If I am the PM

I know this is as good a talking nonsense. No one can dream of becoming a PM unless he takes the first step to join a political party and become an Indian chief of a political party. I have not joined any political party so thinking of becoming a PM is academic. But it is quite fun really, to talk cock once a while. Many people did that. So let’s talk about this daydreaming.
 
Let’s say suay suay all the parties become minority parties and need to form a coalition govt but cannot agree on who to be PM. Then they look around for someone neutral and call Redbean to stand in as the PM. So I am the PM. I would want to be the most righteous PM, most caring PM, most pro Singapore PM, not necessary pro Singaporeans. I would like to even add, the most religious PM but that would only insult the religion that I professed to believe in. So I pass this one. I am no good and I have no religion so no need to pretend to be religious and spoil the good name of the religion.
 
OK, I must think Singapore first, always think Singapore first. This is not the same as the Singapore First Party. The latter thinks and wants to care for Singaporeans. I want Singapore to do well, to prosper, to grow into a vibrant and rich country at all cost. And to do that, it must have very good and clever people with the right qualifications and experience to govern the state.
 
I will start with the President. I will make the criteria for this appointment very stringent. Remember, he holds the second key to our reserves. So not anyone can offer himself as candidate to be President. See, I set very high standard for a good President to look after our reserves. He must have excellent credentials and experience in managing big money. I think someone in the finance industry like CEO of GIC, Temasek or DBS would qualify. Anything less no good. The President is all about guarding the reserves of the state so I think it is good to limit to finance people, top bankers and top fund managers. The rest no need to apply. Oh, PM and Finance Minister exempted, automatically qualified.
 
As for the politicians, MPs and ministers, they better be qualified or have knowledge on how to run a country. Yes, yes, they must know how to run a Town Council for a start, a prerequisite. But that is elementary. They must know the meaning of running a country and must be qualified or trained in government. Just because a person is a lawyer or doctor or engineer, or a general, does not make him good enough. Running a country means knowing everything, from being in the govt to running clans, trade unions, sports clubs and charity organizations. To be able to do these jobs, to become a ‘knows all’, they must have a degree in govt.
 
NUS and NTU must conduct a degree course on govt and anyone wants to stand for election to be in Parliament must have such a degree. You think running a govt is masak masak and any Tom, Dick and Harry with all kinds of unrelated qualifications and experience can just walk into Parliament and start to run a country. Cannot right? I am the PM so I decide what is best. I may even try out a candidate to catch rats. If cannot catch rats then not good enough. To me, since I am the PM, I regard catching rats very important, more important than running Town Council. Who is there to say I am being difficult?
 
Ok, exceptions. All incumbent MPs and ex MPs can be exempted from this degree course. They got experience mah. The new rule would apply to new politicians to be. As the new PM, I want to raise the bar to make sure only good people with the right experience and qualifications can stand for election.
 
See, I think only good for Singapore. Singapore will be very good, will go on forever and be prosperous forever under my premiership.
 
Agree or not? My conditions good or not?
 
Ok, Ok, I daydreaming only and pretending to be good PM.

A handout budget but something missing

Call it an election budget or whatever you like, it is a handout budget, full of handouts for the people. Everyone is going to collect an angpow somewhere along the line. The biggest and most welcome package would be the Silver Support Scheme. Remisiers would be happy to know that this scheme will be most appreciated as many will join the ranks for this handout. I doubt there would be many criticisms about the money handing out by the Govt other than some minor complaints of people missing out or not getting enough. I would leave the nitty gritty to the social scientists and statisticians to delve into the fine details.
 
I was looking for something else, the future of Singapore. This is what the Govt called this budget, a budget for the future of Singapore. I can see a lot going to education and technical training and some piece meal crumbs for middle management as an after thought that would not result in anything meaningful or substantive. We will be producing a lot of quality technicians and foot soldiers and also an appeased middle management.
 
The issue of PMEs is left blank. Nothing mentioned and very likely many will continue to join this rank and be beneficiaries of the Silver Support Scheme when they join the Silver Brigade. The other important and critical structuring that was left untouched or unsaid is top management. The technical schemes and support given to students would result in a lot of good technicians, a lot of little Indians.
 
