Paid To Fail

You talking to me? You talking to ME?

The world saw how the Samsung heir apparent bowed humbly to apologise for an associated hospital’s failures in dealing with the country’s outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). In contrast, the arrogant army officers were hardly contrite in their body language, their eyes ready to stare daggers at anybody who dared to question their competency.

There's good reason the ex-army officers are confident their jobs are not at risk. In the 16th Annual General Meeting convened earlier in the afternoon, they had just rubber stamped the sum of $908,296 as payment for Directors’ fees, up from $805,896 in FY 2014  (Desmond Kuek, 52, earned more than $2.25 million last year, up from dismal Saw Phaik Hwa's last drawn derisory $1.85 million). Shareholders were also amply taken care of, $40 million were distributed as dividends in 2014, up from $30 million in 2013. Why should they leave all that lovely money on the table for maintenance, just because 250,000 commuters stranded at the evening rush hours of July 7 were inconvenienced?

Welcome to the world of the new aristocracy. They are not expected to bow and scrape; they demand respect just because they command multi-million dollar salaries. Meritocracy is for the minions, who have to compete with foreign imports with degree mill qualifications, for a decent paying job.

After an overnight sweep of the doomed North-South and East-West lines, damaged power cables, faulty voltage relays and water leakage issues were discovered - Kuek had the gall to admit that routine maintenance is carried out only once in 6 months. But why should the maintenance staff care? They were recently paid $500 bonuses - whether for a job well done or keeping mum about top down incompetence we will never know. Get used to the new normal, people, even the ex-brigadier general prime minister is saying, "we are still very worried that the problem may recur”.