Deciphering Day 1

OKAY, I am asking this question again. What happens after five days of Parliamentary debate on the White Paper? Doubtless, the paper will be endorsed given the People’s Action Party’s majority in Parliament. And then what? Will it be revised in any way to take into account comments and views made by the PAP MPs and Opposition MPs? Will we see the revised version? Or is this a done deal?

I agree with an MP who talked about the haste with which this White Paper seemed to be proceeding. ST commentator Chua Mui Hoong said the PAP was doing business-as-usual and tried to make the point that this debate was NOT usual. She stopped short though of saying anything more beyond giving reasons for the difference between this debate and others.

So we have DPM Teo Chee Hean sketching out the plan, arguing that the G was not pro-foreigner but intent on keeping the Singapore “core’’. I don’t think his points in Parliament went very much beyond what the White Paper said. I guess he’s saving some bullets when he has to round up the debate. Oh my, the dozens of civil servants who must be taking notes….

So, the WP opposes the plan. Of course it does. So do the National Solidarity Party and the Reform Party. The NSP wants a referendum while the Reform Party went into full scale attack mode on almost every point.
The WP thinks the upward boundary could be 5.9 million, if we squeezed the retirees, housewives etc back into the workforce and thought harder about getting more Singaporeans to have babies.

Actually, this is one point that the PAP should explain – its “resigned’’ attitude towards future TFR, as WP’s Sylvia Lim put it. How did it come to conclude that its marriage and parenthood package would only raise TFR to 1.6, from the current 1.2? Do we need more radical thinking?

Also, the policy changes to get Singaporeans back to work or to work longer – they have just started. So it doesn’t have much faith in them either? There’s the Special Employment Credit which encourages hiring of older workers, re-employment legislation which just kicked in last year. The latest labour force statistics comparing last year and 2011 showed that the employment rate of women aged 25-54 is up (from 73.0% to 74.0%) and the employment rate for older residents aged 55-64 is up from 61.2% to 64.0%. Is this not a helpful sign? Or still not enough?

I wish the White Paper gave more insight into how the planners do projections. I mean, the sort of statistics that would explain how the big numbers that so plague us come about. Economist Donald Low has pointed out that the White Paper seemed to lack research. I agree – or maybe the planners think most of us wouldn’t be able to understand the research anyway? That this is a paper that’s pitched to the general population? If so, shame on them. For a paper as important as this, it should justify all its numbers.
Instead, we are supposed to take the big numbers at face value, trusting that the planners have worked through the numbers? But the same question can be thrown at the opposition as well. How did it come to 5.9 million as the upper limit? It’s not enough to say “our projections show’’…Hmm. What underlying numbers are we talking about?

Also, did the planners look at how other countries do it? Did they remove the bias against welfarism, as MP Seah Kian Peng put it, and keep an open mind about the practices that can be adopted/adapted from, say, the Nordic countries? Because you know what…without such references, the planners looked like they were planning Singapore’s future in an ivory tower. Someone, somewhere must have done something right that we can copy – no need for a uniquely Singaporean solution right?

As for the White Paper’s productivity targets – well, the employers seem to agree that they can’t achieve productivity by much and that’s why they need more foreign labour. Looks like all employers, big and small, are united on that front. No ifs and buts. This is going to be interesting….Which MP is going to speak for them in Parliament? Speaking for business will go against the grain so to speak. It will be highly unpopular to the people at large who want fewer foreigners in future. I suppose Nominated MPs – not accountable to the electorate – can play the role…

By the way, I like what Mr Seah said as reported in ST:

The Government does not always know best, he acknowledged. “It may only know what is efficient, what is rational, what costs the most, or the least.”
Sometimes, he pointed out, it is right to do what the people want. “Not because we think it is right, but because they do.”
The Government must resist the “self-righteous, sanctimonious chant that ‘We do what is right, rather than what is popular’”, he said.

