In Politics – a matter of whiter than white

I had a few minutes of watching In Parliament on the telly last night and saw the expected fireworks on display. Though I did not want to waste my time going through the drag, I still could figure out what were the main issues and points in discussion. Going forward, I hope all the opposition political parties will review the sessions over and over again as a lot of lessons could be learnt from it. From the administrative point of view I would hazard to offer a few suggestions to the opposition political parties so that they would avoid the treacherous path ahead.
 
The situation, the opposition parties must know that the realities are not as simple and straight forward as they thought it to be. They cannot take things likely and easily as they are dealing with a team of politicians that are white, flawless, spot less and god like. This is the starting point. To stand a chance of surviving the ordeal, they need to be whiter than white. Just being white or blue but with some spot is not enough. Every spot would be put under the magnifying glass to check the details, for the little blemishes and hair if any.
 
Administrative procedures and process cannot be slipshod. The rules cannot be compromised. And having husband and wife team, with one with the authority to approve what the other is doing is a big no no. And when money is concerned, it is worst. It demands the highest level of integrity, transparency and accountability. There cannot be any room for conflict of interest. This is basic, fundamental in administration and accounting. Even a schoolboy would know. Do not think other people can do it so you can also. A conflict of interest is a conflict of interest. Period. There is no exception, no otherwise.
 
And here there is public money involved. A lot of public money is involved, millions. And I would like to quote Shanmugam, ‘The rhetoric from the Workers’ Party (WP) is always about helping the poor man. The reality is that the WP took money from the man in the street and gave it to FMSS. Maybe thee was no one taking the money, through the back door in the dark of the night, because the money was going out in broad daylight, through the front door.’
 
I hope this is not too difficult to understand. No political party should go around talking about helping the poor man and then ended up taking their money from them and gave it to some other organizations or to themselves. This is the first cardinal sin. Cheating the poor man! Don’t ever be accused of cheating the poor man. You cannot cheat a poor man. They know. How can anyone or party does this and get away with it? The second point, even if it is approved legally or officially, it is still theft in a way, like money going through the front door. Yes, how can people do such a thing and think they can get away with it?
 
All opposition parties must learnt these rules from the PAP, be very careful with the people’s money, the public money. The PAP has done this very well, beyond reproach. Every cent must be accountable. No taking the public money from the front door and not in the dark of the night. Both are equally wrong.
 
The lessons are painful but there are a lot of hard truths in them. Be whiter than white. White is not enough unless you are in power. Until you are in a position of absolute power, be clean, be transparent, be accountable. And when people ask you to tell the truth in Parliament, to come clean, you must answer and come clean. How to be clean and transparent when you refused to tell, to come clean?

AHPETC actions ‘unlawful’, public monies lost

These are two very serious charges made by Shanmugam and appearing on the front page news today. I would presume, yes I am a layman and do not understand if this is different from breaking the law, that unlawful means breaking the law. What should the Govt do when the Law Minister accused the AHPETC of being ‘unlawful’ even with inverted commas? I would again presume, or shall I think, the Govt or the Law Minister is going to file charges against the AHPETC for breaking the law, or is it breaking some rules and regulations or procedures of the Town Council Acts that may not amount to criminal charges?
 
And the second charge, for causing the lost of public monies, not stolen or theft, but could also be charged for negligence or not doing due diligence in their fiduciary duties. So, should the AHPETC be preparing for a criminal lawsuit coming their way?
 
When the Law Minister said AHPETC broke the law, or ‘unlawful’, it is not play, play and the AHPETC better start to pray, pray on what is the next move by the Law Minister.
 
Let’s wait for In Parliament Act 2.

Obama going to war with ISIS

Obama is asking Congress for approval to go to war against ISIS. This is the second time after the fabricated invasion of Iraq by George Bush that the USA would be put on a war footing. I must say that this ISIS is more real than the Saddam Hussein’s WMD thing. So we can see the world’s Number One super power going to take on an insurgency that wants to be world Number One as well. Who will win? On paper the Americans could erase the ISIS by carpet bombing like they did in Vietnam and Laos. So, what is the problem?
 
The problem is that the Americans would not do it. They just want a war outside of the US, a war they can be manage from a distance and get everyone involved for a long long time. And the American war industry will be laughing all the way to the banks. War is very important to the Americans. They must always created tensions all over the world, get the people agitated and raise the tension, limited warfare, and buy more arms.
Would this fight against the ISIS be different? Would the Americans go in, bash around and then withdraw, leaving a big mess behind but not solving anything? Syria, watch it, it is coming. Can the Americans clean up the ISIS insurgents given their war arsenal and the number of troops available? Or is this just another operation to get the rest of the world on an arms buying spree?
 
If the Americans cannot deal with ISIS, what else would it be able to do? I think a better solution will be to invite the Japanese to do the cleaning job as Abe is so eager to do so. Then Congress need not have to send any American boys and girls to the makers. Congress should just tell Obama to support the Japanese to send in the Japanese Imperial troops to avenge the beheading of two Japanese. It would be cleaner, faster and cheaper, and knowing the expertise of the Japanese, they would do a good job at beheading the ISIS fighters. Would that not be nice?
 
