5 more years of mistakes could also ruin Singapore

Sounds like MM wants to secure another 5 year tenure for the PAP before he himself becomes incapacitated.

We have heard him weave this doomsday prognosis for an opposition-ruled Singapore before. But what struck me was his comment that our "existence depends on performance" and his heavy emphasis on good leaders.

Knowing this, MM should realize that a vote for an opposition candidate will not be out of, as he put it, boredom or fickleness. If anything, it is an evaluation on the performance and capability of the PAP leaders. Should this performance not be up to the mark, or citizens are left realing over mistakes by incapable leaders (you know who), believe you me, the vote is anything but fickle.

The tough decisions, for which we are supposed to trust the government o make, should not be limited to how much and when to raise the price of ERP, GST, Utilities, HDBs...etc.

If the PAP is serious about defending their turf, political will is needed. Political will to weed out under performers is necessary because 5 more years of mistakes could also ruin Singapore.

June 26, 2008
MM LEE ON FREAK POLL RESULTS
5 Years all it takes to ruin Singapore

'I know how we got here and I know how we can unscramble it,'
he says
By Lydia Lim

ONE freak election result is all it will take to wipe out Singapore's
success in building up the city state, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew warned last
night.

This could happen if voters became bored and decided to give the
'vociferous opposition' a chance - out of 'light-heartedness, fickleness or
sheer madness'.

'In five years, you can ruin this place and it's very difficult to pick up
the pieces,' he told 650 participants of a dinner forum at the Shangri-La Hotel.

Mr Lee was responding to a Bangladesh delegate who asked if Singapore would continue to thrive in his absence. The delegate also expressed sorrow at the news of Mrs Lee's illness, and Mr Lee thanked him.

In his reply, Mr Lee returned to themes he has spoken on often - the need for a system to ensure good leaders emerge, and the danger that voters plumping for more opposition MPs might end up with an unintended change of government.

Larger countries rich in resources can survive such a freak outcome, but not Singapore, he said.

'When you're Singapore and your existence depends on performance - extraordinary performance, better than your competitors - when that performance disappears because the system on which it's been based becomes eroded, then you've lost everything,' he said.

'I try to tell the younger generation that and they say the old man is playing the same record, we've heard it all before. I happen to know how we got here and I know how we can unscramble it.'

He said a country needed three elements to succeed.

First, a government that people have confidence in and will trust when tough decisions need to be taken.

Second, leaders who are above board, who make decisions based on necessity, not how they will personally benefit. He said Singaporeans know they have such leaders because, over the years, 'we have not got richer, Singapore has'.

Third and most importantly, a country needs able men in charge.

The problem with popular democracy, he said, is that during elections, candidates are not judged on how well they can govern, but on their persuasive power.

The forum, chaired by Mr Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, was a highlight of the first World Cities Summit and International ater Week.

In his opening remarks, Mr Lee spoke for 20 minutes off the cuff, recounting his 40 years of striving to build up Singapore's independent water supply. He was determined because as long as Singapore was totally reliant on its neighbours for water, it would remain a 'satellite'.

During a 30-minute question-and-answer session, participants from around the world probed him about water management and political leadership.

He also presented the first Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize to Dr Andrew Benedek, a pioneer in the field of membrane technology for water treatment.

A key outcome of several sessions held yesterday was the setting up of an informal network of 16 countries - comprising the Asean 10, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand - to share ideas and expertise on how to go about pursuing sustainable development.

And the World Bank announced plans to set up in Singapore a regional hub for training urban planners, which will draw on the Republic's success in city development.
lydia@sph.com.sg

Malaysia BN's creative tactics

Taken from Malaysiakini - "The Barisan Nasional leadership is so worried that some of their members of parliament in Sarawak and Sabah will leave or cross over to Pakatan Rakyat (PR) that they have packed them off to go on official visits overseas."

So much for the recently announced cost cutting package. So instead of going on vacation, they are now called "official visits overseas".

And with a no confidence vote looming, the numbers below make sense dont they? If you are not around, how do you vote? Clever.

Monday June 23, 2008
137 MPs to reject no-confidence motion against PM

MINGGUAN Malaysia has claimed that 137 Members of Parliament have pledged
to reject any attempt to table a no-confidence motion against the Prime Minister.

Deputy Backbenchers’ Club president Datuk Bung Moktar Radin said he had also directed its members to get ready and arm themselves with “facts” to defend the Prime Minister if ever such a motion saw the light of day at the Dewan.

“However, as of now, we have not received any information about the tabling of such motion. Tomorrow’s (Monday’s) proceedings will go on peacefully and there will be no extraordinary event,” he said.

Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president Datuk Yong Teck Lee had on Friday
announced that its supreme council had endorsed a no-confidence motion against
Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as Prime Minister.

Escape Blunder - No not Singapore, but UK

2008 will be remembered as the year of the great escapes.

