Fandi is finally easing into the national coach position

There seems to be an awakening that finally, after going around the world in circus for the last few decades, that we finally realised that we need to have trust and faith in our own talent. Or is it that after wasting so much public fund on foreign talents, the standard of our football did not improve but gone into the gutters to jolt some senses into our stupidity has no cure mind? We are now not  even able to compete with our Asean football teams and always kena whacked when they met. The delusion of being in the finals of the World Cup is becoming a reality. No amount of money thrown away could get us anywhere near that goal. It is not just money. Yes it is stupidity, the lack of pride and confidence in our people, shown everywhere, that angmoh or foreigner tua kee is the way to go.

The recent Asian Games in Jakarta is an eye opener, seeing so many of the Asian teams doing so well with their own local, oops, I mean citizens as their national coaches. They do not need to be coached by foreigners to do well. They don’t have the angmoh tua kee mentality, that only angmohs can help and do wonders. So finally they have come back to Fandi to save the day.

Other than this craziness for angmoh tua kee, what else have they found out that is wrong in our football? It is not so simple as not hiring angmoh coaches as there are more problems than meet the eyes.

Fandi and other Singaporean coaches have been exposed to foreign coaching, their strategies, techniques and trade secrets for many years. Unless they are so daft, which is not the case, they must have learnt and knew enough to coach the national team like the other Asean coaches of their respective national teams to success.

Leaving Fandi alone to carry the can is unfair to him. The whole football culture and organization have to change and Fandi needs all the support to turn a bad case around. He must fire all the prima donnas who thought they have arrived just because they are in the national team. He also needs time to do his job, not another few months or maybe a few years to do wonders. Remember, so many angmoh tua kee coaches, so many years and so much money wasted and we are not getting anywhere but from bad to worse.  Maybe we need to drain the swamp before there is light at the end of the tunnel. Do not expect Fandi to turn the average players into international soccer stars and the national team into a champion over night.

Ministers and MPs were paid 4 months bonus? Or was it 10 months or more?

According to media reports, Hsien Loong made his reply to questions by Leon Perera ‘who had asked about bonus paid to Cabinet ministers in the last five years in terms of the average total of bonus months, and the highest and lowest total of bonus months paid to an individual minister.’ What was Leon Perera asking? What bonus was he talking about? The term he used is so general. Did he know that there are many kinds of bonuses being paid to the Cabinet ministers eg performance bonus, monthly salary bonus, 13^th month bonus, national bonus and a variable component as reported in thenewpaper?  So there are at least 5 specific bonuses paid to the Cabinet ministers.

What was Leon Perera asking, all the bonuses paid to the Cabinet ministers or just the performance bonus? I think he is asking for all the bonuses that were paid to the Cabinet ministers, not just the performance bonus.

Hsien Loong’s reply in Parliament was about performance bonus and he said that in the last 5 years ministers got between 3 to 6 months of performance bonus with the average being 4.1 months and a high of 4.5 months in 2015. All the main media that reported on this issue printed in big and bold headlines that the ministers were paid an average of 4.1 months of bonuses and were silent on how many more months of bonuses they were paid in total.

It is thus easy for the public or readers of this news to go away thinking that the ministers only got 4.1 months of bonuses. Is this what Leon Perera wanted to know or he was asking for the total bonuses paid to the ministers, including all kinds of bonuses? If that was his question, why did he not ask Hsien Loong that he wanted to know not just the performance bonus? Maybe he did raise this but not reported in the main media and the issue was closed. No further question.

Roy Ngerng in his article posted in the TRE, including his computation of all the bonuses gave a different figure.  In 2014 Roy posted this in his blog thehearttruths.com, ‘But do you know that the prime minister is able to earn up to 26.5 months of pay?

This is what he gets to earn: 12-month pay, 13th month bonus, Up to 1.5 months Annual Variable Component, Up to 12 months national bonus.’

In his latest article posted in the TRE titled ‘Comparing the obscene salaries of our DPM and PM against Singapore’s poor’, Roy posted this:

‘Now, let me calculate the prime minister’s salary for you. He does not get a performance bonus because it is claimed that “there is no one to assess his individual performance”. (Shouldn’t his performance be assessed by you – his boss?)

