Town Councils – A proper and responsible handover system

Most of you have experienced a proper handover of office or organization in your passage through adulthood. In employment, when you are appointed to a new position, assume a new role or command, there is always a proper handover of duties, responsibilities and assets/equipment, and staff from the incumbent to the successor. It is the responsibility of the incumbent to account for everything he is handing over and to brief the successor carefully on the roles and functions of the appointment to assist and ensure that the successor could carry on the role of the office quickly and smoothly.
 
The successor can refuse to take over if there is no proper handover. Of course this is an ideal case. In reality many steps are often missed, sometimes totally missed. But in a normal situation, there must be a proper and responsible hand over of duties and responsibilities.
 
The same procedures and considerations are also applicable in the handing over of a society or organization. The incumbent office bearers must hand over all the files, equipment, including furniture and computer systems, money, contact lists, and outstanding matters to the incoming party. The incumbent office bearers cannot take anything belonging to the organization, paid by the organization, along with them like their private properties. A responsible incumbent party would ensure that everything is in order and the in coming party be briefed of all outstanding matters.
 
The handing over procedures of a society and organization are applicable to a Town Council. They cannot strip bear the office, take away furniture and equipment, systems, files and computer software and hardware. The incoming party must be able to continue to function smoothly, or as smoothly as possible other than the change in personalities and staff. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel, introduce new systems, buy new equipment and furniture and operating systems.
 
In the case of Town Councils, who is going to pay for a brand new system, furniture and equipment whenever there is a change of political party everything will have to change. Do not waste public money in the process just because of a change in political office. The big question, is the out going incumbents allowed to take things belonging to the Town Council, paid by the Town Council, with them or even sell them away?
There must be continuity in Town Council operations. It is a public organization set up to serve the residents, paid and supported by the fees of the residents and subsidies from public fund.
 
Is the present Town Council System fitting to serve the people without being hung up to dry when there is a change of MP? Do the people expect someone running for political office to gather a team of administrators, system and what else ready in case he wins an election? Are we asking to much or who is asking too much?
 
Should there be a proper handover and takeover procedure to ensure continuity, cost savings, prevention of unnecessary expenses, breakdown of services etc etc? Can the present Town Council System that is crippled by a change of political parties serve the interest of the people well? Should the present Town Council System be allowed to continue as it is? What should it be? What is the responsible thing to do?
 
What should a responsible and functional Town Council System be? You don’t need to be a super talent to know the answer unless you choose not to want to know, not to want to do the right thing. The present Town Council system is there to shackle and hackle a novice MP or a team of MPs taking office or is there to help them serve the people?
 
What do you think?

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?’

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.