President Nathan says that “the process of seeking and securing my in-principle approval took approximately 11 days from the time the matter was first broached.” Calling the process a “rigorous one”, he said his approval was given on 21 January, just one day before the Budget was presented to Parliament on 22 January.
This following is an excerpt from Channel newsAsia’s report:
Mr Nathan, who is the first Singapore elected president to use the second key to unlock past reserves accumulated by the Singapore government, emphasised that the Constitution does not prescribe the process for dealing with a request for using past reserves.
All it spells out is the need for the president to consult the Council of Presidential Advisers and to publish his view when he approves a draw on past reserves.
“It is not easy to ‘yes’ in so far as the withdrawal of the reserves. There must be compelling reasons why we have to resort to withdrawing from past reserves,” the president said.
Read the full report on Channel NewsAsia.
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what do you mean it’s not easy?
according to the finance minister, it’s based on trust. that shld be child’s play. c’mon, you know, trust your daddy to do the right thing.
I look forward to reading the Gazette on the President’s opinion and the consultation with the Council of Presidential Advisors. This would set precedence on how our reserves are drawn.
Dear everyone,
Comments which include “prata man” will not be allowed. Please do not resort to such name-calling. It verges on the racist.
Those who use vulgarity in their nicknames or handles will have their entire comment disallowed too.
When U are needed, U should show U face, money money is a BIG MAN WORLD.
Nothing to do with SINGAPOREANs
I respect this kind of president because he is a caring president, he takes care of his people by giving us 4.9 billion to spend. Though GIC lost 50 billion, he did not sack the chairman, though Temasek lost 31%, he did not sack the CEO. He is a good president, I hope he will stand for election again. Long live President.
This is the best Nathan I ever know! Such a charismatic soul. Just look at the man. So Presidential and Revered by all.
The best elected president of all time. Yes, our elected leader.
I am sure we are in good hands. Reserves and all.
cheers, congrats singaporeans!!!!
Sure it’s not easy to say yes. But he had no choice. After all, he’s not the MM.
Well, its worth repeating I think (folks please allow and bear a little), the President holds only a duplicate key. What 2nd key are we being told about?
Isnt Mas Selamat escaped because of a duplicate key, right , come to think of it?
On the other hand, the President, who was put there by the PAP in the first place, could be doing the solidarity thing. After all he probably doesn’t want the flak Ong Teng Cheong got for inquiring into the reserves…
You see, TRUST is way more important than INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBLITY.
he has made history with his tough decision.
he has already made world history for being the most highly paid president with nothing to do except making appearance at wedding dinners of minister’s sons and daughters.
11) NathanMe on February 17th, 2009 11.55 pm
is it just me or is it we can freedom on spreec?
This Crisis is a good time for our youths
to learn more about our leaders like Nathan by analyzing what they say and do . Also can know and understand the system as a whole, its core and its values.
i am impressed by his serious attitude when giving the speech reading from a script, which i of course believe he wrote .
give the man a break. given his age, still need to smile, carry babies and kowtow to master. i would really feel sorry for him.
Oh, there is a council of advisors wor.
Still, the other question is why he was not forthcoming with revelation of the process and had to stir up so much brouhaha before doing so? The time gap makes people suspicious and probably is the stronger reason people are upset. It was like he wouldn’t have said it if he neednt. And that’s not good, is it? He had to be publicly lampooned!
little things bother me. When was he elected?
I am curious as to who are the Council of Presidential Advisers? MM Lee and SM Goh ?
The PAP drag this old fool out to make the announcement to spend $4.9 BILLION to stimulate the economy?
America had its first stimulus of US$840BILLION under Bush to stimulate the economy- and it all went to America’s Wall Street.
President Obama’ stimulus aint’ going to work either. At least 15million Americans have lost their jobs.
No stimulus is going to work. It’s just throwing good money after bad!
Did President Nathan study the books before GIC / LKY threw money into Citibank?
Were those current or past reserves?
Were there independant studies conducted by the Presidential Council?
Was there a study, or you just ‘follow cabinet orders?”
ie – Is President responsible for the losses?
If you need money, open your mouth. It’s as simple as that..
What is so difficult to say yes. Just say yes and your multi-million dollar salary will continue to be deposited into your bank account.
we paid 3mil ++ to someone so that he can “FEEL” through things and then say ‘yes’.
S$4.5B were withdrew from the reserves to fund the Job Credit Scheme. How could the President approve the Job Credit Scheme given it is a non-tested measure that will benefit employers disproportionately over employees?
#25
Money is fungible. There is no specific allocation from Reserves to JCS.
Drawn down reserves goes into revenue pool.