We have had the MSK Toilet Escape, the Moroccon Prison Escape, the Taliban Prison Escape, and now we have 7 illegal immigrants escaping from a dention centre in the UK.

While not of the same magnitude of escaped terrorists, the damage to image and egos is very evident. First world, developing world, under developed world.... we all make mistakes, so lets not pretend we are infallable.

For those keeping score: Asia - 1, Mideast - 1, Africa - 1, Europe - 1

Escape blunder as Jacqui Smith launches immigration crackdown

By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent Last updated: 8:37 PM
BST 19/06/2008

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, faced embarrassment today after seven illegal immigrants broke out of a detention centre on the day she unveiled a new crackdown on immigration.

Miss Smith revealed a "tough" strategy for tackling offenders and launched it by meeting with police officers carrying out dawn raids on alleged bent solicitors and bogus colleges.

But within hours, news had emerged of a security breach at the Campsfield detention centre in Oxfordshire. Three men who were facing deportation are on the run tonight

Opposition leaders hit out at repeated, "unacceptable" blunders at Campsfield and said the timing of the incident, coinciding with the new policy launch, was "sadly appropriate".

In a raft of new measures, Miss Smith announced that the UK Border Agency would "name and shame" employers who hire illegal immigrants, that those who were convicted and sentenced to a year or more faced "automatic deportation", and launched a crackdown on illegal immigrants obtaining British driving licences.

In the London raids, police arrested at least eight men and women linked with companies they believe helped illegal immigrants to settle in the UK.

Officials believe the firm of solicitors at the centre of the inquiry was issuing false education certificates to them, which they would then use to "enrol" at one of four bogus colleges across London and fraudulently apply for student visas.

Only later did the break-out emerge. Four of the escapees were recaptured by police shortly after the alarm was raised at 4 am, including one, a Libyan with a criminal record, who was found eating tomatoes at the Botanical Gardens in Oxford. The other three remain on the run, Thames Valley Police said.

The break-out happened just five days after a fire at the 215-man Campsfield detention centre, during which around 20 detainees staged a rooftop protest.

There was a riot at the centre last December and 26 detainees escaped from the centre in a mass break-out months before.

Dominic Grieve, Shadow Home Secretary, said: "It is sadly appropriate that a serious and dangerous incident at an immigration detention centre should coincide with the Government's latest attempt at talking tough on immigration. "

Announcing yet another reorganisation of the UK Borders Agency and putting names on a website is no substitute for real action. Naming and shaming is no substitute for catching and convicting.

"All of this shows why we need an integrated Border Police Force bringing together the police with immigration and customs, to make our borders safer and the immigration system less chaotic."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "This is the fifth major disturbance at Campsfield in little over a year and the second in a week. It raises serious questions about the wisdom of mixing foreign national ex-prisoners with immigration detainees.

"The frequency of fires and escapes suggests there are significant problems with either the Home Office system or the management of Campsfield itself."

Story from Telegraph

News:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/2158121/Escape-blunder-as-Jacqui-Smith-launches-immigration-crackdown.html

Fairprice moving towards fairer prices?

I believe this is probably the only good piece of news i have heard this entire year. NTUC will be reducing the prices of their housebrand rice from today onwards due to savings both current and projected.

These days it seems prices only positively correlate to rising resoure/commodity prices yet some how negatively correlate to price drops. With inflation in singapore hitting record 25 year highs, some forms of inflationary easing are always welcomed.

Could the Government or NTUC do more to ease these costs? You bet. But you take what you can when you can.

FairPrice cuts housebrand prices, a sign of rice getting cheaper?
Loh Chee Kong cheekong@mediacorp.com.sg

AFTER three months of soaring rice prices, consumers can afford to breathe
a little easier for now.

From today, the prices of eight types of NTUC FairPrice’s housebrand rice will be reduced by between 5 and 12 per cent, Singapore’s largest supermarket chain announced yesterday. This marks the first time FairPrice is cutting the prices of its housebrands since rice prices shot up in March.

A 5kg bag of its Thai Fragrant White Rice will cost $7.45, down from $8.50,
while its Thai White Rice (picture) — the cheapest type — will be sold at $6.95
for a 5kg bag, instead of $7.50. Although global rice prices peaked about three weeks ago, the price of rice had been expected to fall in recent months, as major producers in South-east Asia braced themselves for harvesting bumper crops.

But CIMB-GK economist Song Seng Wun was circumspect on whether the price of
rice would continue to drop across the board, pointing out that the initial spike was triggered by unpredictable factors such as inclement weather and panic-buying.

“At least for now, there is more stability for rice, a staple food here,” he said. “But having said that, the price of rice is still significantly higher than that of a year ago.”

On Wednesday, a survey by the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) provided the first indications of a respite for consumers when it revealed that the prices for a handful of imported rice brands, such as Golden Peony and Royal Umbrella, had dipped. But the survey also showed that prices of housebrands had risen in the last month.

