In Parliament – To err is human

To err is human unless you are an immortal. Law Minister, K Shanmugam, had very strong words for the WP-run town council for all the lapses AHPETC made. It was like unforgiveable sin to make those mistakes even if the value concerned was not in the hundreds of millions or billions, so echoed many of the immortals. Hahaha, AHPETC got caught with their pants down. And the barrage of attacks was continuous for several days in the main media, like the bull dog that would not release its bite. I must say that the WP looked quite bad even though the public looked at it more sympathetically from the perspective of politicking, nothing else but politicking.
 
Now the social media is on fire. They could not bare the ruthless attacks against the WP and were finding an excuse to strike back. Thankfully they discovered that the numbers given by Shamugam were mischievously wrong. And the netizens are biting this piece of grave error fearlessly and refusing to let go, like the bite of, yes, a bull dog. It is not sure if the errors were intented or due to human error, or worse, immortal error. Below are some quotes from an article in TRE titled, ‘Problems with Shanmugam’s chart shown in Parliament’, credited to TOC.
 
….’He (Shanmugam) said “that WP took money from the man in the street and gave it to FMSS, to their friends” and described the town council’s finances as a “sorry state of affairs”.
 
He also took particular issue with the fees which FM Solutions and Services (FMSS) charges AHPETC. They are higher than in other town councils, Mr Shanmugam claimed.
 
From July 2013 to July 2014, FMSS charged $7.43 for each residential unit and $14.92 for each commercial unit, compared to $4.80 to $6.65 for units of each type, charged by the managing agents of the PAP town councils, …. he claimed that FMSS charges the highest rate among all the managing agents. He handed out charts showing a table of the MA rates for the different town councils to the Members of Parliament to illustrate his point.’
 
There was an apparent anomaly in the residential and commercial unit rates in Shanmugam’s chart. They were suspiciously the same. Sylvia Lim picked it up and asked Shanmugam about it.

“From what I know, MA rates are usually different from residential units and commercial units,… But in your chart, they are all the same. So I would like minister to clarify that there has been no mistake in this chart and it is really the fact that all this MA are charging the same rates for commercial and residential units ….So I think minister may want to check his chart.”
 
Mr Shanmugam got up and replied to Ms Lim immediately, “I can answer your answer straight away. You should look at annex 3 and you will see in the first page that the MA rates once they are done on a weighted average basis, these figures are accurate, [I’m] told by MND.”
 
The netizens were delirious with this golden opportunity to take it out on the flawless Law Minister to prove that karmic retribution is real and can be immediate. Do not do to others what you do not want do to you.
 
When Boon Wan was faced with the columbarium fiasco, he took the excuse of assuming the info given by HDB was correct and had to admit that it was not. Here, Shanmugam was cock sure his data was right. Now it is proven that the data was wrong and the netizen and WP are going to make him eat his own words. His template on the lapses in AHPETC is going to be thrown back at him.
 
WP is likely to go to Parliament and demand that Shanmugam gets to the bottom of this error. Who did it, why did he do it, who is going to benefit from it? Is there a conflict of interest? The misleading numbers, would they affect the fiduciary duty of the town councils to the people? What were actually paid and collected and reported? The WP camp is going to demand that Shanmugam comes clean, be transparent, do not hide any information, answers the questions put to him. Was the wrong data in the chart intentional, calculated to cause maximum damage to the WP?
 
What was the intent? Is this the only mistake, a fabrication? Is there a rot somewhere? Were the data presented to mislead the people as the WP was attacked and embarrassed in Parliament because of it? It is not like in the courts where the judge can tell the jury to ignore what was said. The issues were reported boldy in the main media and seen all over the world. And if Sylvia Lim did not notice and brought it up, the WP would be hung for it.
 
There are many questions that the WP would put them back to the PAP. Would there be a consistent patent of denial and deflection, and protecting whoever? Or, to quote Hri Kumar, ‘Why should the WP be let off easy just because it is the opposition?’ with ‘WP’ substituted by ‘PAP’ and ‘opposition’ by ‘ruling party’. The people must not be forced to accept less but full accountability. ‘This cannot be the way to go forward.’ This must be the war cry of the WP.
 
