Not My Own Money

Not too long ago, there was an outcry over the $1,200 Herman Miller chairs bought by Nanyang Technnological University (NTU). Then it surfaced that Khaw Boon Wan had ordered 150 sets of the Herman Miller Celle®  model for office use in National University Hospital when he was in charge. Khaw said cheaper alternatives will not last as long - same reason offered by disgraced monk Ming Yi when asked in court why he bought Mont Blanc pens.

If you have to ask, you can't afford it

Now Khaw is defending the National Parks Board's (NParks) purchase of S$2,200 Brompton foldable bicycles as "a simple and effective way to raise staff productivity". The indefensible part has to do with his "clarification" that NParks "had no particular brand in mind" and "was open to considering all brands" (The NTU tender was written around Herman Miller specifications). Quite obviously the NParks folks have never stepped into a Giant or Carrefour departmental store to check out the alternatives, which kind of explains the telling remark by Khaw: "NParks might have gotten a better deal if there was greater participation in this quotation".

Why are Brompton bikes so expensive? The clue is found on the supplier's website:

Nothing is standard
We do not offer standard models because nothing we build is standard: every bike is built by hand from scratch.

There is something more insidious going on than the much maligned mentally of N.I.M.B. For want of a better acronym, N.M.O.M. should suffice. As in, hey, it's Not My Own Money, the daft taxpayers are shelling out for it.

In "Hard Truths", Lee Kuan Yew thought it weird one of his grandsons didn't want a scholarship even though he could easily get one. "If I were the father, I'll say, no, you better take that scholarship... Why should I spend $300,000 or $400,000 for nothing?" Indeed, why empty your own pockets when there's a cheaper alternative?