FairPrice group chief executive Tan Kian Chew added that the company was “still clearing the existing stock of rice bought at a higher price”.

Mr Tan said: “Due to our prudent buying strategy, we have managed to secure new shipments of rice at a lower price. Although the new shipments will arrive only in end July ... FairPrice is committed to pass on the anticipated savings to our customers.”

Today was unable to reach the other supermarket chains at press time, but Case executive director Seah Seng Choon said that FairPrice’s competitors might
follow suit “if they were concerned with competition”.

Still, Mr Seah added: “In the short run, there would be price rigidity and prices might not go down as much as consumers want to see. But the prices shouldn’t be going up.”

Attempted Subordinate Court Escape: Better Humans not Systems

“It shouldn’t have happened” and “human error” have become popular phrases by high level ministers these days. We first heard them from Wong Kan Seng after the Mas Selamat escape and now from K Shanmugan after the attempted escape by 2 individuals charged with robbery.

Unlike Mas Selamat’s escape, the foiled subordinate court escape was apparently not due to poor systems/procedures. I guess I can accept that point. After all, there was nothing wrong this time with the CCTV cameras or the physical structures of the lock-up at the courts. So yes, it was largely down to human error. This view is of course only based on what I know of the incident as reported.

Limiting the movement of accused individuals at the Subordinate court, as proposed by Shanmugan, sounds like a good idea as long as this does not deny them the right to have their case heard in a manner that is not prejudicial to them. Just like flights risk individuals should not be denied medical treatment. If the treatment is not in a public hospital then the standards in a secured facility should not be lacking in quality.

But limited movement is movement nonetheless and thus there will always be opportunities for lapses to occur once again.

Will adding more procedures or systems be the cure-it-all? It really depends as more steps can actually further complicate things and result in confusion or an over reliance on these systems to prevent human error. Each individual may start to rely on another cleaning up potential lapses. Thankfully there was some semblance of system effectiveness in reacting to the attempted escape.

But those that have been to the army will know that no amount of SOP, guidelines or rules can prevent shit from happening. As long as humans are left in charge of executing them, there will always be the chance for mistakes. And this can sometimes be due to “negligence” or “acts of God” beyond our control. Personal errors are not always due to “complacency” as the state-funded press will have you believe.

This is where our million dollar ministers earn their pay check. Apart from formulating strategies and systems of conduct, they also need to invest heavily in proper training and motivation of personnel under their charge. A system is only as good as the sum of all its parts and if the just one component fails, the whole system crumbles.

Malaysia's cost-cutting package: When not enough is dangerous

If there is anything we learn from watching politics in Singapore, it is that if you look beyond the shiny gloss surface, you might see an ugly reflection. And this is even more so for our neighbours up north.

Malaysia announced a 2.0-billion-ringgit ($612-million) cost-cutting package aimed at softening the blow after an unpopular 41 percent fuel price increase. A component of this cost-cutting package is a 10% reduction in Minister allowances. Not exactly a major sacrifice if you consider that it is only their entertainment allowances are affected. As their vacations will also be limited to domestic and ASEAN destinations, I am assuming that the state pays for their vacations.

Now I am assuming that 10% of minister allowances and the savings from their travel expenses would not amount to more than a few millions of dollars per year. If it did amount to a larger than proportionate share of the cost savings then perhaps they should be looking at the other 90%. But assuming it doesn’t, these small personal ‘sacrifices’ are operating in tandem with monumental sacrifices from the people of Malaysia as the major component of this cost-cutting package is the deferment of major infrastructure projects.

Unfortunately, while saving the Government millions, such projects like upgrading public transportation and building low-cost housing would in fact help the poor reduce their dependency on private vehicles and rising house prices (due to rising material costs brought about by rising fuel). Therefore, such cost cuttings would only amount to a short term fix and in fact make Malaysians less able to tackle rising costs in the future.

And what about the revenues from rising crude prices? Last year, Malaysia's fuel subsidies cost the state about US$12.44 billion. At that time, crude oil prices hover around US$100 a barrel. However, as a net oil exporter, Malaysia gains from high oil prices, reaping US$77.6m a year in revenue for every US$1 rise in crude prices. Prices of crude has since risen by roughly US$30 and simple projections would mean an increase in revenue of approximately US$2 billion. Can this be channelled to the poor instead? Apparently not as the newly restructured fuel subsidy system (even after the reduction) is expected to cost US$14bn this year (US$2 billion more than last year).

Thus, if a 41% increase is fuel price is a direct result of a reduction in fuel subsidy, there is essentially no increase in revenue the government can play with as the government is essentially spending the same amount as last year while the people are spending more at the stations and left to face rising inflation.

The major source of funding for this relief package is thus coming from a public spend; public spending which would have been more effective in providing relief in the long run. A seeming in ability to manage the economy would definately open the door for the Opposition. We all know the power of bread and butter issues to swing opinion.