“Calling the process a “rigorous one”, he said his approval was given on 21 January, just one day before the Budget was presented to Parliament on 22 January.”
So Tharman, cabinet shld have had a Plan B. Can they tell us what it was?
Or did they assume, el-presidenta would roll over and handover the money?
i think if you will to conduct an independent poll on his role of safe guarding sg reserves , i suspect the vote is pretty unanimous.
under this kind of regime,the second key is really a farce.
This is the first time that Singapore has reached into our reserves after 40+ years of nation building, the President and the advisors have never been tested with the situation. It is not surprising that the President has not much basis to reject the budget and there is huge pressure that he approves it else he will be seen responsible if the economy gets worst.
I believe looking at the terrible state of our economy, I think next year will still be running a deficit and we wlll likely be testing the President again. I suggest Pres put together a team of economic experts who are not from the PAP system as consultants. That will do us Singaporeans justice if the independent team (don’t up a wayang show) concurs with the Government.
The pandora box is opened and the elaboration by our President is just not convincing. There’s still musch obscurity surrounding the draw on our national reserves. I’m not an expert in financial matters but as a layman, don’t we the citizens entitled to know :
1. the amount and balance of the reserves ?
2. objective and KPI set for the growth rate of these reserves ?
3. % of reserves allocated for draw on “emergencies” ?
I also noticed that the CPA (Council of Presidential Advisors) comprise of members like S. Dhanabalan who is Chairman of Temasek Holdings. Wouldn’t there be a conflict of interest as TH is also managing part of the reserves ? I would have thought that CPA will be formed by professionals who are not related to the management of the public funds in order to render a balanced and non-bias advice to our President.
what if the president said no?
I think the 2nd key system aka relying on the president to safeguard the nation reserve has totally lost its credibility. The public in general do not trust this system anymore. 9 out of 10 singaporean agree that president is just a puppet picked by PAP to do their bidding. The president has no real power to say yes or no, as long as the PAP wants the reserve the president will alwalys do so.
you put two old men against each other who do you think will come out top?
7) bombs of death on February 17th, 2009 11.08 pm
Sure it’s not easy to say yes. But he had no choice. After all, he’s not the MM.
Watching the news last night, someone actually asked me if MM have vetted his script….I was like…well it could, it sounded like a script…
Recently, when COE went down to $2, It took me a month to decide to trade in my car for a new one, (my hard earn my money) President took only 11 days to unlock the reserves, of course, NOT HIS MONEY, better let Singaporeans spend the money than invest in UBS!! well done MR President.
Did the Prez make a good judgement in allowing the govt to draw the reserves
The Jobs Credit Scheme is a blanket help for ALL companies without discriminating those profit making ones like GLC transport companies, Sin Power etc. ie, tax monies are also used to boost the profits of these companies . Only a smaller percentage is actually used to really benefit the people and none at all for the retrenched.
Perhaps the Prez should have thrown the request back to the Govt asking them
to refine the direction of the heip from the reserves before approving it.
A Tan (#25),
See for yourself. Below are two quotes from the Singapore Budget 2009 website. President Nathan ought to justify why the Job Credit Scheme warrant the use of Singapore’s past reserves.
H.17. The total cost to the Budget of the two extraordinary measures that we will fund from past reserves – namely, the Jobs Credit, and the Special Risk-Sharing Initiative for bank lending7 – will amount to $4.9 billion (comprising $1.1 billion in FY2008 and $3.8 billion in FY2009). – http://www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/speech_ph/ph.html#s1
C.10. The Jobs Credit will cost the government $4.5 billion. This is not intended to be, and must not be, a permanent scheme to subsidise employment. It is a temporary scheme to help companies through an exceptional downturn. – http://www.singaporebudget.gov.sg/speech_pc/pc.html#s1
I was reading the news report about this topic but after reading a few paragraphs I gave up reading because I found that there was a general pattern and direction in the answers which is so predictable. I could guess what the answers would be by just reading the questions.
The whole thing seems to be a pre-rehearsed and pre-arranged exercise to me. I could sense an attempt to evade answering the reporter’s questions directly. It was such a funny feeling.
However, after saying all that, I stand to be corrected.
The President is a non-partisan role. Hope no idiot will see this as the PAP government attempting to show some transparency to win votes. After all, PM Lee Hsien Long recently called for the urgent update of the electoral register.
I am really surprised that such an important matter is being handled with such ease, without elaborate analysis and written judgment.
If a high court judge has to lay down his judgment in full details with proper justifications and explanations, with references to the laws just for a hearing of one single person who is being charged, why is it that the drawing of our National Reserves, which concerns the whole Nation and the money of all Singaporeans, which is much more serious, is being taken so light-heartedly?
