2/16/2015
A Town Council is not a provision shop
A Town Council is not your provision shop where you could hop around to another one when you are not happy with the service. It is not a shop that can open and close as it likes. It needs to be there providing essential services for the residents. Even a provision shop like 7 eleven has a mission to serve the people at all hours, practically 365 days of the year except one. This is the mindset of an organization wanting to serve the people, to be there when the people need it.
Can a Town Council stop functioning for a few weeks, a few months, whenever there is a change of officer bearers, whenever there is a change of political party in charge? It is unthinkable that the services would be disrupted when the MP changed hands. It is unthinkable that the incumbent can simply remove its operating system, its computer software and hardware and leaving the successor in the lurch, to start all over again, to bring in a new computer system, a new set of officers and staff, probably knowing nothing of the functions and management of a Town Council, a new set of contractors, cleaners etc etc.
How can a Town Council function this way, being crippled after every change of office bearers? It is not easy to get a new system and a new set of staff to get it running. What are the safeguards and provisions to ensure that a Town Council will continue to function regardless of who is the political master, like the civil service and the uniform services?
Is the current Town Council system good for the people? Is this what you called good governance? Why is the Town Council not part of the govt’s essential services to the people, that it would continue to function comes what may? The people deserve an Uninterrupted TC providing continuous services at all time. Who is responsible to set this right?
You tell me.
PM under the spotlight
PM ‘facing increasing scrutiny for cracking down on opponents, troubles in a strategic development fund and questions over his family assets, with even ruling party conservatives questioning his leadership….’
The above is quoted from an acticle in the Mypaper today on Najib’s problems. There are increasing criticisms on his ability to lead, on backing out of his pledge to sooth racial tensions and bolster democracy. More problematical are the criticisms involving his purchases of overseas properties and the 1MDB fund. Where is the money coming from and where is the money going to? Then there were also comments about Rosmah’s expensive taste for jewelries and luxuries items.
The PM’s office has issued official statement to deny Najib’s involvement in the purchases of foreign properties. The problem is that with the easy access to information and the net, not many things can be kept hidden from the public’s view.
There will be the whisperers doing their jobs. Many things are still under wrapped not because they were not known but the timing is not right. Many skeletons would be thrown out once it is due for exposure.
Looks like Najib’s days are numbered. Many of his political friends are sharpening their knives and waiting for the Ides of March.
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?’
2/15/2015
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.
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