> Fast-food worker laughs, tells robber to get a job

A San Antonio fast-food restaurant cashier laughed at a robbery suspect and told him to get a job if he wanted money during a failed holdup on Tuesday evening.

Police said the suspect approached the worker and demanded money, but the cashier laughed and apparently didn’t realize the man was trying to hold up the place.

The suspect then allegedly pulled out a box cutter and demanded the cashier’s wallet. The employee complied, but had no money in his billfold.

The suspect fled, but was caught by police who responded to the robbery call.

San Antonio police said the suspect is expected to be charged with aggravated robbery.

> Support 8.5% GST for 100% FREE public transport!!!

Subsidies a tripping point
Free rides could mean GST of 8.5%, says transport minister

OIL prices have come down, so why not public transport fares? And with the rocky economic road ahead, would any potential fare increase next year be frozen — or indeed, could the Government help subsidise commuters?

MacPherson residents voiced what was on some Singaporeans’ minds when they raised these questions with Transport Minister Raymond Lim yesterday.

On the issue of public transport subsidies, Mr Lim pointed to the unwelcome load this would place on taxpayers. “You know how much it costs to run the bus and train system (for) one year? About $1.2 billion just to get the buses and the trains out,” he said.

“The money still must come from somewhere right? It is about 1.5-percentage-point increase of your GST (Goods and Services Tax). Now it is 7 per cent; you want your public transport to be free, you want your GST to go up to 8.5 per cent?”

Nonetheless, Mr Lim assured the 300 MacPherson residents at the community dialogue that the Public Transport Council (PTC) — which approves and regulates public transport fares — would “be mindful of the economic conditions” and the impact on commuters when assessing any proposals by the transport operators to tweak fares.

The PTC had, during the downturn in 2001, rejected requests to increase fares for trunk buses and trains. Then, the council had recognised that commuters would find it difficult to bear a significant fare hike. Commuters also found relief during the Asian Financial Crisis in 1999, when public transport operators gave a 5-per-cent bonus rebate for one year, to help reduce the cost of using public transport.

Last Friday, the price of New York oil sank under US$34 per barrel for the first time in nearly five years. On why the plunge in oil prices has not resulted in any corresponding drop in public transport prices, Mr Lim pointed out that fares are not directly linked to retail diesel prices, which went up by40 per cent the past year.

“If there is a direct link, it must go both ways,” he said. “If we have that system, there would (have been) a 40-per-cent increase in public transport fares.” What commuters got, instead, was a 0.7-per-cent average increase.

Also, the fare review mechanism — applied annually in deciding the cap on any fare increase — considers other factors such aschanges in the consumer price index and average wage increases, he pointed out.

Earlier fare tweak ‘unlikely’

Annual fare revisions are typically made in the second half of the year. But could such rapidly changing circumstances of an unravelling global economy and volatile oil prices, be an argument for convening the PTC sooner – the same way the National Wages Council will convene next month ahead of its usual mid-year pow-wow to tweak wage guidelines?

This is unlikely, said Member of Parliament Seah Kian Peng, who sits on the Government Parliamentary Committee for Transport, when asked.

“The fare adjustment formula is a self adjusting one which will take into account various changes in the economy,” he told TODAY. “Cost of living is always on the radar but the immediate focus is to make sure Singaporeans stay employed and reduce costs for business.”

At the dialogue, one resident asked: As both SBS Transit and SMRT have been profitable, would the Government cap any fare increases next year?

Mr Lim said the PTC allows the two operators to make some but not “excessive” profits. Over the next three years, he added, the two companies would have to spend some $500 to $600 million on new buses.

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SBS Transit Chief Operating Officer, Mr Gan Juay Kiat, said: “With costs rising, especially fuel, manpower and GST costs, it is difficult for us to keep fares unchanged. In fact, the net increase of 1.52% this year is smaller than the 2 percentage point increase in GST which we have been absorbing since July 2007.