What about the Indian Chiefs? Would Singaporeans be good enough only to be little Indians and the Indian Chiefs would still come from non Singaporeans, the so called foreign talents? Is our top world class education system and tertiary institutions real or just hogwash? Why is it that our graduates from these world class universities not making it to the top but being replaced by wild oats from God knows where and definitely not world class universities except those from the North? Do we believe in the quality of our education system, that our graduates should fill the top positions in govt and in the private sector?
 
Apart from the fetish craze that angmohs and foreigners are the best, and the colonial mentality that we are daft remnants or descendants of the British colonial regime, the leftovers, what is wrong with our people that they cannot become Indian Chiefs in their own country while most of these positions have to be filled by foreigners from banking and finance to sports and recreation? Many of these top positions do not require geniuses to do the job and many of the foreigners are not genius either but the average Joe in their country. Why are our top talents found wanting and being discarded?
 
Many years back, the finance industry was filled by our own local talents when there were govt initiatives and policies to ensure that. What is missing today? If we could do it then, we must be able to do better with our world class universities and top grade students. Where is the political will and decision to ensure that our own talents become the Indian Chiefs and not some unknown wild oats given a pink IC or not necessary even?
 
The budget did not mention anything about creating more true blue Indian Chiefs. The policy of bringing in more foreign Indian Chiefs and allowing govt and private sectors to fill the Indian Chief positions as they like is unchanged. The restructuring has left this out completely. Would the future Singapore be controlled and run by foreign Indian Chiefs with Singaporeans providing the little Indians and running around like little Indians and be happy with the situation as long as there are cheap handouts from the Govt?
 
Maybe the Govt would be addressing this restructuring to allow more Singaporeans to rise to the top in a separate White Paper. Do you really need the angmohs to run the parks and the zoos and the aquariums? Do we continuously have to rely on foreigners to train our sportsmen at international level? When are we going to produce our own top coaches? Is there something missing in the budget? What is the missing link?

Mysingaporenews Collection – A book launch by crowdfunding

I have received several suggestions and requests to compile my writings into a book form for easy reading and reference. Depending on the interest, I would want to gauge your support for a Collection of Redbean’s political satires and tongue in cheek commentaries on the social and political affairs of Sin City. A selection of the inconvenient truths, often provocative and contemptuous or shocking ridicules, real or unreal, believeable or unbelieveable posted in mysingaporenews would be made available in print. The book will have about 100 to 120 essays to laugh and ridicule at the things that were happening to our beloved country and people.
 
The cost of production, postage and kopi should not exceed $15 per copy. Please order your copy/copies by sending your donation to POSB savings account 091-04300-9 follow by an email to redbeansg@yahoo.com indicating how many copies needed and the address to deliver to. As an example, for a donation of $50 you can have 3 copies of the book to be delivered to you with the balance as donation for kopi. You can donate more if you like what I wrote. Oh, for deliveries outside Singapore, please add another $5. I did not check but think this would be enough for foreign addresses.
 
The title of the book is:
 
Mysingaporenews
A Collection of Redbean’s tongue in cheek commentaries and satires on Sin City
 
This is Redbean’s crowdfunding project for a book. In case there is insufficient support to cover the production cost the project will be aborted and the donations return to their owners. The book could be ready in July, 3 months after the fundraising project closed in March. Thank you for your support.
 
Redbean

World class education opportunities up North

Malaysia’s tertiary education is world class according to the Second Education Minister Idris Jusoh. Malaysian universities are as good as those in UK, Australia and Germany in terms of quality. To back up his claim, he quoted the large number of foreign students coming to Malaysia for their tertiary education, conducted in English of course. So the quality must be good to attract foreign students to Malaysia.
 
The presence of foreign students is again quoted as a major factor for quality education ie world class. On this aspect, Malaysian universities would never be better than Singapore’s because the number of foreign students in the student population is much higher. Not only that, the lecturers and professors are mainly foreigners, or a large percentage, could be more than 50% in some faculties.
 
Malaysia needs to work harder to better its ranking if it wants to be better than Singapore by importing more foreign students and lecturers. They could also follow Singapore by giving no string attached scholarships to foreign students and pay the foreign lecturers salaries that they cannot refused. Singapore got a lot of money to spend on these foreign students and lecturers, so can Malaysia. Just throw more monies to the foreign lecturers and students and the ranking of Malaysian universities will definitely go up, like those in Singapore. And when there are more foreigners, the quality also goes up.
 
