It’s absolutely transparent because this is not a secret society activity where there is secrecy and so on.
Khaw Boon Wan, on town councils’ investments (Straits Times, 19 Dec)
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31) partisan on December 19th, 2008 8.04 pm
“You will agree that investments are never like linear, straight line graph. So sometimes you make, sometimes you don’t. But as long as the money is in good hands, such as PAP’s TC, you do not have to worry about it.”
Sometimes you make, sometimes you don’t. Yeah, please do it with your own money.
Linear ? By now most of would be wiser, the line of certain investments literally got terminated (kaput). Frankly speaking and let me tell you in no uncertain terms, I do not find much comfort.
I wonder how you can keep a straight face and tell us not to worry about it.
After 2 hours of interview and more than 2 full pages of print, it is most disappointing that what we get essentially is the same “trust us, let’s move on”. Where’s all the info the public has been pressing for disclosure? We are still in the dark as to the actual investment performances, all and not only the minibonds types. Khaw should not merely leverage the goodwill he has from the SARS episode to get the public to close their eyes. He should at least have demonstrated his take that everythging is aOK by providing the financial info of each TC’s investment position and performance so that the TCs can move on on a clean slate. Reading the interview in ST between the lines, I sense strongly that there could be larger skeletons in share investments by TCs as most share prices have fallen by 50% or more. That could be the real reason why they are unwilling to a full disclosure.
Otherwise he too will lose his goodwill.
Again, in today’s ST (20 Dec 2008, Page A12 & A13), they ran four news articles on the town councils.
Headlines of the articles are:
1. Bigger role for town councils?
2. Public reaction a chance to draw in residents
3. Budget: It is always about priority trade-offs
4. ‘Buy products you understand’
In the first article, Mr Khaw’s parting shots (Page A12):
Now, Mr Khaw, are you really sure that all voters have the choices to pick for “the right MP”? Another repeating groove on the LP record!
““You cannot make empty promises,” he said. ”
they just did.
i remember staying together, moving ahead. i remember the promise of accountability and transparency. and i remember a lot more.
43.4% of Singaporeans did not have a chance to vote in the last GE. What choices did these people have?
47) mee siam on December 20th, 2008 9.00 am
I can imagine if this had happened in opposition TC…
If these TCs are not scandal, then what is it then? Since the funds are monies belonging to the citizens and the public, can we sue them? My goedness, we do not even have the exact figure of how much are those lossess besides those which are already been forced out till today. IT could be much worst than that!
Some family thinks that hospital visits are good outings. The bring the children, sisters and brothers and the shuttle buses provided by the Changi General Hospital are pacled l;ike tour buses.
small kids occupy one whole single seat and the poor patients cannot board or have to stand or wait for the next bus.Can Changi General Hospital erase this unhealthy practice >
Riiiiiiiiiiight.
If you haven’t noticed, MP Teo Ho Pin has been removed from the Central Executive Committee. Add this to Minister Khaw coming out on the TCs’ investments. Your guess is as good as mine. Looks like Teo HP is riding into the sunset.
”
If you haven’t noticed, MP Teo Ho Pin has been removed from the Central Executive Committee. Add this to Minister Khaw coming out on the TCs’ investments. Your guess is as good as mine. Looks like Teo HP is riding into the sunset.”
he’s going to hidden in a stat board. don’t kid yourself.
Now I wonder which PAP Heavyweight will want Dr Teo HP to be contesting under his GRC team.
Talking about secret society. I remember a film from HK about a mafia boss who grew old and wanted to enjoy more of his remaining life but he cannot let go of power or else his enemies will try to do him in or he fear conspiracy theories and fear that if he lose power, his dirty linens will be disclosed transparently by his enemies and so he tells himself he lan lan must remain in power until he die.
so, he turned his underground operation into a legal business using black money and money laundering monies. legal via illegal. legal on surface.
morol of the hk story : secret society is masked as an open society . thus no secret society.
paiseh, i digressed completely.
