By See Leong Kit (29 June 2010)
[Letter was rejected for publication by TODAY Voices Editor Agatha Koh Brazil ]
TODAY (Jun 21) really sets me thinking. I refer to P N Balji’s commentary “New mood, a reality check for bosses” and Second Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam’s split-hairs semantics in “SMRT is responsible, says Shanmugam“.
Mr Balji wrote “In just one month, Singapore has seen two blemishes on its super-efficient and super-safe image. Our chieftains have to make sure that reputation is not tarnished again. The public is not in the mood to accept anything less”.
The MRT depot break-in can have horrific consequences. Instead of harmless graffiti, the infiltrators could have planted a bomb in an MRT train and simply trigger it off with a handphone during peak hours. In the 2004 Madrid train bombing, some 190 passengers were killed and another 1800 injured.
On the Orchard Road deluge debacle, a tourist victim rightly commented, “Never thought that a first-world country would flood like this”. And had it happened during the inaugural Youth Olympic Games, Singapore would have become an international laughing stock.
As a tertiary-educated, native-born Senior Citizen, allow me to cut through the muddle-headed confusion with these Basic Principles of Public Service.
Good political governance can only come about from the collective inputs of politicians, bureaucrats and the people. No one group has the monopoly of ideas nor can claim all the credit for the country’s achievements. Each group has to make its share of contributions, big or small.
Politicians and bureaucrats are aptly called “public servants” as they are paid by the people to serve the people. Serving the people is not demeaning, but a rare honour accorded by the people as taxpayer-voters. The key words are “pro-active leadership” of public servants, as rightly expected by the people.
If the people can do everything by themselves, the government would have made itself redundant and deserved to be voted out of public office.
Conversely, if a “we-know-best” government thinks it can blatantly ignore the rightful concerns and suggestions of the people, it may as well go and govern a pathetic place like Timbuktu in Africa.
My parting shot for our first-world politicians and first-class bureaucrats comes from this timeless advice of a Raffles Institution teacher: “The biggest mistake you can make is not to admit, apologise or learn from your mistakes.”
________________________________________
They only know one rule of public service. 1) Make themselves rich.
With million-dollar salaries, of course their screw-ups have to be just as dramatic and larger than life! How can they justify how elite they are with small insignificant screw-ups?
They really have to work very hard to screw up so big. I for one, can’t imagine how I can ever match them in that aspect. I guess I am just not as talented as they are … :)
fortunately today newspaper rejected this for printing. otherwise the employees at today may be questioned for letting this letter through to press.
((If the people can do everything by themselves, the government would have made itself redundant and deserved to be voted out of public office))
this is what Singaporeans are waiting for this coming election.
and why this article being reject to published? government can’t take this impact? will they SUE if this is being published? defamation again?
where the so call free speech? if they are right and they know Singaporeans are always by their side and they have done enough for us then they can fight whatever the come across without fear and to accept the good and bad. not always want to hear good things and have good remarks hiding and blocking every bad remarks being made against them?
Shoot them or cane them.
MM once suggested caning people who get things wrong.
http://atans1.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/motivating-the-elite-learning-from-n-korea/
SINGAPOREANS: lky what can we do to have a better life? who can we depend on? since we ask and ask every election you never give
LKY: you want to depend on me for what? you want what kind of better life?? three meals a day?? what election you talking about i giving?!! you vote me like it or not and stop asking. up to me what i want to give and what i want to take from you all.
you think i so free??
i got to look after my minister pay
i got to support my familees
i got to check my bank and make sure all of you pay me in time.
i got to check straits times everyday on what they publish about me and edit it.
i got to go oversea to look after my business and hotel and restaurants.
i got to go for dinner with ministers of china and other country.
i got to find foreigners more to help me with high end job here for good economy boost!!
SINGAPOREAN: lky, isn’t we singaporeans helping you all this 50years?
LKY: you all cannot use already. too expensive to maintain. you all go work cleaner or trash cans and find boxes and live on.
the high end job you all don’t know anything one. later economy down my salary also down then my familees eat 3meals suffering instead of the 6 meals and night snacks and cookies and pure orange juice and milk and expensive buffet seafood.
SINGAPOREANS: wah! like this not maju la we all mati la.
