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A Channel NewsAsia interview in which Minister of State for Manpower Dinesh Vasu Dash encouraged Singaporeans to embrace entrepreneurship from a young age has attracted a torrent of sceptical and critical responses on social media, with many questioning both his credibility and the structural conditions he chose not to address. Dinesh, who co-chairs the Entrepreneurship committee under Singapore's Economic Strategy Review, said in the interview that barriers to starting a company are "much lower" today and that parents would generally support children who genuinely wanted to build a business. He also said Singapore should celebrate failure as part of the entrepreneurial journey. The remarks were published on 28 May 2026 and shared on Facebook by Channel NewsAsia, drawing hundreds of comments.     Credibility questioned over public sector career The most consistently raised objection was Dinesh's own career history. He served as a Brigadier General in the Singapore Armed Forces before retiring from the military in 2020. He subsequently became chief executive of the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC), a corporate entity under MOH Holdings, the government's public healthcare holding company, before resigning in March 2025 to contest that year's general election.  Commenters were pointed in their assessment. One described him as someone with an "iron rice bowl" who was out of touch with the reality facing entrepreneurs. Another questioned what standing a lifelong civil servant had to advise others on the risks of starting a business. Several noted that advice on risk-taking carries more weight when it comes from someone who has personally borne that risk. One commenter observed that the same encouragement would have sounded more credible coming from a politician with a private sector background. The bar and restaurant remark Dinesh's aside in the interview — that he had "always wanted to set up a nice bar or restaurant at some point" — attracted particular attention as an illustration of the gap between his stated entrepreneurial instincts and the commercial reality he has never had to navigate. Commenters noted that food and beverage is among the most punishing sectors in Singapore at present. Kopi tiam stall rentals have risen sharply, with some operators reporting monthly rental costs exceeding S$10,000. Margins are thin, manpower quotas are restrictive, and failure rates are high. For many readers, the remark encapsulated the problem with Dinesh's broader message: that entrepreneurship, viewed from inside a career of guaranteed remuneration and institutional support, can appear far more accessible than it is to someone without that safety net beneath them. The financial reality on the ground Beyond the question of credibility, a significant portion of commenters described the concrete financial obstacles that Dinesh's remarks had glossed over. Rental costs were cited most frequently. One commenter reported that their business rental had risen 68 per cent between 2019 and 2026, describing the situation as effectively working to enrich landlords rather than building a business. Others pointed to the requirement for collateral before banks would extend working capital loans, the upfront costs of licensing and renovation, and the absence of any meaningful social safety net for founders whose businesses fail. The opportunity cost argument was also raised repeatedly. In Singapore's housing market, accessing a Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat requires stable employment income and Central Provident Fund (CPF) contributions. A founder who leaves salaried employment to start a business does not merely risk the business — they risk their housing trajectory, their retirement savings and their family's financial security simultaneously. Commenters argued this calculus does not feature in Dinesh's framing. One commenter summarised the structural position bluntly: when large corporations are shifting operations out of Singapore and multinational employers are not prioritising local hiring, entrepreneurship is not a free choice but a necessity being dressed up as inspiration. The deflection argument Several commenters made a related point: that the minister responsible for manpower policy was presenting entrepreneurship as the individual citizen's solution to a structural employment problem his own ministry had not resolved. The logic, as multiple commenters expressed it, was that when stable jobs become scarcer and employment conditions deteriorate, telling people to start businesses transfers the burden of the problem from the state to the individual while leaving the underlying conditions unchanged. The education system contradiction A recurring theme was the contradiction between Dinesh's call for an entrepreneurial culture and the institutional environment Singapore's students actually inhabit. Multiple commenters recounted being reprimanded or publicly disciplined during their schooling for precisely the kind of commercial activity Dinesh was now calling for. Selling stationery to classmates, marking up titbits bought from convenience stores, renting out personal belongings, collecting small fees for services rendered to peers — all drew warnings or formal reprimands from teachers and school administrators. One commenter noted that school canteens, already facing a shortage of vendors, are now being catered by external bento box providers, effectively eliminating one of the few spaces where small-scale commercial activity within a school environment had previously existed. The pattern across these accounts was consistent: from primary school onwards, Singapore's educational institutions have treated student commercial activity as a disciplinary matter rather than an opportunity for encouragement. Commenters argued it was difficult to reconcile this with a ministerial call for entrepreneurial spirit to be nurtured from a young age. The safety net gap Several commenters made the point that entrepreneurship is considerably more viable for those with financial reserves to absorb failure than for those without. The argument, as multiple readers framed it, was that Singaporeans from wealthy families can attempt a startup knowing that failure will not cost them their housing, their retirement savings or their ability to support dependants. For those without that buffer, the same failure carries consequences that are not merely financial but cascading and long-term. One commenter noted that even former ministers who had left politics to enter business had produced mixed results, suggesting that the challenges of private enterprise are not easily overcome even with significant advantages in networks and capital. National service as a structural interruption Male founders face an additional structural constraint that Dinesh did not address: the two-year national service obligation, which removes young men from the workforce and from any nascent commercial activity at the age when entrepreneurial momentum might otherwise be building. Commenters pointed to this as a concrete example of the state creating conditions that are in direct tension with the entrepreneurial culture it now says it wants to foster. A minority of more measured voices Not all responses were dismissive. A small number of commenters offered measured agreement with the underlying principle, arguing that an entrepreneurial mindset — even outside of formal business ownership — was a worthwhile quality to cultivate. One commenter distinguished between the mindset and the act, arguing that what Singapore lacked was not entrepreneurs per se but people willing to think and act with initiative within whatever role they occupied. Another said that while the path was genuinely difficult, discouraging young people entirely was not the answer.   https://theonlinecitizen.com/2026/06/01/talk-no-need-money-singaporeans-push-back-on-minister-s-call-for-youth-entrepreneurship

bbfa with cooking skill can host also, but doubtful whether can attract chiobu    Not much upside