Kwan Yin made a vow

Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, made a vow that she would not ascend to buddhahood as long as there are people to be saved from this earth. She is more than qualified to be a buddha eons ago, but she would remain only a bodhisattva, and looks like this is going to be forever.

We have a govt that we elected to look after the interests of citizens. Shall the citizens hold the govt responsible for as long as there are Singaporeans that are jobless, that want to be decently employed but unable to do so, ended up as underemployed, as contract or part time workers, or forced to retire prematurely?

And while Singaporeans are caught in these difficult situations, there are hundreds of thousands of foreigners working here in good jobs that the Singaporeans would love to do. Why is this happening and should this be the case?

Should there be a priority for Singaporeans to be the preferred candidates, to be given the first right of refusal when all things being equal? Entitlement mentality? This country belongs to the Singaporeans, not to the foreigners! Maybe I am wrong, this country belongs to the foreigners except the Singaporeans.

Should the govt be held accountable and responsible to ensure all Singaporeans are decently employed befitting their qualifications and experience? Why are hundreds of thousands of foreigners be happily employed while Singaporeans are not and many driven to depression and even suicide?

Is the popularly elected govt responsible to ensure Singaporeans are decently and suitably employed? Are Singaporeans citizens of a country or nobody’s children?

Oh, the Govt is working very hard for the Singaporeans, so that the PMETs can be trained to downgrade and become service staff. But if they want to be more independent and be their own bosses, they can become taxi drivers. And they have set up a new institution by the NTUC called e2i to train Singaporeans to compete in the world since they are not competitive in Singapore. 

Singaporeans are so lucky. Go overseas, quick, the world is your oyster. Forget about your home Singapore, they are for the talented foreigners, the playground of the rich and the nobles and aristocrats.

The train bully deserves a public service medal

Oops, I should not use the word bully otherwise I will be offending his followers and patrons. The Caucasian man who stood up to tell the local young man who wore a T shirt with offensive words deserved to be commended and recommended for a National Day Award. He is behaving like a civic conscious, high moral, and public spirited citizen vigilante. He saw something unpleasant and offensive in the train that should not be there. So he told off the young man for his rudeness and wearing his expletives. Such acts of honour and heroics cannot be missed and not rewarded? We need more of such brave men of exemplary conduct to walk the streets to put the rude boys in the right place.

In this paradise city state, like all paradise, there must be an unusually high code of conduct and decency, at least in public places, like the trains and buses and the internet. No one is allowed to say horrible things to offend the angels and immortals. The state just dealt harshly with a young boy for posting offensive words in the net. The message is very clear. No nonsense and no unbecoming conduct or behaviour is accepted in paradise.

The bully, oops, the civic conscious Caucasian was just reading the message and understood the high level of decency and conduct expected of everyone in paradise. And he must be thinking that he was doing the right and proper thing, in line with the policies and regime of paradise. Probably he must be telling himself, as a good person, I am not sure if he is a citizen, he just must help to make things right for the privilege of being invited into paradise to enjoy the wholesome goodness of this city state. He probably goes to church twice a day.

I think, looking at it from this perspective, the person who interrupted him and not allowing him to do the right thing, to teach the young man with his horrible T shirt a lesson, was doing a disservice to the public. The rude young man must be taught a lesson like stripped of his horrible T shirt, smacked in public, (how about caning?) for conduct that are not acceptable in paradise and then thrown out of the train by the big Caucasian. It would be like something you see in Hollywood movie, and the people clapped joyously to acknowledge the gallantry of the brave Caucasian.

And the concluding chapter would be the folks of paradise all invited to a big celebration to witness the award of a medal to the hero, and a public dressing for the man that attempted to stop the hero from doing what was expected in paradise.

Amen.

What do you think? My script acceptable or not? Can turn it into a short movie for Channel 5 or Channel 8, still in time for SG50. This incident really tells how badly we need foreign talents to help and save us from debauchery and decadence.

AIIB – Positive results without doing anything

Many are still quibbling and trying very hard to smear the AIIB with all the fear mongering before it starts to operate. The critics are behaving worse than being sour grapes. Fear this fear that, this bad that bad to frighten everyone trying to join the grouping. How can something be bad when it has not done anything or decided on how it is going to function and the rules that it will play with? The same thing about China, everything is bad, but did China commit any of the crimes so fear and talked about? The real fear is that AIIB will undermine their domination and control of the world and give the poorer country an alternative source of fund to access for their needs. The fearmongers know that their power over the rest of the world is weakening. That is the real threat.

What has AIIB done so far? Nothing. All the fears are pure negative imaginations and fabrications. But before the AIIB starts operating, it has already caused a lot of positive and tangible benefits to Asian countries. The IMF, World Bank and ADB cannot behave as they used to be, acting like warlords and bullying countries to toe their lines or else. AIIB is now a credible competitor and alternative for those countries needing financing to go to. Yes there is an alternative and with competitive terms. No more arm twisting to yield to demands.

The most tangible result is that Japan is offering more financing to compete with the AIIB. It is offering more financial assistance by topping up another US$500b to the ADB and throwing more carrots to countries on a bilateral basis. The IMF and World Bank too would have to act and be more generous to the applicant countries for assistance. Trying to play hard ball is no longer acceptable. The needy countries would say keep your money, we will go to AIIB.

The third positive development is that Asian countries would be less dependent on the American and Japanese controlled financial institutions for aid. It would give them a lot more freedom to act without having to please these warlords. There must be a greater sense of relief among Asian countries and they could push the IMF, World Bank and ADB to offer better terms than AIIB if they want to remain in the game. No more blackmail and ransom and to swallow bitter pills like during the Asian financial crisis.