There are many things that the WP would be saying after the bullocking in Parliament and reported in the media. And now they are presented with the same opportunity to ask for their pound of the flesh. The big question, while the anti PAP netizens are having a ball of a time, what would the WP finally do in Parliament? Would they demand an apology for being put in a bad light or would they meekly say, ‘A mistake has been made, let’s move on?’

My Sunday sermon – The naked man or The naked truth

My sermon for today is about this man walking around naked in the main street in broad daylight. Then he saw an Ah Pek rummaging a dustbin for drink cans. He was angry and called the police on his expensive iPhone.

The police arrived to attend to his complaint. He pointed to the Ah Pek and annoyingly told the police the Ah Pek was naked. The Ah Pek only had a pair of trousers on but no tops. The policemen looked at each other and then walked away. The naked man kept shouting, ‘Arrest the Ah Pek, he is naked!’

By then there was a big crowd around the naked man. Everyone was astounded by the action of the naked man. They were also wondering why the policemen did not take the naked man away instead. Some were suggesting that the naked man must be an important man. Some were saying he was obviously mad, cuckoo. Everyone could see that there was really nothing wrong with the Ah Pek. The naked man was the complainant.

A few people actually shouted at the naked man, telling him that he was the one that was naked. But it seemed that the naked man was deaf. And he continued strutting around like a peacock, completely naked. I think he sincerely and honestly believed he was fully dressed and no one could see his nakedness.

End of story. End of sermon. I just hope everyone is still sane. And I hope someone would hand the naked man a mirror. I think this sermon is simple enough and no explanation required. This is perhaps an extreme form of delusion. It is not a case of bi polar, neither is it dementia.

AHPETC – A classical novel in the making

In schools, literature books are often used for character analysis whereby the characters were slowly revealed a little at a time as they entered the story, through their actions, inactions, what they said, what they did not say, and the truths and the lies they committed. The Water Margin is one of the four Chinese classics that told the stories of 108 heroes, wronged by the system, made victims of the state and turned bandits, and then returned to the fold of officialdom.

A book like AHPETC, standing for All Human Personalities Exposed Through Controversy or Conspiracy, would be an interesting addition to the list of local literature books that deserved a place among the great books chosen by MOE for our students. This book is easy to write and very current, and all that needs to be done is to compile all the speeches made in Parliament or articles printed in the local media will do.

And there is a compelling story behind the AHPETC to back up the characters with plots and counter plots, with conspiracies mixed with truths and half truths, with fabricated truths and lies, with virtues and pretentious virtues, and everything that is needed to make a great story. But as the book’s title stands for, it is a fascinating way to reveal the characters, fake and real personalities and goodness of 108 or 109 heroes or anti heroes in the story now playing in Parliament.

Among the sub plots of loyalty, infidelity, deceit and honour, righteousness, treachery, heroes defending the common folks against crooks and bandits, the use of power and threats, oppression, friendship and betrayal, every character will be carefully painted out in great details. There will be the honourable, the generous, the honest, the religious, the reasonable man, the righteous, the statesmen versus the dark side of the vicious and dishonourable, the cheats, the devious, bandits, gangsters, liars, ball lickers, cronies, the untrustworthy, the deceitful, the corrupt, and the sly, and many shades of human characters all at play individually or in combination. Of course the hypocrites would be aplenty. Then there would be the heroes fighting for the poor men against injustice, the plotters and conspirators plotting against the enemies, and for good measures one could even see spies, agents, moles, infiltrators, subversive elements all in the story.

And there is always the moral of the story of the good versus the bad and how the good will triumph over the bad, or evil over goodness, all built around the main plot, the Crime of the Century. The subplots could include coercion and pressure, harassments, subversions and cloak and daggers stuff. Great stuff.

I am so eager to start working on this book for the good of posterity. It would become a classic on understanding human characters and their motivations and ambition, how they compromised themselves for selfish interests. It would join the Hard Truths and other great books like From Third World to First World and the impending and highly expected modern classic From Third World to First World as literary treasures.

Would there be anyone willing to sponsor the publication of such a great classic in the making? I think it will in good company with George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984.

AHPETC – more articles in the ST today

Another 3 pages of the ST were devoted to the ‘Crime of the Century’ in Singapore politics. More than half of today’s front page was on this topic. I have been given these articles a miss for obvious reasons. It is very taxing to read unless I am writing my Ph D thesis. Maybe one day I shall write a book about the political crimes in Sin City. Reading the headlines would be enough to know the content in the ST articles. A few snippets like the occasional highlighted quotes would be about the most I could spare with my precious time on the issue.