LKY: good that you all know already. i know it last 50years ago you all sure mati la. so i ask you to sing sing maju la to make you all happy. good enough i make you sing. if not i want to change already the flag to foreign flag. coz you all sing very slow.
i want fast fast u know.
lol ma…ti la…… singapureans………. lol i can’t imagine that.
why this old man never die?
maybe being powered by energizer.
never say die.
every company must have and is a must! to have a mini bus or a coach or bus to transport their worker from places to places. if bosses can buy BMW 7SERIES, MERSEDEZ SPORTS.FERARI,LAMBORGINI AND SO ON THEN WHAT IS MINI BUS COST??!
if their can’t afford this then shall not proceed in their business and risk their workers cheap life for the bosses life are more costly and expensive to risk on so their use mercedez or bmw 7series to drive around safely.
elitism has become a practised art disguised as meritocracy.
on that note, it’s no wonder PSC=pangsai cua
Read http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/business/global/29austerity.html?src=me&ref=homepage.
Not too long ago, Ireland was touted as the Singapore of Europe. Today her economy is in the doldrums, whereas we are still not doing too badly (though we should acknowledge that yes, many are suffering).
Yes, there were screwups. But we should be thankful that the screwups were not even more serious.
Screw ups? There is no such thing as screw ups in Singapore. The leaders are good and great. They could have gone to the more lucrative private sectors but they stayed behind in the public sector to serve us ungrateful Singaporeans. They need the millions because if not, the old man said they will go to the other side. After all, you can see that all the “foreign talents” we got from outside heading up DBS and such are getting that kind of money. After all, the good singaporeans are now serving the government, that would means that we need foreign talents to head up our private institute. So, lets see. The public servant leaders get millions. The private “foreign talents” millions – oh, that leaves us untalented, useless, full of mistakes Singaporeans. We should make pittance. After all, we make a collosal mistake – we voted the government in.
The government that :
1. let a cripple man walked out of a secure prison – whose mistake? The guards.
2. allowed places to flood. whose mistake? God
3. allowed people to break into secure train sites. Whose mistake? Aiyoh, you need to ask – the guard at the site lar.
4. allowed a reputable government investment house (start with a T) to lose 26 billion USD. whose mistake? the market lar, you gundu.
5. allowed hoardes of foreigners to stomp on our job. whose mistakes. yours lar.
6. allowed cost to go up and up and up. whose mistake? aiyoh, you really got to ask. the market lar.
Well, I leave you to think about the millions we wasted on the people who are supposed to be responsible…..
Screw ups? There is no such thing as screw ups in Singapore. The leaders are good and great. They could have gone to the more lucrative private sectors but they stayed behind in the public sector to serve us ungrateful Singaporeans. They need the millions because if not, the old man said they will go to the other side. After all, you can see that all the “foreign talents” we got from outside heading up DBS and such are getting that kind of money. After all, the good singaporeans are now serving the government, that would means that we need foreign talents to head up our private institute. So, lets see. The public servant leaders get millions. The private “foreign talents” millions – oh, that leaves us untalented, useless, full of mistakes Singaporeans. We should make pittance. After all, we make a collosal mistake – we voted the government in.
The government that :
1. let a cripple man walked out of a secure prison – whose mistake? The guards.
2. allowed places to flood. whose mistake? God
3. allowed people to break into secure train sites. Whose mistake? Aiyoh, you need to ask – the guard at the site lar.
4. allowed a reputable government investment house (start with a T) to lose 26 billion USD. whose mistake? the market lar, you gundu.
5. allowed hoardes of foreigners to stomp on our job. whose mistakes. yours lar.
6. allowed cost to go up and up and up. whose mistake? aiyoh, you really got to ask. the market lar.
Well, that is why the civil servants got to get millions in salary. They make no mistakes….
Its not the governent that has screwed up. Its people. We have surrendered our power to them and they are no longer accountable to us. Like the late JBJ said “Power to the people” unfortunately the citizens continue blaming the goverment for their own folly. If only the people realised how strong a power their single vote holds.
It’s the collective vote that is powerful. So it’s when the people spontaneously decide to vote in a similar manner that this power will be realised. A single vote by itself is almost totally powerless.
Their formula is BIG PAY = BIGGER SCREW-UPS = MERITOCRACY and of course, UNSACKABLE because they are politically-anointed!
the flaw in the reasoning of this article:
there are things that the govt should be doing.
infrastructure and security.
because the individual cannot do it.
denying that is irresponsible especially given the million dollar salary.
