Grants for startups that were relocating from overseas, free office space for tech startups, grants for various kind of tech company masquerading as hot startups and funding for programming courses to train up more programmers.

If you ask a lot of tech founders what they really want the answer is usually going to be free money, free stuff or cheaper programmers. That's what the Singapore government attempted to deliver.

Canada, Japan and Singapore are notorious for just refusing to pay competitive salaries for programmers.

I have a feeling it started off as lack of appreciation for software, then turned into intransigence at raising salaries since then "everybody would want a raise too."

The money goes to other parts of the business.