Or would it not lead to more deals for the American war merchants? That is not a problem surely. The Americans can offer all the arms they want to expend and the Japanese contribute the troops. Just a humble win win suggestion.
 
Howdy Obama? The American peasant pa and ma would love you for not sending their children to another war. And the war merchants too would be grateful for the money rolling in for their weapons sold. There is no need to bring in the expired Empire of Britain or Nato forces. You will have a very willing Japanese Imperial Army to do the job and the war merchants happily offering all their weapons for sale. And all the American boys and girls would be safe at home watching telly.

GE 2015/16 – A new political gambit

In the western version of politics called democracy, the winner is the party that won the most votes. Historically, the opposing parties would be out there canvassing for votes, for the hearts and minds of the voters. The more voters they can convince to their sides, the better the chance of winning an election.
 
Political parties thus often go all out with all kinds of strategies to win votes. Pork barrel politics is a famous and seldom failed tactic. Throw money to the voters to buy their votes. The other is fear. Frighten the voters so that they have no choice but to vote in your favour. How to frighten the voters and strike fear in them? A third method is to discredit or fix the enemies. Run down the enemies, find faults with them, show off their mistakes and blunders to the voters, but do not in the process expose your own mistakes or the dirty tricks one is using. It can backfire. The voters today are not daft. They are watching with a cynical smile.
 
Today, we are seeing a new strategy evolving, initially unintended, but starting to gain a foothold among the political parties. In this strategy, it is about making the least mistakes to the point of doing nothing. Not losing votes is wining if the other parties are well known for shooting their own feet. The more they shoot themselves, the more votes they will lose. And not only that, these votes could go to the opposing parties.
 
The game is on. Do less to preserve and protect one’s position and votes. Let the enemy happily make mistakes after mistakes to do themselves in. Such a strategy is easier to apply for the opposition parties and has a negative bias for the ruling political party. The opposition parties not in govt can disappear or be invisible when issues crop up. The ruling party must deal with the problems and if handed badly, would lose votes for sure, especially when the election is around the corner. The opposition parties may at worst be disregarded for non involvement and they could fall back on not being able to do anything as they are not the govt. They could also remain reticent completely and let the ruling party foul it up completely.
 
It looks like this strategy is working and very cost effective for the opposition parties when the ruling party has a penchant to trip on everything they stepped on. And the opposition parties are happily counting the number of trippings and the number of votes flying their way.
 
Looks like in this GE the ruling party is working very hard trying to win votes and working very hard unintentionally to lose votes. Think Brampton bikes, Aim, hawker centre roofs, AHPEC TC accounts, rats, Hong Lim heckling, PME jobs, population, CPF, Medishield Life, and the latest, Thaipusam. This is another very hot potato to handle with extreme care.
 
Who will be losing votes and who will be picking up votes? It is tough time for the ruling party. They have to work carefully hard this time, to win votes and not to lose votes. The opposition parties only need to play it safe, consolidate their positions and hold the ground, and picking up the loose votes sent flying their way.
 
The game is on.

PS: Kopi almost dried up.

Hard choices on healthcare?

We are so rich today, probably with trillions in our reserves. No one outside the govt really knows how much is there. Only a very privilege few would have this access. President Ong asked for it but did not get the answer. And after so many years have passed, the answer is still not forthcoming. And the Govt is so proud to declare that only 1.6% of our GDP was spent on healthcare.
 
When the country was poor, barely anything in the reserves, we were able to provide free healthcare to our citizens, rich or poor did not matter. I have weekly dental treatments at the Institute of Health all for free in the late 50s and early 60s. My God how did they do it? They even sent a big and comfortable coach to fetch the students for medical treatments, extraction, fillings and fixing dentures. All free! The Govt was poor but caring, with priorities in the health of the citizens. Who would not vote for such a Govt? The Govt had good solid support from the people for at least 30 years. Today some fools were chastising the pioneers for voting the PAP then.
 
Today we have a better healthcare system that is more like Frankenstein. You don’t want to be treated. You can’t afford to be treated and be given a deadly bill that may kill you instantly. It is right for Hsien Loong to remind the people, ‘But every dollar spent on healthcare is a dollar “taken from taxpayers, and one dollar less to be spent somewhere else, whether it’s on education , on healthcare, on housing, on defence or on the personal needs of our people.’
 
Fully agree. A very wise and prudent statement. I would like to add, every dollar spent on foreign students, or $2 billion dollars on last count, is money taken from our taxpayers that should rightly be spent on the children of taxpayers. Tiok boh? And if $2b and still going up, if this could be cut off from funding foreign students, maybe the choice for healthcare need not be so hard. And if we stop spending on the extravagance, parties, education trips, ego trips, helping countries that don’t need our help, I think our health choices could even be easy, or at least easier. No one is asking for a return to the good old days and the good old PAP days when health care is practically free. 

If we save a few dollars here and there instead of wasting on monuments, vanity projects and building monuments for other countries, I think things would be very different. We need wise leaders to spend our taxpayers’ money wisely. Knowing prudence and to talk about prudence is the beginning to wisdom. Get the priorities right! Stop spending OPM like a rich man's son.
 
What do you think?