There should be a proper and detailed judgment made in writing, at least for the following:
1.The points of deliberation,
2. The queries made,
3. The answers given,
4. Advice and recommendations by the Presidential Advisory Council,
5. The reasoning of the President to accept or not accept the advice/recommendations.
6. The considerations made in favour or against any particular point, for each and every point analyzed, discussed and deliberated.
7. The decisions.
8. The final judgment.
9. The approval.
10. The witnesses, with their particulars in detail.
11. Proper Stamp and Seals.
12. Date, time and place of decision.
Such documents are very necessary because this is an extremely serious matter of the state. These documentation can be used as references and evidence in the future in case of any eventuality.
Why did not any lawyer or judicial representative speak up or make such recommendations and put them into law?
It’s often in adversity that we see things for what they actually are. This person is in the seat because of what he is not that Ong TC was.
It also becomes obvious that we have a goalkeeper who is touted as a Gordon Banks of Finance but turns out to have never played soccer in his life. What a scam.
If you look at the President’s men, they are all ex-govt minister or servants, PAP-friendly or quasi-govt. employees. Another big happy tripartite – the Govt, the President and His Men. So there’s actually no separate 2nd key. Just a duplicate key warming in the palm of the President.
To #40 – glaring absence of detailed records
“Why did not any lawyer or judicial representative speak up or make such recommendations and put them into law?”
We have fully qualified and overly qualified ones. Its just that why should they ?
Our lawyers and/or the judicial community (I dare say except a rare few, perhaps JB’s son one of these rare ones) are also a ‘bought’ lot. In the sense, they are bought by the materialism that this country is molded into by the gahmen; they are also ‘cowed’ in a sense that if they oppose anything openly, their rice bowls would be affected (example, the administration of permits for this, permits for that..these permits required thing, all of us knows what are they for. And you think you take at face value what SM Goh said that JB son’s employment is not affected by what his father did?)
Remember what Catherine Lim said, they gahmen is happy with this ‘self-imposed’ fear other than the valid and actual fear of our dictatorship kind of democracy.
Looks like a damn easy job to me. Get paid $4.2M for just simply taking the well oiled key from FM and inserting it into the coffer key hole. Twist it and bingo it’s opened. If I train my jackrussel hard enough, I’m confident he is able to perform this job just as good.
its a tough job. i recall no one other then a disqualified candidate wanted this job!
And how much money do we still have in our nation’s reserve, Mr President? care to let the people know? $1 ? or kosong liao?
Pros of a good civil servant.
Job security + Passing the baton + French Quisine + Poetry on Mice + Immortality + Draw good pay from taxpayers + Get to send old mama to JB.
Cons
BBQ chicken.
I still don’t get the picture. From what the president explained, his main points were based on qualitative evaluations. In a well informed decision, especially when such a large amount is involved, you need a balance of qualitative and quantitative substantiation. Lacking in one is not a compromise, but a disaster. The fact is most businesses go through a complete thought process (quantitative and qualitative), even when the amounts involved were much smaller.
The problem is the quantitative part, (including the budget numbers) were already INACCURATE. And they were not pointed out by the president, (his council ???) or even the finance minister till it was pointed out otherwise…….
So it’s obvious that we either had appraising parties who were not sharp (but draw high salaries), or people who have decided to keep quiet even when they knew, or both.
Then the president went on to make an in-principle approval. At this point, there was still no one from the president or the govt to highlight the errors.
You go through this kind of half-baked arguments in the private sector, and you’re fired, instead of still being able to draw millions per year.
So the President met the press and in the interview which include Q & A discloses presidential reasons for allowing the draw down of past reason. I just wonder which are the media invited? Any foreign media represented?
President Nathan unquote, “it is not easy to say yes ” to a question on drawing of the country’s reserves.
Sure or not President Nathan ? But it is damn easy to say yes to $4 Million.
I recall the late President Ong T C being told that it would take something like 50+ man-years to verify the amount of our reserves.
BUT somehow, you Mr. President and your advisors have managed to do so in
11 days. that’s right !
and found the “mother of all short cuts ” to the PAP’s accounting problem.
OR you Mr. President have been utterly confused by the “mother of all complex
accounting problems” and decide to say something after 11 days.
So whatever that was told to our late President Ong T C was one BIG LIE.
I recall a job that pays a few hundred thousand a year to work in the Great Barrier Reef drew millions to the website causing it to crash. Now I wonder if we have a similar offer with millions a year how come only one other candidate applied? There must be something really wrong such that so few are interested in the job. This is serious. Singapore must really be lacking in talent so much. Time to open it up to the world.