In the drawn out saga of the Town Council rates, the Ministry of National Development (MND) was off by "nearly S$1 million." The anonymous team there simply took the managing agent rate for 1 year, and multiplied it by 3. Ms Sylvia Lim had to remind them: "We had clearly stated earlier that the managing agent (MA) contract for the three years (2012, 2013 and 2014) provided for staggered pricing, with increase in costs factored in each year."
Mom was right all along. We have to pay attention to our math homework. But we know there's more to it than just simple arithmetic. Png was spot on when he told parliament:
"Finally, I believe whatever that was written in black and white in the AIM transaction has been reviewed by the committee but whatever intention that was written in the hearts of the people that were involved in this transaction will remain hidden for their conscience and makers to judge."
Teo Ho Pin should pay close attention to what transpired in the 2006 election, when Wong Kan Seng, with the compliance of the sycophant press, droned on and on for days about James Gomez misplacing his minority-race candidate's application forms. The episode about the closed-circuit television evidence was immortalised in a famous podcast, and Wong won his place in the history books. Or perhaps Teo may prefer to take up Lim's invite to make a report to the CPIB.
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MND only know simple average. Dr Teo only know how to ask but he never answered the many questions all the way from the MoniBonds to AIM that the PAP Town Councils were mired in.
ReplyDeleteSo he thinks there were some hanky-panky coming on with the WP Town Council and their MA..
Shouldn't he put up a Police Report?
Oh, he is a nice guy, giving MP Sylvia Lim a chance to explain,no ?
He only has balls to make noise. See how they shrivelled when he is challenged by Sylvia Lim to make police report. Dare he?
DeleteNot only can they NOT do their Primary 6 math, they even have a cheek to insinuate improper cronyism. TOC has a good article here.
ReplyDeleteAgree THP should get CPIB involved. Like to see who has violated the TC acts. Then we can also get to the bottom of 2008 sinking funds, and see where the funds has sunk to?
http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2013/05/aim-debate-in-parliament-mnd-vs-wp-round-3/
now we know why we losing uncountable billions and millions of taxpayer under PAP because they can't even do basic math correctly, let alone complicated math stuff in finance. Why are we paying them millions for their incompetency and yet lose billions ?
DeleteThis is the same MP in 2008 , when discovered that the TC was losing millions through the Lehman funds actually has the audacity to say "Residents should be thankful" to them.
DeleteHis arrogance knows no bound. And he will tell Aljunied to be thankful again because they are doing the repent as they should be. I would be thankful if someone can launch a CPIB complaint to initiate the investigation. Let's see how many close associates and family members they have benefited throughout the last 40+ years of governance by this single dominant party. He should bring it on.
So far, all i know is this.
ReplyDeleteAccording to PAP, there are off the counter IT products that can be bought, no brainer. But they choose to spend 23.8m for a customized instead. And to top it off, now the SW is re-sold at a loss to a $2 non entity owned by the PAP, along with the IP rights which the Aljunied residents have already paid for, but don't owned it anymore..(kinda like the HDB lease isn't it?). Tell me again, is that how the Pasir-Ris/Holland sinking fund lose money? And boy, I haven't get to our Reserves yet!!
Read Alex, as usual, world class!
ReplyDeletehttp://yawningbread.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/town-council-software-review-and-minister-in-parliament-provide-no-answer/#comments
When a Dr Chee asked where is our money he was ganna sued, so now a MP Teo asked where is their 1 million, should MP Lim sue him for libel
ReplyDeleteshould teo be sued? yes.
DeleteIf it is inside the polling station, then it is NOT within 200m of the perimeter of the polling station.
ReplyDeleteGo figure....
As someone has already said it, this is a classic case of 惡人先告狀, the bad guy going to court to sue the good guy.
ReplyDeleteAnd the bad guy here wants us to believe they are the exclusive Patriots, the type that has no qualms to give a damn whether there will continuity of services to serve the Aljunied constituency ... supposedly in line with the repentance scheme as what the old hero has verbally threatened.
The only thing being that they still wouldn't dare admit the termination part was part of the whole scheme, isn't it ?
Khaw Boon Wan said in Parliament that he had been an MP "for decades", giving the impression that he has been an MP for at least over 20 or 30 years when in fact he has been an MP for only 11 years. Not only poor maths but also poor English.
ReplyDeleteThe millions ex Malaysian Khaw has been collecting from tax payers over a period of 11 years probably made him feel like he has been in parliament for decades.
DeleteI find it thoroughly abominable that the miws have been using the instruments of the State - MND, in this case- to hit out and pummel the Opposition. The way these highly paid leeders wriggle and sputter their excuses gives one the clear impression they are hiding something.
