What Political Will Achieves

When you are told to "get a room", the implication is that you should book a motel room because you're practically doing it in full view of the public. In the closing scenes of Iron Man 2, Tony Stark was asked to "get a roof" because he was getting hot and heavy with Pepper Potts. Someone must have advised former chief of the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) Commissioner Peter Lim Sin Pang to "get a carpark", because he had his amorous trysts in one near Marina Bay Golf Course, one near East Coast Big Splash and one in the vicinity of the Singapore Indoor Stadium.

Apparently the sex for IT-related contracts arrangement started in May 2010, less than a year after he was appointed to the top job at SCDF, which goes to show that promotion to high office has its privileges. Why a 52 year old would want to rut in the confines of a automobile like a horny teenager is beyond comprehension. Maybe he's too cheapskate to queue online for the expensive services of the underage whore who landed 80 men in hot soup.

The press is billing this case as the biggest corruption scandal since:

• 1992, when Commercial Affairs Department director Glenn Knight was convicted of graft involving a government vehicle loan of $65,000;
• 1995, when Public Utilities Board deputy chief Choy Hon Tim was convicted of taking nearly S$14 million in kickbacks;  
• 2002, when former Economic Development Board officer Andrew Goh Keng Guan  took S$380,000 in bribes from Chinese nationals to help them process their applications for permanent residency. 

Somehow the other prominent cases are not added to the list:

• Tan Kia Gan, Minister for National Development, offered his services for a consideration in the purchase of Boeing aircraft;
• Wee Toon Boon, Minister of State in the Ministry of the Environment, accepted a bungalow worth $500,000 from a housing developer and took two overdrafts totalling $300,000;
• Phey Yew Kok, President of the NTUC and a PAP MP, charged on four counts of criminal breach of trust involving a total sum of S$83,000;
• Teh Cheang Wan, Minister for National Development, accepted two cash payments of $400,000 each, in one case to allow a development company to retain part of its land which had been earmarked for compulsory government acquisition.

Mr Chua Cher Yak, the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau's (CPIB) chief who retired on 1 July 2005 after more than 11 years on the job, made this parting remark: "Our job is driven by political will. We can only be as effective as the Government wants us to be."

[Interesting factoid: In 1993, a few months after Chee Soon Juan joined the Singapore Democratic Party, he was fired from his position at the National University of Singapore by the Head of the Psychology Department, Dr S Vasoo, an MP for the PAP, for allegedly using research funds to send his wife's doctoral thesis to the United States. The courier charges amounted to the princely sum of $10.]