So, what does he get? He gets 2 times the National Bonus (up to 12 months). Here’s the breakdown. [National Bonus (NB) formula: https://www.psd.gov.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-library/cos2018/annex-b-2017-salary-review-report.pdf]

(1) The base salary of the Singapore prime minister is S$2.2 million.
(2) His 13th-month annual allowance is S$220,000.
(3) Assuming he also gets an annual variable component of 1 month (max 1.5 months), he gets another S$220,000.
(4) The prime minister’s NB is twice as high as the other ministers, so he would have gotten 9 months of NB bonus last year. This would be S$1.65 million. His NB bonus alone is nearly 3 times the salary of the president of the United States.
(5) In total, the prime minister received a total bonus/allowance of at least 10 months.

In total, the Singapore prime minister would have earned at least S$4.29 million. This is nearly 2 times his base salary, and even higher than his base salary of S$3.07 million in 2007.

But this is not even it.

All the ministers also can get an additional Special Variable Payment. There is no stated limit to this payment.’

So, what do you think?

$million Ministers

Recently, Emeritus Senior Minister (ESM) Goh Chok Tong incurred the wrath of many Singaporeans by asserting that “ministers are not paid enough” and that it was “very populist” to demand ministerial pay be slashed. To rub salt into wound, he said he had tried unsuccessfully to get two from the private sector (one earning $5 million and the other earning $10 million a month) to be future ministers, before adding that people who can’t even earn $500,000 a year are not minister material and in fact “very mediocre”.   

Netizens predictably gave him a earful.  Not a few pointed to the new bunch of ministers across the Causeway in PM Mahathir’s Cabinet, who are “all taking less than 20k ringgit a month”. In particular, they cited DAP secretary-general and former Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, who in addition to being a double degree accountant, also has the distinction of being jailed twice for his political convictions (1987 & 1994) in a lengthy political career. Lim told the press that becoming a minister was something beyond his wildest dream, as must be any thoughts of snaring a big fat minister pay. No less inspiring was the example set by DAP MPs Tony Pua and Dr Ong Kian Ming who volunteered their “half-year, no pay” services to the Finance Ministry to help Lim settle in. Pua was an ASEAN scholar with a degree from Keble College, Oxford while Dr Ong was a Fulbright Scholar from Duke University (USA) with a degree in Economics from the London School of Economics.

Netizens said these are the people we need in government - people who are not in it for the money but for the spirit of public service.  They are right.  However, one must also not forget that Malaysia’s situation is vastly different from Singapore’s.  Malaysia is at the crossroads where the new government has the historic opportunity to lift the country from the morass to which it has sunk. The people are enthused and the leaders (and wannabe leaders) fired with a sense of mission to transform the country. They are at the same stage in which Singapore found itself back in 1965. The new dawn that Malaysians seek today is the survival that Singaporeans sought in our immediate independent years. In such ‘revolutionary’ situations, how much you are paid as a leader meant little to you.  

But two or three generations down the road, if Malaysia is successful and prosperous, it may not be so easy even for them to attract people into politics simply because that impetus for action will not be as urgent or great.  This was what happened to Singapore.  With security and survival no longer a pressing issue, the PAP realised that people were content to let the leaders carry on. Hence the PAP’s self-renewal process that focused (some would say over-focused) on remuneration as a key indicator of one’s qualification for high office. Kevin Lim’s article (“Politics is much more than just a contest at earning millions of dollars”, published in TOC, 5 Aug 2018) rightly asserted that “truly worthy politicians are either thrown up through very challenging circumstances or imbibed with years of high ideals to do something worthwhile for their countries”.  But ESM Goh was also not wrong when he said that “in peace and prosperity where there are no dragons to slay, personal aspirations, freedom, privacy and life-style take precedence”. These are very challenging times for Malaysians but if all goes well for Malaysia, a time may come when KL will have to pay their ministers ‘Singapore salary’ to keep them in government or get people to join politics.

China standing up to American gangsterism

The Americans must be taken aback by the firm and strong stand of the Chinese in taking them head on in the trade war, a punch with a counter punch. The Americans thought the Chinese are still pushovers like before, like the time when they blatantly struck the Chinese Embassy with 4 Tomahawk cruise missiles for no reason and the Chinese could not hit back after suffering damages and lost of lives to the unprovoked attack. The American gangsterism must be stopped and China has been in a hurry to stop these international gangsters from their bullying.
 
