9 new Nominated Members of Parliament (NMPs) have been picked by a ruling party PAP committee to fill in the shortage of opposition presence in the Parliament. Each NMP will receive S$31,500 in annual salaries, including a guaranteed 13th month bonus. NMPs need only attend Parliament 6 times in a year, and they have the option to leave midway throughout a 2 hour session during “off-peak” period.
Coming from background heavily reliant on government funding and subsidies, the 9 NMPs are business owner Douglas Foo, an unknown NTUC representative, paralympic Yip Pin Xiu, government academic Walter Theseira and other members of government-funded organisations.
Walter Theseira, is a PAP-leaning academic from local university SUSS, who is often featured in state propaganda media as an “expert”.
According to PAP Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan Jin, the fake opposition NMPs is said to “represent views within and across their communities” and would “expand and deepen perspectives at Parliamentary debates”. However, the NMPs in the past made next to zero contribution expect to provide fire support to the ruling party. Aside from pouring praises for the ruling party like the other 80 PAP MPs, none of the 9 NMPs has any voting rights, rendering them literally useless and bringing zero value to Singaporeans.
In the last batch of NMPs, none of them spoke up against the GST increase, HDB lease and water price increase. NMPs avoid participating in serious debates, and engage in trivial issues unconcerned with the general populace. The NMP scheme was devised by the ruling party in 1990 to convince voters that there is no need to vote for the Opposition. Every two years, dictator Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong gets to decide the total number and who gets to be NMP through his puppet NMP selection committee comprising of ruling party members.