I did notice a couple of interesting ones and I would like to post them here for reflection. Although the principles, concerns and moral values etc are supposed to be about the AHPETC case, I think they are for general applications and can be applied to all cases of wrong doings. There cannot be exceptions or else the bandits would be using them to run down on their victims and appearing to be god like. Justice, righteousness and human decency apply to all mortals.

The first quote by Heng Swee Kiat is this:

‘I am very concerned about the pattern in which the WP has betrayed the people’s trust. It has a consistent pattern of denial, deflection and protection of its managing agent, which suggests a serious rot is happening.’

My head was shaking after reading it. The ST added this to the quote. ‘Education Minister Heng Swee Keat, accusing gthe Workers’ Party(WP) of lacking integrity in dealings with managing agent FM Solutions and Services (FMSS), owned by eye officers of the WP run town council.’

The second quote is by Hri Kumar.

‘Why should the WP be let off easy just because it is the opposition? And why should its residents be forced to accept anything less than full accountability? This cannot be the right way forward.’

My head was shaking from left to right too reading this. ST added this, ‘Mr Hri Kumar Nair (Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC), on why the WP town council must he held to the same standards as other entities that have been audited by the Auditor-General’s Office.

I think it is more interesting to read about the political ‘Crime of the Century’ in Malaysia involving Anwar and all the indisputable hard evidence brought to bear against him by the authority. It would be good if the Malaysian ST could orchestrate and produce a few pages of articles on the juicy details for public consumption and turn the paper into an evening tabloid on sexy stuff. What a disappointment.

I must say the Malaysian ST is sexier to read than our very predictable ST.

GE 2015/16 - PAP won Round 2 against WP

If one is to read the deluge of articles in the main media on the AHPETC saga, one would get away with the impression that PAP has won both rounds. The first Round was several pages of the AGO’s report on all the breaches committed by the AHPETC. The second Round was in Parliament when Shanmugam spoke like a God scolding the WP and accusing them of being unlawful and losing public money and many other things. And Boon Wan joined in to withhold $7m of subsidies for S&CC that should be given to AHPETC until they clean up the mess.
 
With these two victories and perhaps more to come if the AHPETC were to be charged in court for criminal breaches, it would be 3 successive rounds of victories for the PAP. It would also look like PAP has demolished the WP and would easily win the GE hands down. But this is only one side of the story.
 
Reading the social media the mood and temper changed sides. The issues were bullying tactics, unfair tactics, abuses of the system, etc etc that were leveled at the PAP by the netizens. There was outrage, cries of infamy! They were not interested in what the PAP was accusing the AHPETC for, dismissing them as pure hypocrisies. They totally ignored these as part of politicking to discredit the WP, nothing more, nothing less. They were angry by these and many other attacks on the WP.
 
The question now is what would all these mean in the GE? Would the voters be won over by the PAP for their righteousness in discrediting the WP? Or would all the tactics and actions of the PAP be seen as unfair bullying and be translated into sympathetic votes for the WP? Would the voters be so pissed that they would stand up for the underdog against the Goliath swinging his sledgehammer? There are bound to be a lot of cynicism and many were saying that the PAP were winning battles but losing the war. The hearts and minds of the voters are shaken by the strong and heavy hand tactics of the PAP in its dealings or fixing of its political enemies.
 
On the other hand the PAP and its supporters would be smiling at how clever they bashed or fixed up the WP and whitewashed it to oblivion and congratulating themselves for a job well done, and waiting to pop champagne after the GE. There must be a lot of optimism and praises in the PAP camp. They won, or shouts of ‘We won’ can be heard though the GE is still waiting to happen.
 
First the PAP threw out the goodies to sweeten the ground. Now they hung the strongest opposition, in a way sealing the fate of the WP, untrustworthy, could even be charged in court and disqualified. What is there left to be done than to call the GE? Oh, wait, more goodies coming from the Budget and viola, what a piece of cake, time to eat the pudding.
 
The social media and the lunatic fringe are just that, kpkb and making noise in the wilderness. What do you think? Great strategy? One camp crying foul and another popping champagne. Who would ultimately triumph in the GE? Who is the devil and who is god must be pretty clear to both sides and the bystanders.