Rail Academy to train more rail engineers

Former NTU president Cham Tao Soon has been appointed to assist in the setting up of a Rail Academy to train rail engineers. He said we have lost time and needed to catch up to train rail engineers and develop a workforce for the industry. This new approach of planting our own timber instead of hiring ready made talents from other countries would also serve the goal of building a Singaporean core in the industry.

The SGX also set up a SGX Academy to train better remisiers and specialists for the stock broking industry. Hopefully after all the training the remisiers will be earning more than the cleaners. It would be funny if remisiers have to attend so many courses and training and acquiring so many certificates and qualifications to become specialists and earning just as much as a cleaner. The effort would be a big waste of time and resources, might as well enjoy the more easy and carefree life of a cleaner, no need to attend courses and worrying about the punitive fines for making trading mistakes or violating trading rules and regulations. Anyway it is always good to go for training when one has nothing better to do.  Oh today they call this upskilling. Maybe remisiers should be encouraged to upskill, to multi task and multi skill and acquire a taxi driving licence as well.

With this great interest in training as if training is the solution to all our problems, it is strange that the banking and finance industry is still not moving to set up a banking and finance academy to train bankers and finance specialists. Isn’t Singapore experiencing a dearth of good bankers and shouldn’t the banking industry exercise some initiative, be pro active and join the academy bandwagon? At least it cannot be accused of not doing anything after being found sleeping for the last 3 decades. Or the industry is still thinking of hiring the best foreign talents regardless of nationalities?

Oh, Yaacob should think of setting up an IT or Infocomm Academy with the big budget at his disposal. Academy trained graduates would sound so much better. It just sounds right. At the very least their certificates would be more useful than the degrees that cannot be eaten.  They should convert all the universities to academies that are producing graduates with the relevant and not irrelevant skill sets.

Articles on LKY in social media

Many articles on the commemoration of LKY were posted in the social media and their contents were mostly negative. These articles would not have appeared and the fond memories and dignified final journey would have been etched deeply in the minds of the Singaporeans forever. The appearance of these articles is starting to cast doubt and prompted people to question the contributions of LKY as a pioneering leader of Singapore. Like it or not, the debate would definitely create distortions in the minds of some and make some converts to rethink in their beliefs.

The articles appearing in the TRE, ‘Lee Kuan Yew was only human, should not be revered like God’, ‘Hard truth that PM and sis must obey’, ‘Lee Wei Ling kena Davindered into sllence’, ‘Lee Wei Ling versus Janadas on Facebook’, ‘Lee Wei Ling: The editors in SPH are too timid to disobey’, ‘Why doesn’t Harry’s daughter objected to this?’, ‘Be wary of nimcompoops and sycophants’, ‘Are Dr Lee’s concerns about ‘Pa’ being venerated?’, ‘Ho Ching apologises for ‘rude monkey’ posting’, ‘LKY glorification is not about LKY but about those who try…’, all invited a lot of comments and many from negative to very negative about LKY as the founding PM of the island.

There are many more articles floating around in other sites in the social media, and mostly did not have much good things to say about LKY and with ugly commentaries. All this is so unnecessary, the consequences of the ‘ground up’ exuberance to want to commemorate LKY’s first anniversary in a big way. Like Wei Ling said, the memories, all good, were still vivid in the minds of many Singaporeans, but now so many articles have been written about the event and tarnishing an otherwise fine ending to a long and good journey of a statesman.

What a pity. Doing so much for so little, and some turning out so bad.  In politics, a good feel of the ground is very important.  Never listen to eunuchs.

The bull about PMET unemployment

I have been writing about how difficult it was for PMETs to find reemployment after being laid off. Some took 6 to 8 months, some years, some gave up completely. And I have many sad stories to tell from the number of people in Gilbert Goh’s transitioning.org blog and their testimonies. These people could not be lying as there were real people. And I too have heard and met people that were unemployed or underemployed or simply resigned to retirement.


In the main media on 21 Apr, the MOM came out with a slush of statistics as proof that PMETs were the hardest hit in being laid off last year, all 15,580 of them. And they all have great difficulties finding new employment. The average time, in months for those retrenched or laid off to be reemployed was 2.21 months. The younger and less qualified workers could find new employments slightly faster, averaging less than 2 months. The older PMETs, above 50 and with tertiary qualifications found it more difficult, averaged slightly more than 2 months or about 2.3 months to be reemployed.


So sad, so pathetic.  Really? Let’s see, it would take a couple of weeks for anyone laid off worker to look for a new job, to send out resumes, a couple of weeks to get a reply and a couple of weeks for interviews. These processes would work out to about 2 to 3 months. And if these PMETs could find jobs in less than 3 months, averaging less than 2.5 months, what is the problem? Isn’t this as good as the perfect normal for people changing jobs?


Now, what is this great bull about PMETs finding it difficult to find reemployment? To get reemployed in less than 2.5 months is about the best one can ever get. No problem at all. Absolutely no problem.


