Goh Keng Swee (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Goh's main objective was to strengthen the country's military and domestic security capabilities after the British had withdrawn its troops from Singapore, which made the newly independent nation vulnerable.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.
Goh was born in Malacca on 6 October 1918, then a part of the Straits Settlements, into a middle class Peranakan family and the fifth of six children. His father Goh Leng Inn was a manager of a rubber plantation, while his mother Tan Swee Eng, came 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. The Gohs later relocated to the Pasir Panjang rubber estate when his father found work there and became manager in 1933. Like 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 his brothers-in-law Chew Cheng Yong and Goh Hood Keng taught at the Anglo-Chinese School and were involved in the Middle Road Baba Church, where Hood Keng was pastor. Goh attended the church as well.
Goh attended the Anglo-Chinese School between 1927 and 1936, where he ranked second in his class in the Senior Cambridge examinations. He graduated from Raffles College (now the National University of Singapore) in 1939 with a Class II Diploma in Arts, with special distinction in economics. After graduation, Goh joined the colonial Civil Service as a tax collector with the War Tax Department, though his superiors noted he was not very good at the job and he was nearly dismissed. Shortly after the start of the Second World War, he joined the Singapore Volunteer Corps, a local militia, but returned to his previous work after the fall of Singapore. In 1942, Goh married Alice Woon, a secretary and colleague, and they had one son, Goh Kian Chee, two years later. After the Japanese occupation ended, Goh moved his family back to Singapore in 1946 and joined the Department of Social Welfare, becoming a supervisor of its Research Section six months later.
Goh earned a scholarship to study at the London School of Economics. While in London, he met fellow students seeking independence for British Malaya, including Abdul Razak, Maurice Baker, Lee Kuan Yew and Toh Chin Chye. He was founding chairman of the Malayan Forum, a student discussion group formed in 1948. Goh graduated in 1951 with a first class honours in economics and won the William Farr Prize for the highest marks in statistics. Returning 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 oppose salary and promotion policies favouring Europeans over Asians. Byrne later became Minister for Labour and Minister for Law. Goh returned to the London School of Economics in 1954 for doctoral studies, supported by a University of London scholarship. He completed his PhD in economics in 1956, and returned to the Department of Social Welfare, serving as assistant director and then Director. In 1958, he became Director of the Social and Economic Research Division in the Chief Minister's Office before resigning from the civil service in August to work full-time for the People's Action Party (PAP).
Goh was a key member of the PAP's Central Executive Committee (CEC), and serving as vice-chairman.
Goh contested in Kreta Ayer during the 1959 general election and won. He was subsequently elected into the Legislative Assembly on 30 May 1959, and appointed Minister for Finance under Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's first Cabinet.
As Minister for Finance, Goh assumed the stewardship of Singapore's economy. As a budget deficit of S$14 million was forecast that year, he introduced stringent fiscal discipline which included cutting civil service salaries. As a result of these measures, he was able to announce at the end of the year when delivering the budget that the government had achieved a surplus of $1 million.
Goh initiated the setting up of the Economic Development Board (EDB) which was established in August 1961 to attract foreign multinational corporations to invest in Singapore. The next year, he started the development of the Jurong industrial estate on the western end of the island which was then a swamp, offering incentives to local and foreign businesses to locate there. According to former Permanent Secretary Sim Kee Boon, Goh admitted that the Jurong project was "an act of faith and he himself jokingly said that this could prove to be Goh's folly". Nonetheless, Goh also felt strongly that "the only way to avoid making mistakes is not to do anything. And that... will be the ultimate mistake."
In the 1960s, there were great pressures from communist agitators working through Chinese-medium schools and trade unions. Divisions existed within the PAP as well, with a pro-communist faction working to wrest control of the party from the moderate wing, of which Goh and Lee Kuan Yew were key members. A key source of division was the issue of merger with Malaya to form a new state of Malaysia. Goh and his fellow moderates believed this was a necessary condition for Singapore's economic development because Malaya was a key economic hinterland; merger would also provide an alternate vision against communism for Singapore's Chinese majority. In July 1961, 16 members of the pro-communist faction broke away from the PAP to form the Barisan Sosialis, and captured control of the main trade unions.
In 1961, the Singapore Government secured approval from Malaysian Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman for a merger, motivated in part by the Tunku's desire to stabilise the security situation in Singapore and to counter the perceived communist threat by the Malayan Communist Party. In 1963, Singapore joined Malaya, along with Sabah and Sarawak, to form the Federation of Malaysia.