Charity and mercenaries are incompatible

When charitable organisations are growing too big and becoming big businesses themselves, there is a need for more effective corporate governance. And this cost money especially when professionals and professional agencies are needed in the wake of several embarrassing breaches. So everyone is now calling for big money to be paid for professionals to come in and manage big charitable businesses. Is this the right way to do things? Charitable organisations are meant to do charity using public donations. The people who stepped forward to serve charitable organisations mostly came forward to serve out of compassion and kindness. Accepted that wolves and vultures came along in disguise and started to steal donation money from these organisations, these are due to lack of supervision and corporate governance. If the solution is to bring in highly paid employees whose interest is to do a good job and to demand higher and higher pay, then charitable organisations may end up collecting donations only to pay these professional mercenaries. And they will want to be paid market rates, normally a percentage of the organisation's revenue. Is this what it should be? Collecting money from the public to be paid out handsomely to mercenaries? What the govt could do is to do a little public service. Second or attach a few top notched civil servants to be the guardians, the eyes and ears of the organisations. They can recommend regulations, rules and procedures, good corporate practices, and supervise the financial management of charitable organisations to keep things in order. And their salaries be paid by the govt and not from the donations. As a public service, it is not too much to ask for from the govt. Asking charitable organisations to spend a fortune on professional mercenaries is in conflict of what charity is all about, and a conflict of interest between the objectives of the organisations and those of the paid employees. Let the two be kept separate. There is no place for mercenaries in charity. We must not encourage greed in charitable organisations.

Shut up or move out

These have often been repeated in the net and even in the msm. Singaporeans who complained too much are ungrateful and do not know how good life is here, and should shut up or get lost. They are not wanted nor tolerated here. This is quite similar to the conditions in Malaysia and Myanmar. In the former, the minorities were told to shut up or face bloodbath. The other option is to move out. In Myanmar, the people and the monks were told to shut up. Do we want to become like Malaysia and Myanmar? Where did these cocky people got this notion from? Were they thought to tell people to shut up in schools and colleges simply because people don't agree with them? Or do they learn it from their parents or from our leaders? Where did they become so uptight and narrow in their mindsets that they simply would want others to just shut up or move out? Who are their role models? Is this what we called a first world people.

Should have let the British answer for Pedra Branca

As the legal owner of the islands handed down to us by the British Empire, and having governing it for more than a hundred years, it is quite silly actually, to go to court just because someone wanted to make a claim for it. In 1965, all of Singapore, including Pedra Branca, were in Malaysia. And when we separated, if the islands belong to Malaysia, they would have retained it without returning to us lock, stock and barrel. But they returned everything to us. Period. If there is any case, we should let the Malaysians take it up with the British like the Hindu Malaysians, Hindraf, are doing. Then we can just hold a watching brief. We need only fight the case if the British wish to entertain the Malaysian claim and fight an expensive legal battle with them. And if they lost, then we can come it and fight this battle if we so wish. But we should not. It is ours and there is no need to fight in court with anyone. Just put our Navy there and see if anyone dares to take it away from us.

Is the CPI relevant and meaningful?

From all counts, the people affected by the high cost of living will have little faith in a CPI that does not reflect their plight. When prices of all their basic needs are shooting to the sky and the CPI said it was up by 3.6% is really a mockery and very insulting. If the CPI is spouting nonsense, it should be thrown out or replace by a more realistic and relevant ont. Can someone post the true items of the basket of goods that were used to measure the CPI here and let the people know what this CPI is all about? We would want to know the prices they used and the computation and see if this index is for real.

The crumbling facade of integrity and infallibility

After the NKF, when prominent Singaporeans that were even hosted and feasted in all the high places by the Singapore Who's Who fell into ill repute, we thought it was only a bizarre anomaly. People tend to be very forgiving and life goes on. Then another couple of CEOs of charitable organisations fell foul of the law. One, a full time employee even absconded. Still the people believe that everything is alright. A few bad hats should not blacken the whole community of people held in high esteem. And charitable organisations continued with their fund raising as if nothing had happened. The tooth or the truth will prevail and all honest men will rise to the occasion. Is it? Is this the end or the beginning of more embarrassing tales waiting to be exposed?