After Palmer comes AIM

The Aljunied Hougang Town Council was given a red card of sort in the town council’s audit. This put Aljunied Hougang as the only one, I think, with a red card, which was bad when all the PAP Town Councils were mostly all greens except for a few yellow cards.

This event has led to the Worker’s Party making its defence as to why it was given a red card which made them looked bad. The problem was in the Town Council Management System for collection of town council fees from the residents which was terminated and WP could not get one up running in time. It was not due to any missing numbers or money.

The protest by WP led to some defending on why the system was terminated and the surfacing of a $2 company called AIM. The three directors of the company, the only staff with no employees, were Chandra Das, Lau Ping Sum and Chew Heng Ching, all former PAP MPs. The facts so far, the PAP Town Council developed the system, sold to AIM on a public tender. AIM bought it for $140k and leases back the system to the town councils for a monthly fee of $785 pm each. AIM then subcontracts National Computer Services to manage and service the system on its behalf. Apparently AIM could practically recover the full sum of $140k paid in a year and subsequent years will be more like profits.

The revelation of the company AIM and the details of the sale and the lease back of the Town Council Management System have led to many questions now being asked that are not looking good on the part of the Town Councils. Teo Ho Pin, Coordinating Chairman of PAP TCs would now have to fill in the blanks for all the questions being asked. How would this look from the point of efficiency, transparency, correctness and proper would depend on Teo Ho Pin’s answers. And the answers would likely to be in public and may even be raised in Parliament. This is going to overshadow the exciting details of the Palmer Affair for sure.

COE, a time bomb in the making

When COE of small cars costs $81k and big cars $100k, it is it. The anger has not become an outburst yet as many car owners are still hanging on to the last few months of their old cars. When their COE expires, when the need is genuine and serious, the cries will not be merely a whimper. Many less well off families are heavily dependent on private transport to get around. Public transportation would not do to these people when it is not just a matter of inconvenience but real difficulties getting to them. The very old, the very sick, the handicaps, the children that need to be ferry around to inaccessible schools will be the first victims to this ingenious and talented scheme to control car population.

The rich will go about their lives as if nothing has happened and many would quietly be saying, cannot afford private transport, take public transport lah. Why so difficult?

When more and more people ended up in such difficult situation, the noise is not going to be loud and unpleasant. It is could lead to an outcry, a revolt against the establishment that smugly sat in high heavens and making judgement on the loser mortals. How long could the losers bear with the difficulties of moving around or not able to move around anymore unless with great pain and trouble or paying a small fortune?

The time has come for a change, for a system that cares for the ordinary and the average Sinkies, a system that does not snub at the losers and telling them to buck up, to work harder, to earn more if they want to live better. The losers cannot write their own paychecks. The fact is that many of the losers are working very hard trying to make ends meet, to make their lives better. Now, with the huge population, with limited land and space left to provide for easier mode of transportation, and when owning private transportation is going to cost an arm or a leg, something gonna give. And some are still saying we need more people to come in to fill the space and take up the slag in property prices, to support property prices or the price will collapse.

The pain of this vicious cycle of high economic growth, high population growth, and high usage of land and space is starting to hurt.

SMRT was so perfect

SMRT was so perfect, so efficient and so profitable. And they rewarded themselves with huge bonuses and big pay packages. Then overnight the nightmare begun, starting from the clips falling off and stoppages every other day.

Now a new man is at the helm. 8 key managers were recruited to tackle the problems in the organisation. What problems? It was the perfect company a few months ago with its CEO earning praises for a very profitable and well run public transport company. How could there be problems and needing an infusion of top managers? And are they recruited to boost up the top management team that were doing so well or doing so badly? Or were they recruited to replace some of the top managers that were doing so well and still must be replaced?

No organisation has seen its fortune and image went legs up within such a short interval of time, from being so good to being so bad. What happened if the clips did not keep falling off? Would SMRT be still the darling of a well run and managed organisation, and its top management still receiving the laurels of success and efficiency and huge bonuses?

Are there other organisations that are looking so good, like a polished juicy red apple from the outside, but a rotten core that is waiting to be exposed? Is this the beginning of more disclosures, that all that is not well will not last long and cannot be hidden from the public for too long?

By election Laws, the spirit and intent of the law

Since the last interpretation of the spirit of the law in the Hougang by election, the govt’s position is that a general election is to elect a govt. When such a govt is in place and when a MP’s seat is left vacant for some reasons, it really does not matter as the govt is already elected. So having a by election or no by election is not of much importance as long as someone else is looking after the constituency on behalf of the MP. A stand in, a MP on loan from another constituency, or in the same GRC, or a CCC Chairman or any appointee could really fill the seat legally in accordance with the provisions of the Election Laws. This is what I have heard to be the official position and I stand corrected. The govt can always correct me if I am wrong and educate us on the correct interpretation, the law, the spirit of the law, the intent of the law, or the convenience of the law to be interpreted to whoever’s advantage.

If the above premises are true, and if the judgement by Judge Pillay is the absolute truth, that the PM has full discretion to decide to hold or not to hold a by election, then the constituents of any single member constituency may not be served by an elected MP after a GE. Anyone or any appointee would do.

I choose to disagree as a citizen and as a constituent. And I would also like to interpret the spirit of the law, the intent of the law to my advantage. As a constituent, I demand as my right to be represented by an MP that I have elected or have a say to his being my MP. No substitute is good enough. No part timers or part time MPs from other constituency to part time in my constituency. I demand a full fledge MP elected by my fellow constituents to represent me in Parliament and to take care of my problems. There is a direct quid pro quo in the case of a properly elected MP who promised to serve the people and the people duly elected him. Anything else is no good. It is a short change.

What do you think?

Merry Christmas to everyone

Let me say merry Christmas to everyone first while I ponder on what I shall write this morning.

Cheers.