ReplyDeleteUniquely Singapore, only can you find such an unpopular incompetent person still serving as mayor. The more he is still in politics, the more votes will go to the opposition. Sigh.. Whither Singapore, my dear country
ReplyDeletegood that more votes go to the opposition, isn't it? after all, if the PAP can't get its sums right, shouldn't we allow someone else a chance to do so? even warren buffet was once a rookie and untested....
Deleteso cheer teo on his ''quest'' to wriggle out of answering questions that really matter and point fingers in all the wrong directions....
One can look at the MND's involvement from several angles:
ReplyDeletea) like an accused preferring to attach instead of defence, it would be understandable if it were itself whiter than white, but when you think about bromptongate (which by the way has not been prosecuted YET), this sounds more like a desperate attempt at diverting the public from the corruption and decay going on in the civil service at large
b) it is taking sides in what Khaw and its perm sec in the review of AIMgate, has already declared as a "political" issue; in that case, civil sercvants are blatantly playing politics supporting one political party against another rightfully elected party representing no less tha interests of its constituents. This is no longer acceptable as the clear line between government and civil service has clearly broken down. The absurdity of this overlap of interest between government and civil service is easily understood if one imagine that in a few years there would be a change in government as a coalition of WP, NSP, SDP SPP win the next election, Given the pro-PAP stance, would the entire civil service need to be replaced for one that is more pro-WP? At what cost would this be to the country or does the head of the civil service plan to switch his allegiance overnight?
c) the PAP has completely subjugated the civil service, at least at the top 3 levels of PS, DS and Directors, to such an extent the service is no longer able to act independently and with integrity to the people of Singapore. This would be like the authoritarian states of one-party states like China or former Soviet republics, where there are "elections" but no democracy. As history has proven, such countries lack the true check and balance to last longer than several decades, its institutions are neutered, ist people become rent seekers or iron rice bowlers, its best become sycophants. Enormous wealth is squandered, initially everything is swept under the carpet, only to finally become a landfill overwhelming its leaders and people in a massive collapse.
What do people think or are we no longer capable of independent thought?
please remember we are not labelled DAFT not without any reason!!!
Deletei continue to be daft ... I SHALL VOTE PAP AGAIN cUm 2015/2016
This is the great divide. Facts vs Faith.
DeleteIf the civil service is utterly subjugated, then the people will also take them out. ONE AT A TIME.
There are enough talents in Singapore and overseas who wants to serve their country, not master. Don't let the MIW fool and fear you.
I recall the James Gomez incident.
ReplyDeleteAng Mo Kio GRC candidate Inderjit Singh had called a press conference to disclose that he had met Gomez at the Pei Chun Public School on nomination day. Pretending to ask about the minority certificate problem, he had Gomez confide in him that it was a joke on the mainstream media, who was speculating Gomez was going to contest in Ang Mo Kio GRC. Wong Kan Seng then used it as ammunition to accuse Gomez of stage managing the entire episode to discredit the Elections Department.
At an election rally, Sylvia Lim said Inderjit Singh's betrayal was one reason why one just could not talk too much to the PAP.
Inderjit Singh is, of course, the one who bitched about the White Paper, and then hide in the toilet when it was time to vote.
I recall NMP, assistant prof Eugene Tan also arguing against the White Paper but did not show up to vote like Inderjit.
DeleteWhere is their conviction ?
I wonder if both men were hiding in the same toilet when it was time to vote ?
Teo's long awaited statement in January, on the AIM transaction, opened a whole can of worms. The MND's TC review has left a bitter taste. Making a report to CPIB on the WP's managing agent contract? The gauntlet has been thrown at your feet - pick it up if you have the cojones, and don't just confine your insinuations and accusations in Facebook. Go ahead, ESCALATE!
ReplyDelete“It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.” ― George Washington
http://www.singapolitics.sg/news/teo-ho-pin-contract-aim-benefits-town-councils
http://www.mnd.gov.sg/towncouncilreviewreport/AnnexA_MND_TC_Review_Report.pdf
Machiavelli’s Tiger
ReplyDeletesomething that i saw in other forums and i did not know old man was such......
LKY served as an “interpreter” for the Japanese administrators when Singapore was under Japanese rule. “Interpreter” was a very courteous way to
describe his service with the Japanese. These days we just came them collaborators, agents or informers. LKY was having his first lesson in
fighting for his own personal security and survival. Rhis lesson, once digested, he later applied into his political doctrine of survival. And yes, he worked as an informer for the British during the transitional period from colonial rule to statehood (when internal security was still under the purview of the British).