The trade war is only the beginning, tit for tat, every move with a counter move and more. China is not going to be bullied again. In the preparation to invade Iran, the Americans have warned all countries to stop trading with Iran. The Nato countries have ignored this sanction. Russia and China too refused to abide by this unilateral and illegal sanction against Iran. Both Russia and China have increased their purchases of Iranian oil to the ire of the Americans.
 
The Iranians have warned the Americans that they would attack American ships and military bases if the American gangsters strike. China did not stop at just saying no to the Americans. For the past decades, the Americans had intercepted Chinese merchant ships in high seas on fabricated charges and even boarded Chinese ships to check their cargoes. This too would not be allowed to happen again.
 
China has sent 100 warships to the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, to protect their tankers and merchant ships from harassment by the Americans. The stage is set for a high sea confrontation between the PLAN and the American Navy. Chinese ships are strictly out of bound from the American gangsters and China is prepared to defend its rights for freedom of navigation.
 
Would the American gangsters dare to attempt to intercept Chinese ships again and provoke an open conflict in the Indian Ocean? A 100 warship presence in the Indian Ocean say the Chinese meant business and would react to any American hooliganism against their ships.
 
The Russians too are standing up to the Evil Empire in Syria and the Mediterranean Sea. It is conducting a big naval exercise and telling the Americans to get their warships out of the way or they would not be responsible for the consequences. And against the threat of the American Evil to protect the remnants of IS in Idlib, the Russian, Iranians and Syrians are mounting a final assault to rid Syria from American sponsored and backed terrorists once and for all.
 
The Persian Gulf and Syria could see the Americans triggering a major war with China and Russia any moment.

The Evil Empire threatening the International Criminal Court

According to Wikipedia, ‘The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt)[2] is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal that sits in The Hague in the Netherlands. The ICC has the jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The ICC is intended to complement existing national judicial systems and it may therefore only exercise its jurisdiction when certain conditions are met, such as when national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute criminals or when the United Nations Security Council or individual states refer situations to the Court.’
 
This court has more credibility and support from the UN than the commercial private arbitration court that the Aquino govt used to judge the South China Sea island dispute. The American rogues are condemning this ICC as ‘unaccountable’ and ‘outright dangerous’ but told its little USAs to blare that the commercial court in the Hague was a UN linked court and its rulings must be abided by like a UN supported court. The little USAs happily accepted this edict from the Evil Empire and went shouting at China as told by the Evil Empire, only to kena slammed by China for their shameless stupidity.
 
The ICC has been directed to charge some American war criminals for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan and the rogues in the US are furious. They are not only above the laws, above international laws, they even threatened to arrest and sanction judges and officials of the ICC ‘if it moves to charge any American who served in Afghanistan with war crimes’.
 
The gangster in John Bolton threatened, ‘If the court comes after us, Israel of other US allies, we will not sit quietly down.’ This is not all. He added, ‘We will bann its judges and prosecutors from entering the US. We will sanction their funds, in the US financial system, and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system.’
 
What do these arrogant brags said about the Evil Empire? They are above the laws and can be lawless and no one can do anything to them even if they commit war crimes or crimes against humanity. And more, the Americans would use ‘any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court’. John Bolton is claiming that the ICC is illegitimate! The Americans would not allow any courts, like the ICC, to ‘have higher authority than the US Constitution and US sovereignty’.
 
Compare this to the silly countries that allowed the American courts to impose its will and laws onto them, violating these countries’ sovereignty and constitution. And these silly countries could not see any wrong with it and obediently do what the American courts told them to, like the Najib case, the seizing of his boat in Indonesia.
 
The rogues in Washington has told the whole world in defiance that they do not come under any law or jurisdiction of any international organisation but expect others to do so and to come under the jurisdiction and laws of the Evil Empire.
 
Anything wrong with this? Should the rest of the world accept this state of affair dictated by the Evil Empire? The Evil Empire had made use of the ICC and other UN and non UN agencies to incriminate other people of war crimes and crimes against humanity that are of very insignificant scale compare to the hundreds of thousands or millions killed by the American forces and their cronies. Now the Americans said no one is allowed to charge them for war crimes or crimes against humanity, even their chosen agencies, agencies they made use to do the same thing.