Singaporean students must now be eyeing a place in Malaysian universities. Malaysia just need to spend a bit more money to raise its ranking and Singaporean students would surely make a beeline to the high quality world class university education in Malaysia. And with the exchange rate so favourable, it would be an option that Singapore parents find very attractive. And Malaysia could also earn a lot of foreign exchange, increase its percentage of foreign students with Singaporean students, and thus improve the quality of education further. It would be a virtuous circus. Oops, I mean virtuous circle.
 
Malaysia would be happy and Singaporean students would also be happy. More foreign students and foreign lecturers equal to higher quality of education. It is a simple formula and so easy to achieve.

What is the role of a MP?

The role of an MP is about law making, about national issues and policies, about running the country, about serving the people. It is definitely not about running a Town Council. A Town Council, or whatever you choose to call it, must be a public service not different from other govt services. The people did not vote an MP to run Town Councils and be involved in the nitty gritty details that he has no time for more important matters like attending in Parliament. An MP can head a Town Council, to give it direction, to make sure it run well to serve the people. But the operations of the Town Council must be managed by a team of professionals, not a mix match team to be brought together after an election without continuity.

The MP can be there to ensure that the Town Council serves the people fairly and equally. He should be out of the administrative role, to take the Town Council to task if it does not serve the people and not be taken to task as an administrator of the Town Council. It would be very tough it the MP, a politician, may he be a lawyer, a doctor, a vet, a singer, a soldier, or whatever, be made to run a Town Council as his primary duty.

An MP’s primary duty is in the Parliament. If he cannot be in Parliament, he should not be a Member of Parliament. If he is absent from Parliament most of the time, if he his bogged down by the routine of running a Town Council, how can he serve effectively as a Member of Parliament? You don’t call an MP a Town Council Chairman or Manager, but a Member of Parliament. The people did not go to the polling station to elect a Town Council Manager. They went to the polls to elect their representatives to the Parliament.

The PAP has a different view on this. They want an MP to be first a Town Council Manager, to be able to run a Town Council, as a test to eventually run the country. I quote Boon Wan, ‘…the Town Councils Act has a wider strategic objective of testing parties aspiring to form the national government, by running a town council to first prove their competency.’ This is like telling everyone that he needs to get a degree as a test of his ability to be successful in life or to run the country as a national leader. Is this a logical argument and expectation?

WP said they are not going to form the govt. So can they be excuse from running a Town Council when there is no aspiration to be the govt? So are many independent candidates that would not even dream of running a govt as an individual. Chiam See Tong has wasted more than 20 years of his time running Town Council, an impediment that prevented him from devoting fully to law making when he cannot dream of forming the govt.

What is the primary duty of an MP? Running his clinic, running his law firm, running his business, be directors here and there, running Town Councils and neglecting his duties in Parliament or no time even to attend Parliament that sat for a few days a few times in a year?

What is happening? Running Town Council as a pre requisite to be an MP necessary? I can’t help it when my head keeps shaking. National leaders are not necessary the kind of people that are good at running town councils, running sports associations, running clan associations or trade unions, definitely not necessary to be a successful lawyer or doctor. National leaders are people that have a passion to want to serve the people, to give the people a better life, people with a vision and a political will to make the ministries work towards that goal. What they need is a clear vision, to see the bigger picture of country and people, not about running town councils or squabbling over petty issues. They should be looking at national issues, at problems that involved hundreds of millions or billions, not a few dollars. They must have the helicopter ability, the bird’s eye view of things and not be bogged down by the daily grind of administrative procedures of a town council. The heart must be in the right place, and a really big and good heart with a passion to serve the people.

What do you think? Should an MP be turned into an administrator instead of a law maker, instead of a Member of Parliament? If he is so busy with Town Council matters, with his own business, where got time to be in Parliament to tackle national issues and law making? It is a joke that after paying the MPs such a big sum of money they could not find time to attend Parliament sessions.

A politician/MP's role should be as a check and balance on the govt and all the govt agencies. A politician/MP should not be put in a position to be checkmate in an administrative role.