Goh Keng Swee

Goh Keng Swee DUT (born Robert Goh Keng Swee; 6 October 1918 – 14 May 2010) was a Singaporean statesman and economist who served as the second Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore between 1973 and 1985. Goh is widely recognised as one of the founding fathers of modern Singapore.

Goh was a member of the People's Action Party (PAP), which has governed the country continuously since independence. He was also a prominent member of the first generation of political leaders following Singapore's independence in 1965. He served as Minister for Finance from 1959 to 1965 and again from 1967 to 1970. He was Minister for Interior and Defence between 1965 and 1967, Minister for Defence from 1970 to 1979 and Minister for Education from 1979 to 1985. Throughout his entire political career, he represented the constituency of Kreta Ayer.

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Goh's main objective was to strengthen the country's military and domestic security capabilities after the British had withdrawn its troops from Singapore, which made the newly independent nation vulnerable.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 conscription of both men and women, similar to Israel. However, Goh rejected it, arguing that the labour cost at least in its initial years would be too great for the newly independent nation.

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