AIM is looking like Boon Wan’s Waterloo

When Boon Wan bravely took on the task of solving the housing problems created by his predecessor, it was really a piece of cake. There is not much ingenuity needed to solve a housing shortage problem caused by under supply and over demand. He must have read the situation and was rightly confident to score a resounding success in the shortest time possible.

He embarked on a massive building programme. This solved the first half of the equation. He somehow did not tighten enough on the demand side and the problem was halted from sliding down further, but not improving much either. He did not count on the 800k home owners that have already been sucked into the system by overpaying for their flats and trying to undo too much will upset them and the value of their assets adversely, including the prices of private properties.

The present status, housing problem is like a stalemate, going nowhere. No one can blame Boon Wan for not trying. He did. But the problem is too complex with too many knots that could not be untied at the same time.

By being the MND he is now caught into this AIM thing that he did not bargain for. It was something he did not see coming. Is this something that wrong? It depends. Officially it is already reported as nothing wrong. But is it? Why then is this case drawing so many blanks? Why were the opposition members having a merry time taking aims and pot shots at this issue? And the replies were not so brilliant and did not help in anyway to remove the doubts and acrimonies of this case. It cannot be willed away by a review committee unless the explanations in Parliament are reasonable, logical and acceptable to the public. Are they?

Getting angry and feeling cornered would not do any good. Boon Wan’s reply that the software can be bought off the shelf took everyone by surprise and a turn for the worst. Why was so much money spent on something that can be bought outright and definitely cost a pittance relative to the customized and specially developed software? Was it in exasperation that Boon Wan blurted this out or was it a considered fact that he knew all along and wanted to tell Parliament?

Think he must be having nightmare dreaming of Teo Ho Pin and how this case is developing. Many more questions will now be raised and make defending it that much more pointless. Can Boon Wan and his team, or Teo Ho Pin, put up a sound defence going forward? First thing, he needs to keep his cool. He is losing it and opening up gaps to be attacked.

This is like a rook’s gambit in chess. Instead of losing a rogue, oops, I mean a rook, by calling in all the pieces to protect the rook, it may end up losing more pieces and the game as well.