Goh Keng Swee

Goh Keng Swee (6 October 1918 – 14 May 2010), born Robert Goh Keng Swee, was a Singaporean statesman and economist who served as 2nd Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 1973 and 1985.

Goh is widely recognised as one of the founding fathers of Singapore.

He was also one of the founders of the People's Action Party (PAP), which has governed the country continuously since independence.

Goh was born in Malacca on 6 October 1918 into a middle class Peranakan family, the fifth of six children.

His father Goh Leng Inn, was a manager of a rubber plantation, while his mother Tan Swee Eng, was from the family that produced the Malaysian politicians Tan Cheng Lock and his son, Tan Siew Sin, who would later become Goh's lifelong political opponent.

Goh was given the Christian name Robert, which he disliked and refused to respond to.

When he was two years old, his family moved from Malacca to Singapore where his maternal grandparents owned several properties.

Goh attended the Anglo-Chinese School between 1927 and 1936 where he was second in his class in the Senior Cambridge examinations, Goh graduated from Raffles College (now the National University of Singapore) in 1939 with a Class II Diploma in Arts with a special distinction in economics.

After graduation, Goh joined the colonial Civil Service as a tax collector with the War Tax Department but, according to his superiors, was not very good at his job and was almost fired.

Shortly after the start of Second World War, he joined the Singapore Volunteer Corps, a local militia, but returned to his previous work after the fall of Singapore.

The Gohs later relocated to the Pasir Panjang rubber estate when his father found work there, and became manager in 1933.

In common with many Peranakan families, the Gohs spoke both English and Malay at home; church services were held at home on Sundays in Malay.

Goh's father Leng Inn and the latter's brothers-in-law Chew Cheng Yong and Goh Hood Keng taught in the Anglo-Chinese School for various periods, and were also involved in the Middle Road Baba Church while Hood Keng was pastor there.

Goh attended the church as well.

Goh married Alice Woon, a secretary who was a colleague, in 1942 and they have one son, Goh Kian Chee, two years later.

In 1945, he relocated his young family to Malacca, but returned to Singapore the following year after the Japanese occupation ended.

That year, he joined the Department of Social Welfare, and was active in the post-war administration.

He became a supervisor of the Department's Research Section six months later.

Goh attained a scholarship which enabled him to further his studies at the London School of Economics.

During his time in London, Goh met fellow students seeking independence for British Malaya, including Abdul Razak, Maurice Baker, Lee Kuan Yew and Toh Chin Chye.

A student discussion group, the Malayan Forum, was formed in 1948 with Goh as the founding chairman.

Goh graduated in 1951 with a first class honours in economics, and won the William Farr Prize for achieving the highest marks in statistics.

Upon his return to the Department of Social Welfare, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of Research.

In 1952, together with fellow civil servant Kenneth Michael Byrne, he formed the Council of Joint Action to lobby against salary and promotion policies that favoured Europeans over Asians.

Byrne later became Minister for Labour and Minister for Law.

In 1954, Goh was able to return to the London School of Economics for doctoral studies with the help of a scholarship conferred by the University of London.

He completed his PhD in economics in 1956, and returned to the Department of Social Welfare, where he served as Assistant Director and subsequently as Director.

In 1958, he was appointed Director of the Social and Economic Research Division in the Chief Minister's Office.

He resigned from the civil service in August that year to work full-time for the People's Action Party (PAP).

He served as Minister for Finance between 1959 and 1965, and again between 1967 and 1970, Minister for Interior and Defence between 1965 and 1967, Minister for Defence between 1970 and 1979 and Minister for Education between 1979 and 1985.

As Minister for Interior and Defence, Goh's main objective was to strengthen the country's military and domestic security capabilities after the British had withdrawn its troops from Singapore, which made the newly-independent nation vulnerable.

A key policy was the creation of National Service (NS), a mandatory conscription system for able-bodied young males.

Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had mentioned that he had wanted a conscription consisting both men and women similar to Israel.

However, Goh rejected it, citing that the labour cost at least in its initial years would be too great for the newly-independent nation.

Goh was a prominent member of the country's first generation of political leaders after Singapore became independent in 1965.

During Goh's tenure as Minister for Finance, he declined to allow the central bank to issue currency, favouring instead a currency board system as this would signal to citizens, academics and the financial world that governments cannot "spend their way to prosperity"; the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) was later established in 1971.

In 1981, Goh also expressed the view that the central bank need not hold large amounts of cash in reserve to defend the currency, proposing that the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) be established to invest excess reserves.

At the time, it was unprecedented for a non-commodity-based economy to have such a sovereign wealth fund, and was initially seen as a risky venture that eventually paid dividends.

The multinational merchant bank, Rothschild & Co, had also advised on the GIC during its early years.

Goh died in 2010 at the age of 91, and he was given a state funeral.