New corporate governance council in the making

I have kept this thread alive in redbeanforum since March 2007. I have written to a couple of organisations on the issues of corporate governance and directorship. Few days back, Ho Kwon Ping wrote a long article about what was going on in the Board of companies. Today we are hearing the MAS talking about setting up a body to look into raising the standard of corporate governance. Is this an exercise that is more in form or substance? What had happened in the past few years had seen many investors losing their piles in the stock market with dubious companies and dealings and fraudulent accounting. And where does the fault lie? It is, in a way, something like corporate America. The practice of 'I scratch your back you scratch mine' is only a small fraction of a system going out of control. It all boils down to lack accountability and lack of clout. From the board of directors, top management, auditors, financial analysts and banking advisors, everyone is being paid a fee to monitor and be watchdogs to corporate faults. Some participated in the frauds, some just simply resigned when something smelly popped up. No one is responsible for anything or hardly anyone was taken to task for the failures or frauds. What is needed is not only a revamp of the whole corporate governance formula, but a need to pin responsibilities on the shoulders of those carry it and being paid for it. The SGX has come out with draconian rules and fines for simple and often innocent mistakes made by equally blur investors or careless remisiers. Such an approach should be adopted in corporate governance and corporate frauds when the consequences are much grave. Make everyone who is paid to do a job be accountable. Heavy fines is a way. Resigning and washing their hands cannot be allowed. Accepting the payment must come with accepting the punishment for a job not properly done. Rip Van Winkles cannot go on sleeping and get away with it. People who don't have the time to be execute their management, advisory or watchdog's role should not take on the job. Would something like this happen with the setting up of a new corporate governance council?

Good news to HDB owners

The tax department has confirmed that the annual value(AV) of their flats have gone up because the values of the flats have gone up and also, these flats can now fetch higher rentals. And the increases were very small given the huge increases in the resale prices of flats. Compare to increases in values of tens or hundreds of thousands, a hundred dollar increase is chicken feat really. I am sure all flat owners would not mind paying more taxes if their flats can be sold for a million or two. And good news for the smaller flat owners. They don't have to pay for the higher property tax. There is a one year rebate! Only the bigger flats need to pay, and the bigger the flats, the bigger the tax increases except for bigger executive flats. But the statisticians will have reasons to be argumentative when they look at the percentages of increases. A 3 rm flat will have to pay $72 more from $2.17. Now how many hundred percent increase is that? Every $2.17 is 100%. The number is too big for my calculator. A ball park number is like 3,600% increase! 4 rm flat will pay $97 more from $46.96. This is easily 200%! 5rm and executive flats have smaller increases of about 100%. I am not going to split hairs on these increases and why the smaller and obviously poorer flat owners should be hit with that kind of percentage increases. What I am looking at is that the majority of HDB flat owners are living in their own flats, their homes, not for letting and also there are many rules prohibiting them from renting their flats. The AV can shoot to the sky, but many HDB flat owners cannot benefit from them. No renting, cannot rent. Only those who need the money or those who have many properties can benefit from the high AVs. Why lump all HDB owners into the same category and make them pay higher taxes when the benefits of high AV is academic and perceived, unreal? For those who are waiting for the flats to hit $1m, no problem. Let the AV go higher. When the $1m target is rich, just sell and get out of the property ownership trap. Oops, 99 year property leasing trap to some.

Asian deference to power and authority

When I saw Obama bowing to the Emperor of Japan, I was kind of, 'What the hell is he doing?' Didn't he learnt from the same mistake when he bowed to the Saudi King? Didn't his advisors gave him a debriefing that being the President of the USA, he is first among all equals. No king or president is above him or on par with him. But he had to do it again. Many Asians would not notice the significance of that bow. But the Americans are incensed. Hey, the days of kings, dukes and princes are over. The concept of royalties or people who are more equal than others by birth is no longer acceptable, especially in republics, democracies and socialist/communist countries. The days of royalties will be a thing of the past in a matter time. However there are still Asians who are disturbed by the outburst of Americans at Obama. They find it perfectly respectful for a president to bow to a king. I think if the Queen of England or Prince Charles were to visit Singapore, many Singaporeans will willing and instinctively bow to them. For the commoners, maybe it is more a polite way to greet someone who is richer and more powerful than them. After all they are royalties, queens are beautiful, kings are clever and princes are charming. It is all written in the books of fairy tales and fables. In reality, many of these royalties can be quite idiotic or simply nasty creeps. Time has changed, and with universal suffrage, universal education, equality, the mindset of fairy tales should be cleansed in the education system. What is a king or prince if not of the inherited wealth and glory?

3 admissions of mistakes in a day - LKY

This is simply unbelieveable. For more than 45 years in power, there was no mistake. The record was a clean sheet of paper. Yesterday I heard it in the news that LKY admitted he made a mistake in the bilingual policy. Quite shocking news really. Today, reading the media reports, he actually admitted making 3 mistakes in a single day. Mistake number One, teaching the wrong way 'by insisting on ting xie(listening), moxie (dictation).' I will put it as spelling and dictation. Ting xie ie listening and writing, is spelling. Mistake number Two, 'insisting on bilingualism in the early years.' And mistake number Three, 'equating intelligence to language ability.'PS. Moxie is not dictation but writing from memory. Having realised his mistakes, he made it his lifetime pursuit to make it right. And he 'wasn't helped by the ministry officials, one English speaking, one Chinese speaking.' So he took on the task of thinking, on how to overcome this situation. He is no educationist, and he is also a very busy man. He thought through the problems and came out with more solutions. Finally he is putting them right. I can't imagine the consequences if he is not around to think through all the problems for Singaporeans. Why are there no other thinkers to complement this thinker in our country? Our country cannot depend on just one thinker to solve all our problems. The universities must start a course on thinking national issues and solving national problems.

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