What is the purpose of calling for a public tender?

There is no need for an expert to explain why a public tender is called. At times tenders may be restricted, pre qualified, or selected for various reasons like secrecy, confidentiality, expediency or some peculiar reasons like corruption or cronyism.

Normally a public tender is called to ensure that the buyer has the best deal in terms of quality, choice and price. This is normally achieved by having a good number and selections from tenderers with a good mix of products and pricing. The buyer would then be able to make a more informed decision on what are available in the market and the cost of the product or services.

A public tender also ensures fair play, no favouritism, under hand tactics, no fixing, no collusion or corruption. It is about being fair and transparent to the buyer and sellers.

Govt agencies, public or private companies do not established procurement procedures and tender processes for fun. No responsible management staff would simply place a public tender and accept anything that comes along, and the last thing is to accept a one bid tender. This can only happen when the value is insignificant and when there is a critical time issue at stake.

The very fact that a purchase must go through the process is already a reminder to the buyer that they cannot suka suka buy anything at any price. It is a reminder that the process is to ensure the organisation is getting a fair deal and also suppliers are given a fair chance to bid for the tender. There will always be cheats who go through the motion to give an image of transparency and fair play. There will be those who will game the system for obvious reasons as had happened, and anyone who knows the system could do it so easily. And when caught, pretend to be naive and ignorant and mouth things like the system can be improved.

Are these commonsensical objectives of a tender so complicated and difficult to understand? A moron can be expected to overlook such processes and the reasons for them because a moron is simply a moron. Can anyone be more moronic than a moron and failed to observe and practise these basic rules of procurement and purchases using public money?

The dying days of a dynasty

History students will be familiar with the events leading to the eclipse of an empire or dynasty. Everything seemed so right but so wrong, badly wrong, starkly wrong. But no one would be there to say things were wrong and to put them right. Many would stand up to speak and defend the wrongs and insisted that wrongs were right, nothing is wrong. Either they could not see or would not see or so used to wrongs as being rights as long as they said so.

In recent years, many flawed policies were thrashed out in the open leading to the PM apologising for them. That was about as far as it could get. The flawed immigrantion policy, congestion, high inflation, high cost of living, high property prices, high medical cost, high salary to pay for corruption, widening income gap, rewarding foreign thrash and demeaning the people that are the owners of this land, policies that favoured foreigners and against Sinkies.  And there are many others that were so obviously wrong but pronounced as so right and so good, or as something unavoidable, nothing can be done to change them.

The echoes of HDB prices are affordable, income gap is ok, high property prices are caused by market forces, nothing can be done, more foreigners are good for growth, immigrants are here to help the daft Sinkies,…..can go on and on, are still ringing in many people’s ears.

The charade of charity shows and big fund raisings were fun and a fad for the organisers until the funds were used by some individuals to have more private funs. The running down of the public transport system was never seen and everyone was happily rewarding themselves with more bonuses until it took a simple accident that ended up life threatening to shake everybody up.

The shameless exploitations for profits in the medical profession that led to many patients ended as victims of big scams and paying dearly to the noble profession of life saving until it exploded into a big ugly incident. No, nothing wrong about how much professionals or hospitals billed their patients. Caveat emptor, willing buyer willing selling. You want quality, you pay for quality. Moneyism has replaced ethics as the new social more. The banking and finance industry has been turned into a den of crooks and no one can see anything wrong with it except pointing fingers at the low down front line snake oil peddlers who failed to explain how poisonous the snake oil is. It is their fault. Snake oils were permitted to be peddled to innocent customers as sophisticated products and advanced computerised games.

What else is new? Money is not an issue when there are plenty to go around. The squandering of millions by people and splashed across the front pages of the media were dismissed as nonsense. Many cannot see anything wrong with them but wrong for accusing the squanderers wrongfully. And the good name of God was paraded to defend the squanderers. Some have ended behind bars but the loyal supporters would not see the human failings. What is a few millions?

Was there anything wrong with the purchase of $2,200 high end branded bicycles for public servants? No, definitely no. Minister had spoken out to defend the decision. Academics too sang in support. Nothing wrong. The whole process was done properly, lowest bid, cheapest available, right procedures. The only hint of some wrongdoings was the admission that it could be done better and the system could be improved. My God, our civil service procedures were found wanting in the 21^st century for such a simple straight forward process. I think tendering is such a new thing in the civil service and they are still testing out the processes. I can only think of Ah Beng and his seventh month bidding which is more effective, efficient as a transparent tender system.

Just ask anyone involved in purchasing, any CEOs or dept heads, or any working adults and they will all shake their heads. Was there an elephant in the room? No, swear, no elephant! When a pile of shit stood right in front of everyone and in broad daylight, and respected people are defending it as no shit, you can expect how decadent things have become.

So far, the only person that is brave enough to stand up and call a spade a spade is Lui Tuck Yew. Not for fun like some pretenders claiming to do the same. And he is probably the only minister that is really working 25 hours to get the MRT running smoothly again. But he fell short of saying that heads must roll. Has anyone seen any heads rolling in the last decade or so? There is a phrase in the US called ‘too big to fail’. We may have our equivalent of ‘too talented to fail’. Anyway, this is only a side issue.

The main issue is that Nothing Is Wrong. No one can see anything wrong. And any wrong must be defended by all till it is accepted as right. Used the media to broadcast that it is right daily, get some known personalities to support the wrong as right. The daft Sinkies will believe it after a while.

Events in the dying days of a dynasty often manifest themselves in similar light, similar treatment and attention. Anyone dares claim that things are going wrong?