Hmm. I think PAP Ministers should take heed and think hard about how they come across to people especially on this topic. Win their hearts first, then their mind.
In this case, I don’t think ST did the PAP a service. Its coverage seemed focused on giving Mr Teo the stage, to the extent of excerpting his speech. It’s way too much. All it does is make him come across as defensive.

Sorry.

Draft of an unpublished story

I suppose MSM is waiting for PAP’s Teo Ho Pin’s response on the sale of the town council’s computer information system before it decides to publish anything on the matter. Typical move, except that too much of the action is taking place online to be ignored. Even if sources are un-named, they are worth reporting for wider public consumption. Better still, if the MSM can go out and GET them named, or at least get confirmation of the facts.

So, here’s my attempt to piece the story together from what’s online. Moderately. Carefully. Oh, so carefully….

MORE questions regarding the sale of a town-council developed computer information system to a People’s Action Party company have surfaced, with one individual purportedly escalating the matter to the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau.

The unnamed individual has asked the police to look into how the tender was awarded to Action Information Management, according to documents mailed to TR Emeritus.

Another individual, who declined to be named for “professional purposes’’, has also dug out what he claimed to be the original tender notice announced on June 30, 2010. He charged that it was lacking in details compared to other tender notices. The notice also levied a a $214 fee for interested applicants to “find out more’’, he wrote on The Online Citizen.

These disclosures, which have yet to be confirmed by the CPIB or the town councils, are the latest of a series of questions that is being asked by the online community, which was first alerted to the circumstances of the sale by blogger Alex Au.
The issue came to light after a report card on town councils’ work was made public with Workers’ Party run Aljunied-Hougang TC lagging behind conspicuously behind in the corporate governance category. This was because, WP MP Sylvia Lim said, it had yet to develop a computer information system after the vendor, Action Information Management, terminated its services following the WP win in the ward.

Mr Au and other online commentators unearthed a trove of information about the vendor: That it was a $2 company, which bought the system which the 14 town councils had developed for $140,000. It leased the system back to the town councils for a fee of $785 a month. Ex-MPs S Chandra Das, Lau Ping Sum and Chew Heng Chin were named as directors.

PAP’s co-ordinator of town councils Dr Teo Ho Pin confirmed that the company was People’s Action Party owned, while the company declared that its action to terminate the contract with the opposition-run TC was in line with a contractual clause that it allowed it to do so if there were “material changes in the composition’’ of the TC.

Dr Teo charged that the WP was already developing its own information system, had asked and been granted two extensions and could have asked for a third extension to the lease if it wanted. Ms Lim hit back, accusing Dr Teo of not addressing more fundamental questions of the contract termination.

Online commentary appear to be focused on the following issues:
• Accountability – Whether residents’ funds were used to develop the computer system and the logic behind having it sold to a third party, which happens to be PAP owned, and re-leased for a fee.
• Transparency – Of five interested applicants who paid the fee for more information on the tender, only AIM put in a bid. Drawing parallels with the Brompton bike case, comments included whether the tender process could have been extended to allow for more bidders to take part and whether there was any impropriety in the process.
• Political connections – Implicit in the commentaries is whether AIM’s move to terminate the Aljunied-Hougang TC contract is a purely partisan decision rather than motivated by business or public interest considerations. If so, the on-going saga raises the question of the role of political parties in business and how these businesses operate in the political sphere.

Said former journalist Bertha Henson: “It’s disquieting to read what’s online. The Government has always maintained that its tender processes are above-board. A political party too should maintain the same strictures lest it be accused of using business for political or private gain – at the expense of the public interest.’’
PAP’s Dr Teo said he would give a fuller accounting soon.

PS. I interviewed myself as a quote but apparently the technique just puzzled people…hence, deletion

Politics and business

I have got to say that WP’s Sylvia Lim was pretty feisty in her response to PAP’s Teo Ho Pin on the issue of the computer system termination that occurred in Aljunied-Hougang Town Council.

