If there are any Workers' Party voters here let me reassure you – no, your idol is not heading to court again. Unfortunately, parliamentary privilege allows MPs to say all kinds of things without facing legal repercussions, unless it's a serious, provable abuse of their immunity (like in the case of Raeesah Khan).
This is why populists can hide behind the excuse of having a subjective "opinion", even though they are peddling outright falsehoods that are easy to disprove.
Undeterred by his recent conviction in the court of law, Pritam Singh chose to double down on misleading narratives peddled by his party, this time attacking the government for raising GST over the past 2 years, claiming it has "turbocharged inflation".
Now, I know that WP members are poorly acquainted with numbers, and when some of them are professionally required to they arrive at conclusions opposite to what their party is claiming (like Louis Chua confirming in his report to Credit Suisse that public housing in Singapore is, indeed, very affordable).
But they should at least be able to acknowledge that those numbers exist and are easy to check. So, why would they lie about them so blatantly?
The only thing getting turbocharged is Pritam’s intent to mislead the voters ahead of the GE
Now, setting aside the topic of GST hike altogether, whether it's good or bad, and what the knock on consequences of it would or could have been, let's focus on the allegation – that the tax has increased inflation.
Politicians may have differing opinions on policy tools and that's fine. Even the dumbest idea is just an idea and they are voicing it on behalf of their voters.
What politicians should not do, however, is claim things that are demonstrably untrue.
We can easily disprove Pritam's theories by looking at the data – so let's do just that. All of the figures below have been sourced from International Monetary Fund.
Chart 1. Inflation actually fell in the years GST was increased.
As you can see, inflation in Singapore peaked in 2022, when it started sweeping the world following excessive global spending during the pandemic (at the time GST was still at 7%). It then fell in both 2023 and 2024, despite the tax bump.
The reason is very simple – a single percent is negligible to most businesses and they likely have already included it in price corrections forced by inflation and other reasons.
The idea that a 1% increase in GST must necessarily lead businesses to raise prices (allegedly more than by 1%, since it's cents per single product we're mostly talking about) is ridiculous.
There are many price components in different industries, not to mention fundamental laws of supply and demand which influence pricing far more than a slight nudge in consumption tax. There's energy, transportation, rent, labour, parts and so on – all fluctuating annually by more than 1%. GST is an afterthought.
That said, I know many skeptics may still think that even if inflation rate fell, it could have been even lower if it wasn't for higher tax rate. So let's compare Singapore to other countries.
Chart 2. Inflation in Singapore was not higher than in other developed nations or Southeast Asia during changes to GST.
Inflation in Singapore was lower than or comparable to other developed nations and even within Southeast Asia it was tangibly higher only in 2022, when GST was still at 7%.
For the two years GST had been hiked over (2023 and 2024) cumulative inflation in Singapore was 7.5% compared to 7.3% average for Southeast Asia.
Is this the "turbocharging" you speak of, Mr Singh?
Of course, this might not be enough to satisfy complainers either. Maybe, just maybe, you might think that business owners had already increased prices ahead of time and inflation was distributed across several years?
Let's check that as well: how much have the price changes accumulated over the period between 2021 and 2024? And how do they compare to other nations?
Chart 3. Cumulative inflation, in select countries and country groupings around the world.
There are some outliers here: Japan, long fighting deflation and failing to raise prices for decades, reported 8%, and Switzerland, already known for extremely high prices and living costs prior to the wave of inflation around the world.
Malaysia, Singapore's sibling, is a few percentage points below the city-state – but we have to bear in mind that it has its own oil and gas reserves, providing it with the ability to dampen rising energy prices. It also produces food locally (while Singapore is almost entirely dependent on imports) and keeps running large budgetary deficits every year, pushing the bill to future generations.
Overall, Singapore's cumulative inflation rate is a bit above Southeast Asian average for the 4-year period, though it was actually almost exactly flat in the two years when GST was increased (as I mentioned before, 7.5% vs. 7.3% in SEA).
Moreover, it performed better than nearly all comparable developed nations, including many which have their own energy sources and plenty of food.
Again, Mr Singh, care to explain to all of us where that inflation "turbocharging" has actually happened? Other than in your head.
F.... populism
Of course we're all grown-ups and we know what's going on. It's election time and Pritam Singh is playing on the sentiments of complainers who do not understand that this bout of inflation is a global phenomenon and that Singapore did no worse – and even better – than almost every other country in the world (especially given its overwhelming dependence on imports for everything).
Like every cynical populist, Pritam knows that many people don't know or care to study these things, and is trying to use their lack of knowledge to his political advantage.
He's portraying himself and his party as allies of those ignorant voters, assuring them that their personal experiences are valid and that inflation wouldn't have been so bad had it not been for the government's tax bumps – even though every objective piece of data suggests otherwise.
The Workers' Party doesn't seem to be the party of truth, facts or numbers.
It will cherry-pick soundbites to concoct a narrative that is entirely counterfactual but appeals to certain sentiments on the ground, translating into votes.
Contributing to Singapore through honest, factual discussion on policy has never been their mode of operation. Instead, they prey on the ignorance found in some segments of the society to win themselves another extension of their lucrative existence in the parliament, fully paid for by the public they cynically take advantage of.