Look at the American Empire. Anyone dares say they are the problem of the world? Anyone dares say they are the one that is causing tension and wars around the world? Anyone dares say America is free from corruption? Everyone says, America is good, freedom, no corruption, America is saving the world, a benevolent and peace loving nation. And the best part, the Americans and their leaders, the scheming, conniving gangsters and murderers, believe it too. They too cannot see anything wrong with themselves and what they are doing. Did they ever admit that they enslaved 20 million Africans for 200 years! And murdered 10 million Red Indians and seized their lands?  Hitler was a novice compared to the Americans.

Oops, I digress.

Revolt of the Sinkie millionaires

Sinkieland can possibly boast of having the highest percentage of millionaires in the world, be it by population or by per sq foot basis. Throw a stone into the crowd in the shopping centres or the two resorts, or in Raffles Place or Shenton Way, one in two is likely to be a millionaire in net worth, counting his HDB flat and savings in CPF. The latter two will make them smile at most and nothing they could do to them as the bulk is untouchable.

There is a distinct difference between the real millionaires and the Sinkie millionaires. The real ones are full of money in their pockets, can afford several houses, cars and mistresses if they wanted. They live a life of leisure, and their wives and mistresses enjoy the lifestyle of tais tais, going for afternoon tea and chat the days away, and travelling in their big limousines.

Many of the Sinkie millionaires could never get near to this kind of lifestyle. Many will be made bankrupt on admission to hospital for a serious op or having to stay for more than 30 days. Many will end up selling their homes at old age to survive as their savings, despite one of the highest in the world, will never be enough to feed inflation. Many of these millionaires will have a hard time paying their mortgages, sending their children to schools or even owning a car. They could not even afford to pay for nursing homes for their parents and have to send them away to JB.

In other countries, a millionaire is normally someone who is pretty well off and very comfortable financially. The Sinkie millionaires are often waiting anxiously for govt handouts and subsidies to save their skins as many would be deep in debt.

The dull and daft Sinkies would still believe that they are millionaires but more and more would soon realise that they are only paper millionaires. An awakening is coming soon when the millionaires realise that they are just like any middle class or lower middle class citizens elsewhere who, very likely live a better, easier and less pressurised lifestyle than them. Many of the maids that they hired, ordered around, bullied or abused are going home to live a richer and more carefree life than them without having any inkling of being a millionaire. Even the foreign workers are going home to live in much bigger houses than the four concrete walls millionaires could afford here.

There will be no uprising of the miserables in Sinkieland. If there is going to be any, it will be a revolution of the Sinkie millionaires, the millionaires who can only feel rich with their CPF statements and imagine that they have all those money in their savings. The reality is that not only they could hardly lay hands on their illusory wealth, by the time they get to touch them, the money would probably be worthless.

They have started to gripe and kpkb about it. This is the beginning of a systemic change, a rude awakening, that a millionaire in Sinkieland is actually another average worker trying to make ends meet and nothing else. They will revolt and vote for an alternative party that can make them really richer and not slaves to an unworthy property and money that they thought were theirs but hardly. The only way to feel richer is to liquidate and leave for a cheaper country. Other than that, the illusory wealth is all tied up in the property and the CPF. A sense of well being of a millionaire but not living like one.

The best combination to exploit Sinkies in Sinkieland

One foreign family I knew;
Husband : citizen
Wife : PR
Son. : PR
Daughter: citizen

Why??? I probably do the same. Everyone will take the best out of every opportunities, and that is exactly the smart people our country wanna attract, isn't it?

This is posted by Ahmadbaba in 3 in 1 kopitiam. And many bloggers who have PR or new citizen friends are saying that this is the normal and ideal combination. Taking the best from Sinkieland and waiting to scoot. And can’t blame them as they are rightly called foreign talents not for nothing. They could easily outwit our dull super talents and their policies. Or maybe not. Our dull super talents knew exactly that this would happen but closed an eye as they deemed the benefits outweighed the loophole. Only average Sinkies will be affected.

Let’s make a plea to these foreign talents, on good faith, that if their children do not intent to serve NS, please, please don’t take up PRs or citizenship. We know that these foreign talents are honest people and will not try to game the system and make our policies look silly and disadvantaged our very own citizens.

The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is just too tempting. FTs who bought a HDB flat could simply service the mortgage and wait for the fruit to ripen in 5 years or so, cash out by selling the flat at a big profit to some hardup Sinkies that the govt refused to sell them public flats. Then pack up and go home to be a rich man. For those who are earning a good income it will be double bonus with a good savings and a good profit from the sale of the flat.

And the stupid Sinkies would end up with the expensive resale flat bought from a happy FT turned temporary Sinkie.

Has Asean lost its way?

The Asean Regional Forum in Phnom Penh is getting rowdy with the issue of South China Sea claims as the hot topic. Four Asean states are making counter claims to Chinese islands led by the Philippines and Vietnam and backed by the US. The Philippines are acting like a big power, sitting on the head of the American beast and raring to take on China in a fight that it hallucinating that it can be a winner like Pacquiao.

The bigger picture is that the US is the master of this regional forum, telling and dictating to all the parties how to behave, what they should do and what it would want them to do. Asean is turning out to be a vehicle of the American Empire, existing only in names with the Americans calling the shot and setting the agenda and tone of discussion.

What happens Asean? What has Asean become after being a dominant regional association and international player, calling its own shot? Apparently the association has now been hijacked by the Americans, fronted by its semi colonies, to do its bid as the Empire assumes its role as the master of the region. And the news is always about what Hillary Clinton said and what she wanted.

Ten little boys went out to play and in their innocence, or thinking too highly of themselves, invited the gangsters to join them in their game. Now the gangsters are taking over the game, brought in their knives, wrote the rules and telling the little boys how to play. The little boys can only LL.