I missed out on quite a bit of the wrangle coz I was too busy eating this Christmas, so I had to look back at past news stories to get a handle on the issue. So the firm in question, AIM, did reply on why it terminated the deal. It was, it said, merely following a contract clause on “material changes’’ in composition of town council.

But Ms Lim is right in saying that the PAP has yet to answer some fundamental questions about the issue. Mr Teo had chosen instead to focus on how the town council had actually been preparing to replace its systems ahead of the termination in their latest exchange of words. And to use a favourite phrase of the PAP, they told WP to “come clean’’. (You know, this phrase is rather over-used…)

This is pretty distracting. The more important question is over AIM’s role and how it came to be in that role. Here’s where I think the online commentators have one over the MSM, asking detailed questions on whether there was any impropriety in the way the system was handed over to a PAP company. It looks clear to everyone that the clause “material changes’’ in composition is codeword for “political changes’’ – unless AIM and Mr Teo can show instances to the contrary.

Mr Teo said he would answer the questions in the next few days. I hope he answers every single question. And for good measure, he should also say if there are other PAP-owned companies and tell us what they do. Finally, he should articulate (or a higher-ranking PAP leader should) the role of the PAP in business. I am sure there’s some code of conduct on business somewhere no? Or do they only apply to members, and not to the party as a whole?

Waffling over Woffles

So the Woffles Wu case got an airing in Parliament – and it was so so NOT satisfying. Methinks ST gallery writer Lydia Lim was pulling her punches when she said the exchange between Minister Shanmugam and WP MP Sylvia Lim generated more heat than light. Actually, I don’t see how anyone could be enlightened by what went on. The only one who made any impression was WP’s chief Low Thia Kiang. He used the loaded word “intimidation” to refer to Mr Shan’s hectoring (?) of Ms Lim. His point: Isn’t question time about ministers having to answer questions from MPs not a debating ground? But that was what it turned out to be – two lawyers going at each other in a courtroom.

What did anyone learn? That there was six cases which Mr Shan maintained were comparable to Wu’s. Ms Lim did not say yes or no, but referred to another case, which Mr Shan responded to. Well, I have questions about the six – if my reading of the reports is right, then it seems like the six said “it wasn’t me who’s driving” to the police and somehow got found out. In Wu’s case, the fall guy said “t’was me” and Wu was caught out when someone called the CPIB and said the fall guy lied. So did the six actually finger someone else to take the blame? Mr Shan said the six did so multiple times too – did the police already know this, or found out it was multiple times only later? And frankly, if all six were caught multiple times – seems to me all should have had a heavier book thrown at them. So maybe there was no “favoritism” and the law is just bad?  Pity Ms Lim didn’t press the point

Pity too that Mr Shan didn’t take the platform to address the issue fully. What’s the point of sniping at Ms Lim’s “innuendo’ or “un-named lawyers” who appeared to have advised her, or whether she was a “fair-minded’ lawyer? Pity also that Ms Lim appeared to have no answer on whether other provisions of the law could have been utilised in Wu’s case. Mr Shan said he didn’t know of any and challenged Ms Lim to name them. Aiyah, So much stuff swirling on the Internet on the Road Traffic Atc, Penal Code, precedents, sentencing options! But even if she wasn’t fast enough on her feet, the G should have taken the chance to go through them point by point.

Pity. Because Mr Shan has a great capacity for intellectual elucidation – and we would all have got an education. Even though most of us are not lawyers, I would think we are “fair-minded” No need for the G to do so? I say there is a need simply BECAUSE we have to uphold our institutions. We must be clear about how they operate. Also because, as Ms Lim said: ”I think all of us know that the public is concerned about this case. I did not make any allegation there that AGC has acted mala fide in any way. Unless the Minister says that there is no public concern on this matter, which I would be very surprised to hear.”