Auditor General Office Reports – A very uncomfortable week

The AGO’s report submitted to the President last week was the most unpleasant thing to happen and so near the GE. Fortunately, a miracle really, that there was no wrongdoings except for some discomfort and explanations to do. And after the explanations things will be normal again, unlike the AHPETC saga. The revelations by the AGO reports were nothing serious unlike the AHPETC that was all about incompetence.  In the AHPETC’s case, also very ‘heng’, no wrong doings. Please disagree with me if you have to.

The AGO report was most unfortunate in the sense that many distinguished grassroot leaders, some like to spell it as grassloot in TRE, were found wanting with lapses like conflict of interests that were not declared. It was unfortunate as these people are definitely honourable people, and mostly very rich and would not have been involved in any wrongdoings. Rich people are less likely to play foul as they have a lot of money and dignity. They are selfless volunteers committing time and money to serve the society. Many have been awarded PBMs or BBMs to reward them for public service and service to the people and also statement of their honesty and integrity.

And many of these are likely to be of noble birth or from the aristocracy and it is so unfortunate that while serving the people, some times lapses are simply innocent lapses, they are now seen in a bad light. They would be cursing themselves for volunteering their services and ended in such uncomfortable position through no fault of theirs. I think many would have second thoughts about serving in the grassroot organisations.

One commentator in the TRE has this to say and I quote,

Ang Saw Huat:

July 17, 2015 at 5:46 pm  (Quote)

“Mr de Souza said one important consideration is that the changes must not be so onerous on grassroots leaders that these volunteers no longer want to serve the community.”

What he say is right! Grassroot volunteers work for free, no salary, if you make their work hard, they will not come volunteer anymore! There is only one free lunch left in singapore : grassroots volunteer service!

I must fully agree with this Ang Saw Huat and de Souza. The govt must not make it hard on these distinguished and honourable people or they would not volunteer their services again, for free some more. The govt must give them some ropes, some laxes, so that they can continue to do what they are doing, I mean to serve the people, without getting anything in return. These are only isolated cases, not widespread, no mischief intended.  After so many years, this is the first time it has happened. Now with this AGO report, many of these grassroot would not want to serve in the grassroot organisations any more. So sad to see these good and trustworthy men and women leaving.

What should be done to keep them serving the grassroot organisations? Ang Saw Huat and De Souza’s suggestion of not making things too onerous is worth considering. You want not self serving and honourable men and women to work for free, how can? And still want to make things tough for them? There is a saying, close one eye, open one eye is the best. Everyone happy happy.

What do you think, close one eye, open one eye good or not? Can work or not? How about going with the flow? Can pakai or not?

China – The critics and cynics are laughing themselves silly

China’s stock exchange lost trillions over a few weeks. There must be blood on the streets. The exports are falling, and there are tens or hundreds of ghost cities with hundreds of millions of unsold units. Believe these numbers to tickle yourself silly and make yourself happy for whatever your interest lies. And the economy is growing at the lowest level at 7%, no more double digit growth. China is at the brink of collapse. And they laughed themselves silly. Many economies and stock markets would have collapsed with such losses in a few weeks.

Sure, many of the greedy and ignorant gamblers would have lost heavy and some lost their life savings and fortunes. The big corporations with share prices plunging must have lost billions each. But as long as the prices are still higher than before the bull run, what they lost were merely paper losses. In fact many did not lose anything except the profit numbers from making billions to making millions. As for individuals, a good example is an actress whose profit was up more than 1b renminbi. Now she is crying as the profit is down to only a few hundred millions.

The ghost cities, how many and the number of units built and empty are subjects of great speculations. There are ghost cities, but how many, no one knows. Singapore used to have 40,000 units of HDB flats unsold. Big problem according to a minister and they quickly sold them by bringing in foreigners to boost the demand.  The Chinese economy is agriculture based and there are a lot of farmers and peasants. The transformation to a manufacturing economy, with people migrating to live in cities, would see hundreds of millions of people relocating and demanding new housing. If these ghost cities are unsold, it is a matter of time for the developers to go broke. When the prices fall, the farmers and peasants would be there waiting to pick up for a song. Some big developers and corrupt officials would have to jump down from these high rise buildings they built or ended in jail. The economic law of supply and demand would kick in.