What was this nonsense that there were PMETs taking more than 6 months or more than a year to find a job? What was this nonsense that some took several years and some gave up and retired because they could not find a job any more? Got such things or not? Real or not!


I think all these unemployment craps are hoaxes, not true. How can people say it is difficult to find another job when they could be reemployed in less than 2.5 months? What a load of rubbish Someone is lying and telling cock and bull stories. It is a very happy situation as far as I am concern if our PMETs can find reemployment in less than 2.5 months. Tiok boh?  It cannot be any better.


Something amissed? What is missing? To me there is no problem at all. It is too easy to find reemployment here if one only needs to take 2.5 months to do so. Now, where are those PMETs or young graduates that have to write a few hundred resumes and did not get any reply? Cannot be right? These people must be lying. It is very easy to get a job, the most 2.5 months according to MOM. Of course you can say you don’t believe what I am saying. But please don’t say you don’t believe MOM. And statistics don’t lie. And statistics from MOM lagi don’t lie.


There is no unemployment problem for PMETs in Singapore. Period. Getting another job in less than 3 months is like a piece of cake. You cannot ask for more.

Najib should ask ex PM Abbot, where is the MH370 wreckage

Two years have passed and there is no sign or clue on the where about of the MH370 wreckage despite spending hundreds of millions, manpower and resources in the remote corner of the Antarctic Ocean.  The most stupid thing men in leadership position could have done or conned into doing. The picture is now absolutely clear. The whole search exercise in the Antarctic Ocean was a hoax, a big wicked scheme to mislead the search parties to the wrong corner of the world and not meant to find the wreck of the MH370.

The Immarsat ping, and PM Abbot’s frantic and confident call to Najib to tell him he knew where the plane had crashed became more suspicious today and could be the only lead to the real cause of the disappearance of the MH370.  The party involved in this mysterious incident was behind the Immarsat ping and behind Abbot’s Freudian slip. Both were planted to give some fake clues to set the ball rolling into one of the most expensive and massive evil scheme in human history.

It is time to find out who is behind the Immarsat ping story and who told Abbot to tell Najib he knew where the crash site was. How did Immarsat got this ping story, planted by who? Who spoke to Abbot to tell his wicked story to Najib? Abbot could not wake up from his sleep and knew where the crash site was. Someone told him, fed him with the information and he was so happy to act as the messenger boy. Who is the source of his information?

Najib, it is time to ask your ‘good friend’ Abbot where he got his information from. Ask him to simply disclose his sources. The information for sure did not come from a kangaroo or a koala bear. Abbot is the link to the truth of the MH370 disappearance. Abbot holds the clue. Speak to him before he is silenced for good.

Also, don’t forget the Immarsat angle. They too hold the clue to the mischief creator. Who planted all the false information to deceive? Who had the reason to want to mislead and lead the search party to a god forsaken part of the Antarctic Ocean in a wild goose chase?

This case must not be laid to rest. The evil men and women must be brought to justice.

SMRT – 40 recommendations to make rail network more resilient

I read this report in the media saying 40 recommendations were made by 13 experts, four of whom were foreign experts, to improve the fault prone SMRT system. This must be expected and nothing surprising. I am not too concern about the cost unless the total amount of recommendations would be equivalent to replacing everything with a brand new system. That would be much cheaper and at least last for a few good years, and brand new some more.

The 40 recommendations mean that either the system has 40 problem areas or 40 areas that were not up to specs and thus needed to be pumped up or replaced. No wonder we have so many problems in the last few years, so many areas that needed improvement. So lucky we have these experts to look into it and could rectify these 40 problematic or potentially problematic areas.

What I am trying to find out from the recommendations by the expert is a simple answer. What is the cause or causes for the recent spate of breakdowns? My thinking is very simple. If one does not know the problem, how could one solve the problem? The 40 recommendations could be totally unrelated to the cause of the problem or maybe barely related. I still think it is important to diagnose the main cause or causes of the breakdowns if a lasting solution is to be found.

If not, the money spent may be money spent for nothing, would not help in a big way to the breakdowns. Let me give a simple example on what I am trying to drive at. A patient is in the intensive watch, dying. A team of experts went in but could not find the reason for his illness. After several weeks of diagnosis they came up with a list of recommendations. The heart specialists recommended inserting 3 stents to improve his blood flow and pressure. The kidney specialist recommended changing one kidney, the blood specialist wanted a complete blood transfusion, the knee specialist wanted to replace his knee caps, the spinal cord specialist wanted to insert a few steel discs to straighten his backbone and posture….and many other good recommendations. The critically ill patient would have practically a new body with many new parts. But the main cause or causes of his illness is still unknown.

After all the major operations, the patient remains in the intensive care unit, still in the same state of comatose.  Good intention, a lot of money spent, all for nothing. This is what I am concern about.

What do you think?