Even if See Leong Kit had sent his letter to The Shitty Times in the hope of seeing it published in the Forum Page, it would have probably been rejected. And the typical reason would be that The Shitty Times is receiving so many letters everyday that they cannot publish all of them. The evidence is clear, of course, that it is not infrequent that we see that the Forum Page [letters published] takes up only half or only slightly more than half of the entire page.
We have been cautioned, however, not once but several times, that the government has a right of reply.
So why was the letter rejected by TODAY?
Why the apparent fear?
To TODAY’s Editor: care to tell us?
Mas Selamat escaped,due to a silly security lapse.
World-renowned upscale shopping belt Orchard Road deluged.
MRT carriage disfigured.
The Garment will tell you that this is the reality of life,unexpected incidents happen,no Garment is perfect,nothing is perfect in life….
If that is so,they should not disparage the town councils of opposition wards.
Singapore being so tiny compared to other countries,I thought the micro-management would be unparalleled(to justify the high pay of the super-elites.)
aiyo
if not becos of them got “super efficient” tag? Or super laoya tag? Everyone contribute? You got contribute?
pls la get bomb into singapore is a difficult task liao, singapore use multilayer security la goondu
If the letter is in the style of bootlicking piece of that Souza guy or
that wacko, Ace Kindred, guaranteed
published!
Today is not the Today before with
the change of editors after the chartered-SIA-plane-as-medivac-for-gecko
incident.
I used to read the Today then.
Now Today is no different Shitty Times
Don’t be so hard on the Shitty Paper or the ToPoo paper. They have their own interest in mind. Just like the ministers. Who is paying them? The Garment. They are the one I would be looking out for if I were them. So, don’t blame them. Blame ourselves for giving our Garment absolute power over us.
Yup, any bootlicking piece of writing, typical of “that Souza guy”, will be guaranteed to be published.
Remember, the two letters published, not so long ago, by one Dr Yik Keng Yong?
Dr Yik, in one instance, was apparently trying to rebut Dr Catherine Lim. A letter I wrote rebutting Dr Yik was left unpublished when I sent it via email to Shitty Times.
I think we Singaporean have to think about what the Government is doing. Are they doing a bad job or a good job. I would say from all fairness and I am sure you will agree since you are also getting pay in Singapore that they are doing as good as they can.
However, we also know the saying Power Corrupts, Absolute Power corrupts absolutely.
So, we as Singaporeans should wake up to the fact that while the Government is doing not a bad job, we don’t have to mandate them 100% (absolutely) as this creates a situation where absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In elections, we have choices. We can choose who we want to represent us. At the end, when the push comes to shove, Singaporeans tends to take the “kia su” way out – aiyoh, i will vote the government lar. what if i vote opposition and i get worse problem?
That was the propaganda the Government have shoved into our head – how good can an opposition be?
The question that we all must ask today is – how bad can an opposition be?
We are already up in our neck with foreign talents that took away our upper level jobs (we have no way to become rich in any jobs in Singapore), foreigners in all our streets, cost of living is going up up and the way while real salary went down (due to inflation), security (I won’t even start here), we already lost USD26 billion of our CPF monies due to bad investment, house and car prices going beyond reach of us average Singaporeans who work for a living and so on.
What else could be worse than that? So, when election comes, please vote to make sure that we have some voice, opposition, representation – just not absolutely all PAP government. That is all we should and can do…
meritocracy- S’pore style. screw-up & still be around to screw-up again.
if this things happen in the private sector, already no job.
iron ricebowl are reserved for the lucky few at the top i guess?…
I have noticed recently the word ‘meritocracy’ had been rarely mentioned by the million-dollars men. Maybe to much screw-up until they don’t dare to use the word again for the time being.
David Marshall In 1994:
“I’ve got nothing against money. I’d like to have money myself! I’d like to have a house and a garden and dogs and a car and a chauffeur but, look, I’ve got a flat. I’ve got a swimming pool attached to the flat. I’ve not even got a car but I use taxis. I have a dignified way of life without being wealthy.
I don’t see the necessity of owning a Mercedes-Benz and a swimming pool and a couple of mistresses. I think we’ve got our values all wrong.
You know $96,000 a month for a Prime Minister and $60,000 a month for a minister. What the hell do you do with all that money? You can’t eat it! What do you do with it? Your children don’t need all that money.”