Seen and heard this week

In an opinion piece published in The Business Times on 28 February, Distinguished Visiting Professor Asit K Biswasat the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School) and Dr Cecilia Tortajada, Senior Research Fellow at the School’s Institute of Water Policy shared their views on South Africa’s water crisis. They said that the crisis is a result of poor urban water management, exacerbated by an increasing population and political apathy, and should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers to improve urban water services across Africa.

Senior Research Fellow Mr Faizal bin Yahya and Research Assistant Mr Mooris Tjioe, both from the Institute of Policy Studies at the LKY School, examined the effectiveness of Budget 2018 initiatives in helping small- and medium-sized enterprises expand overseas in a Channel NewsAsia commentary on 28 February. They said that while the new and enhanced initiatives offer short-term incentives for businesses expanding overseas, its long-term effectiveness would be hard to measure. They also emphasised that it is not the sole responsibility of the government to finance a company’s overseas expansion and that incentives should not be viewed as a substitute or supplement to business expenditure.

Also weighing in on Budget 2018 in a commentary posted on Channel NewAsia on 1 March, Mr Allan Loi, Research Associate and Ms Melissa Low, Research Fellow at the Energy Studies Institute spoke about the new carbon tax, saying that it is an essential step in Singapore’s efforts towards combating climate change. They added that the carbon tax will complement existing educational and financing schemes to reduce carbon emissions in Singapore, and that putting a price on carbon has proven reasonably successful in most countries that have implemented it.   

Read more about the NUS community in the news.