It is no mean feat to build hundreds of thousands of units of flats. And some are claiming hundreds of millions. No need to quarrel over the numbers. There are many countries that don’t even have the money to build 100 units of flats. For the developers to build hundreds of thousands or millions of flats, unsold, is no mean feat. At least they have the capacity to build them and pay for the construction cost and material.

While Singapore thought it a great achievement to build flats to wait for applicants to occupy them, the scale and philosophy of building in China is quite different. They build industrial estates after industrial estates and wait for them to be occupied. Who would have the last laugh?

30 years ago, China was a very poor country, no money, no skills, no technology, no trained manpower, no big new cities, no ghost cities, no industrial parks, no bullet trains, no big international banks, no savings, practically no everything. Every country in Asean and across the world is richer than China.

Today, China has several international banks that ranked the biggest in capitalisation in the world. It is the biggest buyer of American T bills and the biggest creditor to America. It has hundreds of new cities bigger than New York and San Francisco. It is producing 3 million engineers and scientists every year. It has industrial parks in every city and starting to export industrial parks overseas. It is the biggest factory to the world. It is the biggest trade partners to more than 20 big countries in the world. It produces not only bullet trains, but anything under the sky, you name it, China produces it.

The depth and breath of China’s economy and society with many sectors untapped, will allow China to grow for another century. What is very basic and important is that the Chinese economy is growing more than it is consuming, a net surplus. What is so bad about 7% economic growth? How many countries can manage a 3% growth?

What is the meaning of a 7% growth in China with a US$10 trillion economy? It means in 10 years, the economy will double to US$20 trillion. Just a comparison, the Indian economy is US$2 trillion. In every 10 years, the Chinese economy, if it maintains a growth rate of 7% would have created 5 Indian economies at today’s size. How is that to fit for size?

China has a lot of problems. How many countries have no problems? What happens to those countries that have no problems and were richer than China 30 years ago? They are still the same, practically unchanged, while China has outgrown them to become the world’s biggest economy in purchasing power.

To put it in a very simplified way, let me narrate a mundane story to relate to the Chinese phenomenon. I have a friend. He brought his very sick uncle from Malaysia for treatment in Mount Elizabeth Hospital. The name of the hospital tells you what it means on your pocket. His uncle was suffering from stage 4 cancer and was given less than a couple of months to live. But he still insisted to put him in Mount Elizabeth.

Some of his colleagues were wondering why he bothered to spend so much money in Mount Elizabeth when the case was as good as gone. His answer was that he could afford it. Money was not important, and if he could give his uncle his best, with a little hope of recovery, he had no problem spending his money which he has plenty.

China is in such a position, with a lot of money, a lot of talents and skills and producing a lot of products for the whole world. It can afford to lose some, as long as it does not squander everything away.  And the Chinese leaders are no fools but men of talent and conviction and dedication. They would stumble now and then, met with big crisis and challenges. They would overcome. The wealth and depth of talents and economy would keep China going stronger and stronger. This is not a poverty stricken China with nothing, no money, no talent, no skills, no industry and no big guns to protect its own interests.

You think China came back from bankruptcy to what it is today by fluke, like the founding of America by Columbus?  Do you think that to run a country so diverse as China, with 1.4b people, to turn it around from poverty to be a contender for world supremacy as a rich and powerful country can be done by foolish leaders? The whole of China is like a drawing board, planned meticulously by the planners and strategists, from super highways, super cities, high quality universities, a complex of think tanks in defence and international policies, in national developments, science and technology, in social and economic policies, etc etc. You think they are just planning to build two casinos or a few airport terminals and a few new towns or a new MRT line? You think you put a dud as a President like the US and nothing will go wrong?

The critics, cynics and doomsayers can continue with their erotic dreams of a China in dismay, to be a broken, poor and weak country once more, to be bullied and oppressed by foreigners. They said the one who laughs last laughs best.

While they are praying daily to their Gods for China to collapse, China just powers on to become richer and more powerful by the days. Keep praying for your Gods to answer your call for damnation of China.

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.