How SimplyGo showed us that Singaporeans need more voices in Parliament.

Leong Mun Wai asked a question in January to the Government on how it would respond to Singaporeans’ negative feedback on SimplyGo during the debate on the Parliamentary motion “Building an Inclusive and Safe Digital Society” and it was Simply Ignored.

The whole SimplyGo saga can be avoided if the PAP government was more inclusive in getting response from the public, and not just their normal practice of “closed door meetings”, where the claim a lot of thing like the public’s support for the 9% GST.

We have a parliament which is largely the PAP pushing their ideas and policies, changing constitution, and impacting Singaporeans without any critical debates.

It is clear that PSP wanted to engage on this topic, to make sure that the less digitally savvy seniors in Singapore do not face disruption in their daily lives with the “Upgrade of SimplyGo” which does not provide information on trip fares or balance in their stored value card — a standard feature in many other stored value cards globally.

If a system is working, I was wondering why does the government want to change to this new card that lacks transparency? Is it because transparency is not preferred in Singapore?