Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Tin Pei Ling Defence

The two top uniformed officials, entrusted to protect life and property, have been finger printed and formally arrested, passports impounded. So why are they offered an escape clause? Specifically,
"The bureau (CPIB) said that in the case of public servants, and especially where there may be no criminal wrongdoings but serious misconduct, the matter may also be referred to the ministry or agency concerned for appropriate disciplinary action to be taken".

The Kate Spade MP from Marine Parade clearly violated the "Cooling Off Day" election law, but was let off with a teeny weeny smack on her dainty little hand. Even the shame of the official police warning was borne by a mysterious "administrator", whose identity was never declared in the election filings.

This "personal failing" of the civil service elites is rumoured to involve clandestine interactions with a certain female IT executive; does mean that the Clintonesque excuse ("define sex") will also be resorted to? And assuming a Monica Lewinsky type dress could be produced, the testimony of the DNA lab could also be stained - recall the senior employee of over 30 years experience at the Health Sciences Authority's DNA Profiling Laboratory who screwed up because he had "misread' the label of the EDTA reagent.

In the Lennick and Kiel book, "Moral Intelligence" (Wharton School Publishing, 2005), the authors wrote:
"Knowing who you want to be - an honest, responsible, and compassionate leader - is one thing. Knowing how to become your best self is another. Actually, doing what you know you should do is still another matter. That is the essence of alignment, a shorthand term that means "your goals and your behaviors are consistent with your moral compass."

Targeted at corporate governance, the authors could have easily written for politicians and elitist civil servants. Commented one reviewer, Paul Fribourg of Wharton Business School, "We live in an increasingly competitive and global world,. Increasingly, 'the end justifies the means'. This often results in the loss of our moral compass. Lennick and Kiel show us that the truly great business leaders never sacrifice moral integrity for financial goals and that maintaining the highest ethical standards is not only the 'right' thing to do, it also produces the best companies and the best results."

It makes one wonder if the Singapore elites read stuff besides their CPF statement which, according to Minister Lim Swee Say, makes him feel fabulously rich.

13 comments:

  1. Poor Singaporean1/26/2012 9:09 AM

    Maybe now we can stop hearing rubbish like paying stratospheric salaries to prevent corruption.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I thought her case not settled because she also made a false declaration on her nomination form that she was the sole administrator on her Facebook when in fact she was not. What happen to the investigation? Or is there any?

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is certainly corruption, not personal misconduct!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Corruption can have many forms and many different definition.
      It is up to you to choose which form and which definition if you are in power.

      Delete
  4. Straits Times writes obituary about Kodak (PAP) in page A19, 26 Jan 2012 in the editorial entitled "Kodak: Fade-out, then history".

    Just substitute;
    "Kodak" with "PAP" and
    "management" with "Singaporeans"

    ReplyDelete
  5. If they want to benchmark themselves against the private sector, why don't they benchmark against those truly great business leaders? If they can't, they should not do this selective benchmark only on the pay alone.

    They'Re Morally Rottening!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Our compensation package for senior civil servants are not comprehensive enough. It only look at the monetary aspect. You have to take LKY's logic to the limit to fully resolve the problem of corruption.

    They should be expanded to ensure that the sexual needs of senior servants are also taken care for by providing full-time sexy female "companion" and state-sponsored luxury trips fully accompanied by specially selected attractive female companions.

    By making sure that all their needs are fully looked after, we may be able to prevent corruption in the civil service to prevent the little red dot from turning into little black dot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Japanese in WW2 was practising "companion" women for its soldiers to give their life to fight for the country or more precisely for the emperor.

      Although your suggestion is not an original but seems appropriate for implementation on the red dot. Money and women surely will be able to attract able men to work for this country till death.

      Delete
  7. "Low crime does not mean no crime"
    Ministry of Home Affairs

    "High Pay does not mean no crime"
    Singaporeans with eyes wide opened.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Corruption is a thin line but its definition is wide. Do you think who will get into a good school (lets say there is only one place left), a citizen's kid or the son of a serving minister? Is there corruption? So when they talk about higher pay to prevent corruption, they are talking about someone bribing the minister with money. They did not say about other perks.

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  9. "Do you think who will get into a good school (lets say there is only one place left), a citizen's kid or the son of a serving minister?"

    Can your son get 12 year study leave before serving out as scientist?

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  10. "So why are they offered an escape clause? Specifically, ..."

    We need this escape clause just in case CPIB has stepped on to the Out of Bound (OB) marks. We can actually imagine many past cases that have no news thereafter investigation or never have been investigated could all be just that the investigation might have go onto the OB marks.

    This is why full accountability and total transparency are so important in governance.

    ReplyDelete
  11. OB marks? You mean diplomatic immunity!

    ReplyDelete