It has to be karma that Vivian Balakrishnan, notorious for his gutter politics during the May 2011 elections, has ended up dealing with drainage gutters. In all probability, he won't be any more successful than Yaacob Ibrahim, the cad who lied about acts of gods and blocked drains, they are both made of the same political mold.
This chap is putting off the construction of a much needed diversion canal to relieve the overflowing Stamford Canal, because it would cost between $300 and $400 million ("in the long run, these need to be done," he is quoted saying). But he did not hesitate to waste $387 million on the YOG debacle - food poisoning and fake certificates of appreciation for local volunteers, free hospitalisation and R&R for the foreign one - and even boasted to a reporter he'll do it again anytime ( "I felt it was money well spent").
We don't know if serious money was spent on the 12-member panel making recommendations on flood mitigation in Singapore. We do know that one of the suggestions, porous pavements, was a no-brainer. When the junction of Scotts Road and Orchard Road was submerged, everyone knew that the absorbent grass knoll would prevented the flash flood if it wasn't paved over for the impermeable concrete monolith of Ion Orchard. What was commonsense among netizens aged 6 to 66 is now officially confirmed, "Urbanisation has undoubtedly led to an increase in storm water run off in Singapore."
Asked about Balakrishnan's procastination on the diversion canal requirement, Prof Balmforth of MWH UK said, "It would be unusual to produce a range of measures on a city that didn't involve some upgrade of some conveyance capacity somewhere." The minister may dismiss internet input as chatter, but will he listen to the experts? Maybe he's just afraid to contradict the declaration of the octogenarian "expert", "No amount of engineering can prevent flooding."
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SALARY - TIME TO ASK THE MINISTERS
ReplyDelete--------------------------------
Every politician must state in his election manifesto;
a)What he wants to accomplish in Parliament if elected
b)Expected salary
c)When he will return our CPF money back to Singaporeans if elected.
Now that's transparency.
Now everybody can vote wisely in GE 2016.
Another news that LTA, NUS and Stanford University will jointly study how to incentivize commuters to avoid peak hours in taking MRT so that congestion can be resolved. It seems there are really either lack of experts and talents in Singapore or government listening only to the western experts. Such study is no rocket science.
ReplyDeletePAP government ought to know how many talented Singaporeans are unemployed or emigrated overseas. The nation building does not depend on foreign experts. History tells you that the country cannot survive if the local expertise is not built up.
when there is a will, there is a way.
ReplyDeleteIf netherlands make giant strides in protecting their coastlines from floods at a massive price - what is spending some loose change to protect Orchard Rd, which ironically was voted best shopping street?
In all fairness, Vivien is at least trying to tackle the flood problem more than his Predecessor Yaacob Ibrahim.
ReplyDeleteIf he wishes, Vivien can always quote the old 'expert' that no amount of engineering can prevent flooding and be absolved from any blame.
This is unbelievable that he postpones the construction of flood control facilities. This means for sure during rainy season we will see floods in a lot of more places. Day by day, PAP is showing some signs of 'tiredness', maybe reflecting the state of condition of Senior Lee.
ReplyDeleteYesterday while tuning to late night news, I thought something was wrong with my ears when I heard something about asking people not to take the SMRT during peak hours? Is this what the SMRT for ? To cope with heavy traffic during rush hours? The state of the public transport is not able to cope with the population,perhaps they should let go to allow private operators to enter into the public transport sector. Few years back, recalled from Yeow Chow Tong that when the SMRT line that is going to stretched to the greater part of Singapore is completed, some public bus routes will be cut to force people to take the SMRT because they feel that if people or not enough people take the SMRT, this will be a waste of taxpayers' money. But look at the current state of SMRT which is getting quite unreliable with unexpected delays from time to time, if they proceed with cutting down some bus routes, will be big trouble to a lot of us who rely on public transport.
Do They Really Know What They're Doing?
No wonder they said it's not feasible to upgrade the Stamford Canel .... because they already built the whole Dhoby Ghaut MRT station wrapping around it, so how to upgrade ?
ReplyDeleteSo maybe that is the reason for the frequent floods upstream because there is no room for additional capacity at the downstream bottleneck until the Marina Barrage doesn't seem to help at all ?
Someone make a blunder big time ?