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http://www.sammyboy.com/showthread.php?89309-something-that-i-saw-in-other-forums-
and-i-did-not-know-old-man-was-such
#
Lee Kuan Yew quotes
"I am ... a realist. The magnitude of what one terms license or civil liberties or personal
freedom has got to be adjusted to the circumstances."
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“I was a product of the times, the war, the occupation, the reoccupation, my 4 years in
Britain, admiring but at the same timequestioning whether they are able to do a better job than we can.”
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“I learnt how people survived and how people had to submit because you need to eat and your family need to live, so I learned the meaning of power. In a sense that power comes out in the barrel of a gun and when the Japanese gun was not as big as the American gun they surrendered and the British came back.”
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“I don't think I made a conscious decision as a career choice. From my school days I had decided, persuaded by my parents, to prepare myself for the law. Then the Japanese occupation came and we went through three and a half years of what I would call the university of life, it was hard, it was harsh.”
Machiavelli’s Tiger: Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore’s authoritarian regime
http://www.singapore-window.org/sw00/000614ug.htm
Joshua Chiang
“If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it
ReplyDeletedoesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.” - Oscar Wilde
one of Machiavelli’s famous warnings: that ‘above all things [the prince] must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony’
"Give a dog a bad name and hang it."
http://www.yeocheowtong.com/DevanNair.html
EXCLUSIVE! Did the Chief of Government Communications help draft Dr Teo’s press statement?
http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/05/17/exclusive-did-the-chief-of-government-
communications-help-dr-teo-draft-his-press-statement/
#
In any case, Lee Kuan Yew has been aware of the need to limit drastic measures against the opposition. While holding that a government needs harsh means in order to govern, he has noted that ‘we don’t have to use it often. Use it once, twice, against big people. The rest will take notice’ (Bell, 1997). This clearly represents two of Machiavelli’s counsels: the first is that useful cruelties are those
‘which are perpetuated once for the need of securing one’s self…injuries should be done all together, so that being less tasted,
they will give less offence’ (The Prince, 8). The second is that repressive action should be focused on ‘the great’, for ‘when they are
not bound to you of set purpose and for ambitious ends, it is a sign that they think more of themselves than of you; and from such men the prince must guard himself and look upon them as secret enemies’(Ibid., 9). This will also help to ‘avoid incurring such universal
hatred’ as may be held against one by the people as a whole
(Discourses III, 9; The Prince, 17).
But actions against specific political opponents are not enough.
Structural means are necessary as well, for as Machiavelli observes,
There is no better nor easier mode in republics…for successfully opposing the ambition of any citizen, than to occupy in advance of him those ways by which he expects to attain the rank he aims at…[thus]
depriving him of the weapons which he himself employed with so much skill.
AGC to be joined as party in blogger’s case involving stat board
http://www.tremeritus.com/2013/05/18/agc-to-be-joined-as-party-in-bloggers-case-involving
-stat-board/
The politics of judicial institutions in Singapore
http://www.singapore-window.org/1028judi.htm
Singaporean facing extinction: PAP's genocide explain
http://veritas-lux.blogspot.sg/2011/07/singaporean-facing-extinction-paps.html
Whistleblowers: risks and skills
http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/07Rappert.html
Gene Sharp, 'Clausewitz Of Nonviolent Warfare,' Amazed By Egypt's Youth : The Two
-Way : NPR
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/02/23/133965129/gene-sharp-clausewitz-of-
nonviolent-warfare-amazed-by-egypts-youth
(Download pdf)
http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf
Joshua Chiang
If the Ministers failed in their Maths, just too bad, their Chief Minister is mathematician graduated at Cambridge.
ReplyDeleteCambridge is historically rated top in World Rankings. Is NUS or NTU producing better mathematicians than Cambridge or Oxford?
Corruption - Wisdom from Star Wars, Clone Wars
ReplyDelete"Corruption is what happens when someone in power puts their own personal gain before the interest of the people they represent.
So it's the result of greed?
Yes. A leader sacrifices moral integrity for the sake of money or power. Entire star systems have collapsed into chaos. A revolution because their greedy politicians got caught up in a cycle of bribery and blackmail while their people suffered.
Does that mean most government officials are corrupt?
Well, no. But the point is that temptation is always there. And citizens must be vigilant so corruption can't take root. The deadliest enemies of a society dwell within its borders. And from these internal threats the people need to be protected
But if you don't trust your leaders, isn't that treason?
It's every citizen's duty to challenge their leaders. To keep them honest and hold them accountable if they are not.
How do you do that?
By exposing corrupt officials for what they are. Lasting change can only come from within."
Ashoka Tano
Star Wars Clone Wars, Season 3, Episode 6, 3:06-4:13 minutes
http://www.gogoanime.com/star-wars-clone-wars-season-3-episode-6