How’s that for the achievements of the new kid on the block, and it has not even started its business. When it starts to dole out its funds, and with promise of more funds, the playing field will not be the same again. And there is also a twin brother in the BRICS Bank to offer similar loans to challenge the domination of the IMF and World Bank.

AHPETC a big case of incompetence?

Everyone reading the media would come to one conclusion, ie, the biggest case of public service incompetence must be the AHPETC. You hear the ministers talking about it practically everyday. You read in the media just as often until ‘jer lat’.

Are there other cases of public service that are more serious than the AHPETC?  Just think about it. I say just think about it, not to talk about it. Think of anything? Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I left this article at this point yesterday not very sure how to proceed from here.

This morning, 16 Jul, I was greeted by two articles from the Auditor General’s Office on lapses in the NLB and the Admiralty CCC. In the above paragraph I said I chose not to know, but with these cases in the front pages of the media, even I closed my eyes, I cannot refuse not to see them. It is now common and public knowledge.

Now my problem is how to comment on these lapses? Shall I put them side by side with the AHPETC case and show the similarities? Better not. With the GE around the corner, it is better to change tack and read it from the right perspective. Issues like these would become election issues and the opposition parties would definitely compare them and their severity with the AHPETC case. Comments already flooded a thread on the topic in TRE.

What were the cases about? The facts first. In the NLB’s case it was the procurement of a $7.3 million e-resource system from a vendor and apparently without looking at other alternatives or no tendering or something like that. The exact words,  “ ‘without any evidence’ of having considered other alternative materials that were similar”.  In the case of the Admiralty CCC it was about the Chairman approving seven of his own claims amounting to $114,767 and the approving and award of two contracts amounting to $32,000 when he held a senior position in the company. No one can miss the similarities in these instances to those of AHPETC. Conflict of interest anyone? How serious compares to husband approving wife’s application for payment?

I will look at these cases as lapses in procedures and how to rectify them. They happened, let’s move on. Oh, based on the AGO’s recommendation the Ministry of Communications and Information had made a police report on this case. Before anyone started to use strong words, it is important to understand that some of these agencies and people are new to these things and have to start from scratch. With their inexperience, they are likely to be lapses in procedures but with no intention to cheat or foul play. They would not understand the meaning of conflict of interest. How to expect people from the villages of a 3^rd World to understand such concepts of impropriety?  Being too harsh on newbies is not very kind and a bit unfair.

In the case of the NLB and Admiralty CCC, are these new institutions? Would they have precedents and existing practices and procedures to work on?  Would they have paid expertise like govt officials and procedures to guide them? These are important factors to determine whether their actions are mischievous or innocent and due to ignorance. I think NLB is a new organization. The old NLB is history, so they have to start things all over, to reinvent the wheel on operating procedures.

Another angle to look at is that being a 3^rd World country and without foreign talent, such lapses are bound to occur. We just don’t have the expertise and the experience about such things. It may be good to hire 3^rd World experts with the experience to show our ‘going to be’ 3^rd World no skill and no talent people how to run public organizations and how to develop proper procedures on checks and controls. This thing about approving own claims or approving jobs or contracts with connected parties are things that are new to a new 3^rd World country like ours, only 50 years in existence. We should learn from older countries and govts that have all these procedures worked out and in place. They are very experienced in such matters when such things are part of their culture.

I would suggest we hire more 3^rd World talents to help us iron out all the administrative loose ends and lapses. Alternatively we can send our people to 3^rd World countries to learn from their best practices. I think these should work. Are we a young country? Oops, we are not even a country, a city, going from first World to 3^rd World and these lapses should be considered normal, our new normal.

We should thus be more forgiving and not to act as if the sky has fallen down and go for the kill. It is so embarrassing and so unbecoming to jump up and down like little brats accusing inexperienced people for such lapses.

What do you think?

Sino Indian relations – A breakthrough

Heard over the news last evening that there is a major breakthrough in Sino Indian relations, at least in the economic front. The pro business and pro development PM Modi has given the green light for China’s largest mobile phone maker to open a factory in India. This has never been allowed before, not even to western countries. It sure spells good news for more cooperation between the two Asian giants.

The only catch that is holding back this development is the condition that all the top management staff must be Indians. This sounds very reasonable to a very nationalistic Indian govt. What it entails is that the whole manufacturing company would be operated and run by the Indians with the Chinese footing the bills and providing the technology and know how. Would the Chinese agree to it? Putting money in India and losing all control over their money and investment? Would there be stupid countries to allow such an arrangement to take place?

As a Singaporean, I find this strange. We have no problems with MNCs setting up business and employing whoever they want. We do not insist that they must employ Singaporeans, at least not a condition for them to be here, at top management level. We only hope that they will employ more Singaporeans and in some professions, they may be a certain quota to ensure that some Singaporeans are employed. But we definitely did not demand that the top management of foreign companies must be Singaporeans. How can we do that when we don’t have the talent to offer them, when our top talents are misfits?

In fact many foreign companies are free to hire as many foreigners as they want at top management level. Even local companies are doing the same. Even govt ministries and GLCs are doing so. But we got no choice, we got no talents. We need the foreign talents or else we will end up in the 3^rd World, no growth, no progress and our people will suffer.

How nice if we are like India, with so many talents to offer and can insist that foreign companies operating here must employ Singaporeans in top management. But that is too much to expect. We don’t even have enough Singaporeans to fill the top management positions in GLCs and the ministries. We need more, we need to sign more free trade agreements to ensure that more foreign talents are here to replace the no talent Singaporeans.

When will we have the local talents for our own needs in top management? Oh, the govt has started to plan for this eventuality. Maybe we will be there when our population hits 10m.