26) partisan
that’s a nice post….did somebody gave you a script? as that sound so typical of “support the gahmen for your own good, they are the only one that can help us” speech, which is crap in fact…
maybe it is out of your own good will, but hw do you say that with a straight face? like that saying Zhen Yen Shou Xia Hua???
59) SIMPLE on December 20th, 2008 5.34 pm
If you haven’t noticed, MP Teo Ho Pin has been removed from the Central Executive Committee. Add this to Minister Khaw coming out on the TCs’ investments. Your guess is as good as mine. Looks like Teo HP is riding into the sunset.
This is PAP another move to avoid the people from questioning him about the TCs fund, so a new appointed one will take over as an excuse to revamp the system. So, when the guilty one is no more around, where then can you people even question the system anymore? smart move indeed!
tiredsingaporeans (#63),
Dr Teo may no longer be in PAP CEC but it is only a move to preserve PAP’s illusion of integrity and transparency. Don’t be surprised if Dr Teo will be appointed as an important figure head of some government statutory boards or given a senior management position in one of the GLCs/TLCs. After all, he is still a MP and PAP member.
64) smallvice585 on December 21st, 2008 1.36 am
Of course I know too. How many of these so called senior MPs have already being placed all over those stat board companies to collect their white elephant salaries, too many liao, lose count. I believe some are even getting double or triple the income from the various appointment they are holding. How easy money can be earned just through connection while the poor peasants are still struggling with their daily basic needs. Sad . . .real sad!
So next time people want to ask the gov or the committee what happen to TC fund, the gov will reply no answer as MP Teo Ho Pin has move on to other position and say we have to move on too. Typical of world-clown government system here. Elite Kangaroos are ruining Singapore.
See how easy to get away with things when you are in power these days. Just move here move there then disappear into thin air and those millions of taxpayers $$$ being lost, what is going to happen? just gone up in smoke like that? with no one to be accounted for?
They says Mas Selamat escaped but I says the greatest escape attempted of this year is MP Teo Ho Pin. Least remember Mas Selamat did not cause our tax money of 16 millions to disappear into thin air even though he is branded a terrorist by our unbelieveable government. Not only MP Teo Ho Pin escape legally but also happily getting his salary. Anyway, didn’t this Teo get extra salary been as overall in charge of TC fund ? Anything it is not nothing new, they have been performing David Copperfield’s tricks for more than 4 decades.
The ongoing riots in Greece is unbelievable, just see what the people did to the own country. I have a local friend there who send me updates of whats been happening becos the present garments are not doing anything to help the people. I just dont wish to see this things happening here but then again, there are already too many foreign aliens keep coming here with our garments welcoming them and things can just gone berserk anytime in time to come.
The ongoing riots in Greece is unbelievable, just see what the people did to the own country. I have a local friend there who send me updates of whats been happening becos the present garments are not doing anything to help the people. – tiredsingaporeans (#69)
The Greek ruling party has been fattening its coffers and neglecting populist needs over the years. There has always been a tension between the ruling party and the electorate, and all it took was a murder of a young boy carried out by a policeman to spark an all-out uprising. If indeed there are peaceful means to awake apathetic Singaporeans who don’t want their boat to be shaken, then only violent means should be rejected.
This is crazy!
The transparency is so invisible.
We asked why the Punggol/Pasir Ris and Teo Ho Pin’s TC invested in toxic products and lost our money, the Straits TImes came up with almost 4 pages of crap about the Health MInister’s take on transparency and brags about his particular Sembawang Town Council is.
3 words to describe it all : Full of Shit!
“You know, the cure for all this talk is really a good dose of incompetent government. You get that alternative and you’ll never put Singapore together again: Humpty Dumpty cannot be put together again… and your asset values will disappear, your apartment will be worth a fraction of what it is, your jobs will be in peril, your security will be at risk and our women will become maids in other people’s countries, foreign workers.” – Justifying million-dollar pay hike for Singapore ministers (Straits Times, 5 April 2007)
Congratulations folks, really getting a good dose now!
