Today’s blog feature is from Koh Choong Yong on his attendance of the recent Parliamentary debates and how Mrs Lim Hwee Hua had slipped up in revealing that the GIC had lost 41% of its investments.
Excerpts:
There was also one incident which I witnessed, which is a bad reflection of the personality of a particular MP: Dr Ong Seh Hong. When he entered the chamber, he did the same thing as others, take a bow, and moved to his seat. As he was sitting down, I saw that he popped a candy into his mouth, and with a very fluid action, flicked his left hand towards the back of his seat. When his left hand returned to meet his right, I saw a clear wrapper sitting on the wooden platform behind his seat! About an hour later, I checked to see if the wrapper was still there, this time I think I saw 2 wrappers instead! So maybe that’s why camera phones are not allowed in the public gallery!
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She also added that Temasek Holding’s portfolio fell 31%. When it was time for clarification questions, Ms Sylvia Lim rose to ask about the exact figure for losses incurred by GIC, since no specific number was quoted, while the 31% was disclosed for Temasek. Mrs Lim Hwee Hua was stumped for words for a few seconds, stammered a little, mumbled something about “it was reported during the budget debate last week”, while frantically flipping her file infront of her to look for an answer. Sylvia Lim spread her hands in a gesture asking “what number”, and Lim Hwee Hua, after not being able to give a specific number, suddenly succumbed and threw out a number, “41%”. The Speaker was nice to Lim Hwee Hua, seeing that she was not very sure of the number herself, and asked if she wants to clarify the number later. She took the opportunity, and since it was also time for the recess at 1520hrs, the Speaker declared that the Parliament go into recess.
As I stood up to walk out the public gallery to a much needed toilet break, I saw Minister of Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam walk towards Lim Hwee Hua. He did not look fierce, but I assume she must be getting her earful from him right there.
I scoured Straits Times, Zaobao, Channel News Asia, Today, and found no mention of this incident. So if I did not attend the Parliament live that day, I would not have known such an episode happened.
Read Koh Choong Yong’s full blog post here.
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Related posts:
- Blog Feature: Puzzling over portfolio
- Blog Feature: My dear Government, why do you treat me so?
- TOC Blog Feature: 10 reasons why I cannot vote for the PAP in the next election
- Blog Feature: National Service
- Blog Feature: Films Act – a class act to follow
I din kno can attend parl debate ‘live’ wan.
anyone can attend?
can clarify or not?
Thanks. :)
Am i right to say no one is responsible for the losses?
YES / NO ?
The Hansard report for 10 Feb 2009 is still missing from the Parliamentary Report Website. It is supposed to be made available within 7 days yet today is 19 Feb 2009 and the Hansard report is still missing. What is the Government hiding? What conspiracy is PAP up to? How are they planning to destroy Singapore again?
#54) smallvice585 on February 19th, 2009 7.41 pm
I guess the elites must have caught a sniff of our comments here in TOC and are wondering whether or not to put the magic number into the Hansard.
But I will not be surprised If they conveniently forgot to put it in. Their talent has always been in showing us lesser mortals that they are the immortals who can do no wrong.
Yes they may be whiter than white, but I guess it can only be seen from the top their ivory towers and not from down here in lesser mortal land.
To say that the GIC investment losses are for long term is like saying that our Lehman Minibond investments are also for long term. Hopefully in 30 years time I can recover my minibond losses.
The answer to the title of this post – No.
The relevant portion is towards the end of the transcript in the link before. LHH was referring to the decline in World Equity Index of 42% which she recalled wrongly as 41%.
http://www.parliament.gov.sg/parlweb/get_highlighted_content.jsp?docID=422448&hlLevel=Terms&links=LIM,HWEE,HUA&hlWords=%20%20&hlTitle=&queryOption=1&ref=http://www.parliament.gov.sg:80/reports/public/hansard/title/20090210/20090210_S0003_T0004.html#1
/// Mrs Lim Hwee Hua: Sir, I have given that reply to a previous parliamentary question, that GIC has actually registered a significantly lower reduction in value than the World Equity Index which I believe was 41% – let me just clarify that it is actually in the Hansard*. ///
“As much as I dislike PAP politics, I have to admit that even PAP politicians are human. We should not expect them to produce miracles, but then PAP itself should not claim to be producing miracles too.”
A lot of us know that long ago and have been making noise about their miraculous compensation, an indirect & friendly way of saying that only miracle performers are allowed to draw miraculous compensation. Now we know that their type of miracle performers also need a long term horizon to prove right their miracles, if ever they can be proven right.
I wonder they will also give chance to lesser mortal people such a long-term horizon to correct our own short-term fluctuating lfie vagaries which actually cost peanuts.