimately, the push for gender parity on boards is not about achieving a perfect 50:50 ratio.

Tokenism and quotas would have been the easy answer to that.

What we should demand of ourselves as leaders is to be a change agent for the best outcomes for our businesses and stakeholders – and in this case, it means to respect the business merits of having women leaders for better working boards.

The writer is EY ASEAN and Singapore managing partner, Ernst & Young LLP. The views are the writer’s and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organisation or its member firms. This article, which has been edited for length, first appeared in The Business Times yesterday.

This article was first published on March 16, 2017.
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Certificate of entitlement (COE) premiums for motorcycles hit a record high at the latest bidding exercise yesterday.

Motorcycle COEs closed at $7,483 – up 10 per cent from $6,801 at the bidding last month – surpassing the previous high of $6,889 in January last year.

DEMAND

Mr Norman Lee, honorary general secretary of the Singapore Motorcycle Trade Association, said that the increase was due to both personal demand and demand from businesses.

Despite the recent introduction of the tiered Additional Registration Fee (ARF) for motorcycles, demand for higher capacity motorcycles was not dampened, he added.

Mr Lee added that while quantums are likely to stay high for the next few months, they should dip after May.

Motorcycle COEs will no longer make up 10 per cent of the Open category, so there will be more motorcycle COEs available then.

Experts noted that premiums could go up even more.

This article by The Straits Times was published in The New Paper, a free newspaper published by Singapore Press Holdings.

One cyclist in Singapore learnt to observe traffic rules the hard way.

A video posted on the Facebook page Love Cycling SG shows a cyclist disregarding the traffic lights and getting hit by a car while riding across the road.

In the video, the car can be first seen travelling on the middle lane of a three-lane road towards a traffic junction.

The green lights were in the driver’s favour, and he or she proceeded to go across the junction.

However, a cyclist suddenly appeared in front of the car.

The driver could not brake in time and hit the cyclist.

The latter slammed onto the car’s windscreen and bonnet before falling onto the road.

The impact cracked the car’s windscreen and sent the bicycle flying a few metres away from the car.

The cyclist sat on the road in a daze thereafter.

Before the collision took place, another car had given way to the cyclist by stopping at the traffic junction.

It might have blocked the view of the cyclist, but that is not a good enough excuse to defend his reckless act.

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Fewer people are donating to charity, but those who do, are giving more generously.

When it comes to volunteering, the reverse is true.

More people are giving their time, although in shorter periods.

But these developments over the last two years, driven by what experts believe is a resurgence of the kampung spirit, still mean a win-win for charities, according to a biennial study commissioned by the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC).

Donations went up from $1.25 billion in 2014 to $2.18 billion last year – a rise of nearly 75 per cent. This was despite 76 per cent of last year’s respondents saying they had donated money, compared to 83 per cent in 2014.

The time put in by volunteers went up more dramatically. In 2014, when the last survey was done, they clocked 66 million hours. Last year, the figure nearly doubled to 121 million hours – despite the number of hours put in by each volunteer falling from 93 to 84 hours.

The ninth edition of the study, called the Individual Giving Survey and which polled 389 respondents living and working in Singapore, also showed a rise in informal volunteerism.

Almost three in four volunteered or donated through such informal channels.

These are ground-up efforts in which, instead of working with or donating to an organisation, people helped others on their own, including banding with neighbours

to form community networks to look out for seniors.

Or, instead of donating to animal welfare groups, people rescue injured stray dogs and cats on their own.

About half of volunteers gave their time to such efforts last year, compared to a quarter in 2014.

“This reflects a positive trend for civic participation in Singapore, as more people are starting ground-up efforts or volunteering directly,” NVPC said.

“It shows that the kampung spirit is coming back,” said NVPC director for knowledge and advocacy Jeffrey Tan.

Dr Kang Soon-Hock, head of the social science core at SIM University, said the rise in informal volunteerism could be due to the awareness created by social media for certain social causes.

This article was first published on March 16, 2017.
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