More secrets from the society akan datang!
Good luck!
Transparent? Why take months after lehman brother collapse then you tell us?
Hi think-out-of-the-well-readers ,
I wonder and wondered,
TC sinking fund is people’s money.
Specifically, the money belongs to the people who LEASE flats,
which are not cheap at all.
IF this situation happens in 1st worlds like Switzerland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, England, California, Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo, Seoul, Quebec, etc, WHAT THE …. WOULD HAPPEN? HOW DIFFERENTLY WOULD THE REACTIONS BE?
Note that I am limiting the scenarios to only purely the well developed countries known for their standard of living.
Like the song the lemon tree, I wonder how , I wonder why, ……and I wonder.
:(
You can run, hide, avoid but the FACT REMAINS in our face.
regards
1st world citizen of the type R.
Since NO ONE OWES US A LIVING,
we must have initiative and fend for ourselves.
Let’s be realistic, costs of living in many areas have gone up significantly and the people who are most affected are the majoriity of the working class.
What has the government done? Little or not enough.
Why should people have to pay GST for hospitalization and other medical costs? Becoming ill is bad enough and having to incur medical bills is another blow; but why GST?
Why should the cost of seeking treatment at the emergency clinic of a government hospital [SGH, for example] be set at a minimum of $90? One would not normally visit an emergency clinic unless it is an emergency. But look at the hefty cost one has to pay.
How many government depts, if any, are not operating on a profit basis?
Singaporeans may be interested to know.
If TOC or someone can list out each and every taxes implemented by this garments in this tiny country called singapore and show it to the people, I think it will be more shocking to know the truth of what we has been paying all these years. I bet you there are still many people here who do not know what they are paying for.
A very good example is one who is operating just a small F&B pub who have to pay for entertainment license, liquour license, tobacco license, TV license, karaoke license, food license, compass license . . . . . the list goes on and on . . . how to survive to pay for so many licenses??? if this is not extortion, then what?
Talking about transparency, does anyone know how much the GIC and Temasek lost in the rush to invest in CityGroup, UBS and Merrill Lynch?
LKY should be able to answer your question. As for the rest, they are being paid millions to keep the system going for him and his party to stay in power.
WKC – “but why GST?”
If you notice the GDP growth in Singapore is below 5% off late. If you take away GST which is 7% tax on goods & services we could be in recession for the next few years with negative GDPs. In my opinion, this is why GST is necessary.
Giving back cash (from GST collections) to the people as GST offsets is akin to a stimulus exercise and this tends to encourage people to spend and enhances the GDP figure. Looks like both GST and GST offsets tend to enhance the GDP.
But if you take away the GST, ARF, COE, maid and foreign workers levies, in my opinion, we could be in a permanent recession with negative GDPs!
JOQ (just one question)
So this is not secret society activity?
Great! Make sure it won’t come out that the Official Secret Act is executed when it come to pass that Town Councils must open their books to the public or judicial query for what ever reasons. Can that assurance be made?
Hehehehe….so funny. Are you trying to joke with me Khaw?
Think out of the box.
Can the residents go to court to force the TC to disclose details of their investments?
84) Anonymous on December 23rd, 2008 9.11 pm Think out of the box.
Can the residents go to court to force the TC to disclose details of their investments?
Why not? I’m sure alot of us are happy to contribute money in bringing those TCs to court. Remember TCs are independent companies managing public finds and the funds are collected from the people to maintain the flats. And if there are accounts irregularity then the people involved have the rights to do so.
When a TC published it annual report with all its revenues and expenditures fully accounted for and also open to question to justify expenditures would I consider they are open and transparent. Before that happened, doubt would remain as to what and where the money is spent . If TC had made investment decision that resulted in “negative growth of the fund” then they should clearly say so. To try to hideit from the town tax payers is both unethical and dishonest. A little bit of honesty would goes a long way. But our political climate do not encourage such quality. Official are terrified of failure even when it was due to external factors that were way outside their control.