WP’s Art of War

The debate on the AIM saga in Parliament is intriguing. The revelation of the appointment of a husband and wife team to develop the TCMS for Aljunied, their appointment as managing agent (did I get this part right), the no tender award to one bidder, the development of another expensive TCMS, the management agent fee and the appointment and award of contract to party related people, all seems so blatantly in defiance of public scrutiny and exposing the WP to obvious attack by the PAP. The question begs to be answered is why is the WP doing these? They must know that they will become easy target and plenty of uncomfortable questions would be asked.

What is the strategy of the WP to voluntarily expose so many obvious gaps and seemingly not too appropriate things that they have done? Now the PAP side is so happy with this salivating opportunity to blow the WP apart for the very same faults that WP is questioning the PAP. Practically everything the WP pointed out as flaws of the PAP is being repeated, reenacted in the AHTC. Strange, very strange indeed.

And Sylvia is so confident to defy Teo Ho Pin to make a complaint to the CPIB for any wrongdoings on the WP’s part, or else shut up. She must have known something that we don’t. She must have known that any complaint and subsequent investigation are likely to make WP look better and maybe make PAP looks badder. Can this be the case?

The first hint of a successful coup de tat is the surprising revelation of readily available TCMS packages. By not going for it, by sticking to the same process of developing a new package at enormous cost, the WP is also looking a bit silly, when the truth is that a much cheaper generic package is readily available. The question thus is why the WP did not go to the market for a cheap and workable package and chose to follow the same process, to develop another expensive animal? They did not know?

The bigger question, why was this not done in the first place by the PAP when the latter knew that such a package is available? Maybe when the tender was called for the development of the $23.8m package, Boon Wan was not in the MND and could not advise them of this cheap alternative.

Everyone is now watching whether Teo Ho Pin would bring the case to the CPIB. And if he does, what else would be revealed that are applicable or similar to both camps and screwing one side would screw the other side harder? So far, the WP seems to be doing exactly what the PAP has done and religiously following them like saying, what you can do, I can do also. And if it is alright for you, it must be alright for me. Is this the strategy of the WP?