Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Khaw Boon Wan supported casinos

Singapore
Naysayers change their mindsLi Xueying
538 words
20 April 2005
Straits Times
STIMES
English
(c) 2005 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
THEY belong in the converted camp.
For seven years, Mr Khaw Boon Wan resisted repeated calls for Singapore to set up casinos.
As the Trade and Industry Ministry's permanent secretary from 1995 to 2001, he fended off regular lobbying by the Singapore Tourism Board for acasino.
'Each time, I would object to it,' said Mr Khaw, now the Health Minister.
'I told them not to go for 'easy' options, but to think hard about how we could be special and still bring in the tourists without a casino.'
He again rejected the idea when he chaired the Economic Review Committee's services subcommittee from December 2001 to August 2002.
Yesterday, Mr Khaw, a staunch Buddhist once 'dead against' casinos, was one of two MPs who spoke about how they had changed their stance from being naysayers to ones willing to cast their chips for the integrated resorts (IRs) with casinos. The other was Mr Inderjit Singh (Ang Mo Kio GRC).
Mr Singh said, in the course of the past year, he had shifted from objecting vehemently, to sitting on the fence, and finally to 'fully supporting' the IRs.
The father of two had feared casinos would threaten society's values. 'I did not want my children growing up in a different type of Singapore,' he said.
So what changed the minds of the two politicians?
For Mr Singh, it was the realisation that it was 'more than a moral issue'.
'It was about Singapore's future and its ability to compete,' he said.
Initially, he felt Singapore 'does not have to resort to a casino' for economic success. So he tried to find alternatives. 'But as I searched for the answer... I realised there were very few options for now.'
After successive downturns, the economy is in dire need of a booster shot, said the entrepreneur.
'The business community is getting worn out. The mood is bad, has been bad, and if this kind of mood continues, it will spell disaster for Singapore,' he said.
'We need boosters to our economy and I don't see any immediate instrument as a booster other than the integrated resorts.'
Like Mr Singh, Mr Khaw believed Singapore had no choice but to say 'yes'.
It cannot afford to ignore the huge economic benefits and the 'many much-needed jobs' the IRs can create.
For Mr Khaw, the turning point came when he saw the plans from bidders.
'I was struck by the quality of the proposals, the strong interest by these prospective investors, and their multi-billion-dollar bids,' said Mr Khaw.
Even then, he would still have held out for the status quo if Singapore could have been 'certain that our neighbours will still maintain the status quo'.
'But I will not bet on this,' he said.
The investors would have looked elsewhere in the neighbourhood, perhaps as near as Johor. Singaporeans would still have flocked there and the social costs to the country would still have been incurred here.
With the IRs, said Mr Singh, at least Singapore is putting in place a more systematic way of addressing problem gambling, an issue which otherwise would have dropped off the radar.

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