S$40 million PAP SkillsFuture Scandal

A 41-year-old man has been hauled to court over his alleged involvement in Singapore's largest case of a public institution being defrauded to date, involving nearly $40 million.

The government agency involved is SkillsFuture Singapore, which promotes a culture of lifelong learning.

On Tuesday (Dec 19), Ng Cheng Kwee was charged with three counts of intentionally perverting the course of justice.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Victoria Ting told the court that a criminal syndicate could be involved and Ng is believed to be one of the main perpetrators.

Before this, Ng was charged with one count of engaging in a conspiracy to commit forgery.

He was also charged with concealing benefits of criminal conduct - namely $6.7 million in cash and 11kg of gold worth about $600,000.

Ng is said to have committed these offences between April and last month.

Four other people have also been charged over their alleged involvement in the case.

In a statement on Tuesday, SkillsFuture Singapore said it detected anomalies in claims for training grants at the end of October.

It immediately suspended all payments of grants to nine business entities and reported the matter to the police.

Following this incident, SkillsFuture Singapore said it has taken immediate action to tighten its processes, including implementing fraud analytics, while conducting a comprehensive review of the system.

"(SkillsFuture Singapore) takes a serious view of any individual, training provider or organisation that abuses its funding schemes, and will not hesitate to take action against those who contravene its funding rules and guidelines," said the agency.

Ng is now remanded at Central Police Division and will be back in court on Dec 26.

Five suspected members of a criminal syndicate have been charged with a series of offences, which resulted in close to S$40 million in fraudulent claims being paid out by SkillsFuture Singapore (SSG).

In a news release on Tuesday (Dec 19), SSG said the offences include “engaging in a conspiracy to submit forged documents to fraudulently obtain training subsidies from SSG, and to conceal the benefits from such criminal conduct.”

Police seized substantial cash and froze a number of bank accounts involved in the case, the release added.

“Preliminary police investigation reveals that the criminal syndicate behind these fraudulent claims operated an organised network that utilised nine business entities, comprising employer companies and training providers, to submit the fraudulent claims.”

SSG said it detected anomalies in claims for training grants at the end of October 2017 and immediately suspended all payments of grants to the nine business entities and reported the case to the police.

It added that it has taken immediate actions to tighten processes, which include implementing fraud analytics, while conducting a comprehensive review of the system.

SSG takes a serious view of any individual, training provider or organisation that abuses its funding schemes, and will not hesitate to take action against those who contravene its funding rules and guidelines,” the release added.

Police investigations are ongoing.

Why Khaw Boon Wan and Lui Tuck Yew are just Scapegoats

When Lui Tuck Yew decided to quit his post as Minister of Transport and withdrew himself from any future involvement in the government, he probably found out what Khaw Boon Wan found out today.

While Lui did not wait for things to happen before he resigned, Khaw had no choice but to put up with the furore of public angers following almost daily train breakdowns culminating in a train collision that injured 29 passengers and staff.

And Khaw minced no words when he pointed out at the systemic and cultural faults in the original planning of the whole MRT system. Which means that you can keep on changing Transport Ministers or SMRT CEOs but the result is the same - more breakdowns from virtually unknown or unheard of sources. It's like a lottery game.

If you look closer at the issue, both Lui and Khaw were in the Transport Ministry for too short a time to be blamed for any major decision-making by them that results in the disastrous rail system. They were merely put there as scapegoat to be slaughtered by the public.

During his press conference Khaw shed some light into something we can only guess, but now it is from the horses' mouths. He mentioned in no uncertain terms that the lack of funding from the govt, resulting in cost-cutting measures, which in turn leads to cutting corners are the root-cause of today's public transport problems.

This culture of cost-cutting versus the cost of everything else started during the reign of Lee Hsien Loong as the Finance Minister, who is keeping very quiet now. He is the one who approve or disapprove these spendings. And during those days, his culture is based on profits. For every dollar he spent, he wanted to earn back another dollar more.

Which means, if he approves the building of a new MRT line, SMRT must provide proposals to earn back double the amount spent over say, a 10 year period. SMRT need to work with other agencies to come up with proposals that include building HDB clusters around new stations to maximise flow of commuters, setting up of shopping malls and renting of space to retailers at MRT stations.

This is, in fact, the main reason for today's overcrowding and overloading of the MRT trains, resulting in the many breakdowns

So the emphasis is not on providing the public with a high quality, high standard, long-term viable transport system, but one that will generate maximum profits as soon as possible. The results of this culture is showing now. Low quality, understaffed, poor workmanship and sloppy maintenance resulting in even more breakdowns from the already overloaded trains and tracks.

The man responsible for this debacle is keeping very quiet, because he doesn't want this to affect the next general election's results too much. He leaves it to the scapegoats (whoever they might be) to take the bullets, while he plays the good guy out to help you out of your troubles. He has difficulty doing this now with the MRT, with the constant breakdowns.

Who knows this gutless man better than his brother and sister? His siblings already warned Singaporeans of the danger of their gutless brother, who will not hesitate to abuse his power to get what he want for himself.

A leader who truly think of the helping the people and the country, would not care too much about his salary, but this man insist on paying himself exorbitant remunerations (see chart taken from a forum, below). And this amount exclude the 12-month bonus he is rumoured to be getting every year. And the lame reason given is he should be paid like a CEO. He can't be earning less than his CEO wife from Temasek, can he (irrespective of his job role)?

We also saw with our own eyes how he manipulated the Elected Presidency to get his choice of President in the Halimah saga.

Judge a dog by how it wags its tail, and not by who its father was. He (or his culture?) is going to be the root of all of Singapore's future troubles, and they are coming as regular as Christmas. Spat with China, Oxley saga, Elected President saga, SMRT scandals, etc.

What next?

The SMRT Scandal - by a whistle blower

A station manager from SMRT blow the whistle on what’s going on in the organization. He share with the public his experience with SMRT work culture.

This is what he said:

Hi redditors. As promised, I’m gonna write about my experience with SMRT work culture. I’m currently working at SMRT as a Station Manager (SM) and for privacy/security/work reasons, I would not go into technical details of work and try as much as possible to anonymise the things. I am not going to send proof because this is the only livelihood I have and I don’t want to lose job just because I talk bad about the organization on reddit. I swear, my direct supervisor maybe on reddit and he not really on good terms with me. Also, apologise in advance for bad English, I’m not good with English since young (poly graduate).

Anyway, I see that the SMRT problem has been getting worse ever since the time when we had the “cable tie” problem. It seems to be getting worse, but like what they always say: “We are working on it”. No, seriously, we are working on it, if only the people here aren’t that all lazy and complacent. People always say to me: Why SMRT don’t have SOP? Why they don’t tell the SM what to do at station if train breakdown? Actually, we have SOP. The SOP is quite long and covers almost all situation, even those that you have never experience before. You know why people don’t follow or cut corners on SOP? Because it’s boring and repetitive. Our station staff get lazy. Why must check XYZ every hour? Check if this thing locked? No need lah, won’t happen one. Limpeh work for 25 years NEVER happen, don’t worry! At least according to one of my colleagues. Some of them have worked for 30 years in the company and yet, they are still slacking off. Yes, 30 years. Old old birds, from the time where we got wear epaulets on grey shirt.

You might be thinking: Okay lah, people get bored with repetitive stuff. Men would know from NS, it gets boring after the 200th time you go patrol the camp. But this is getting out of hand. Some of my colleagues, who working in station, go sleep for like a few hours every shift. Sleep, play games or even just lepak. Some are still hardworking, even though they sleep, but some really cmi. One station the aircon went out, the SM did not deploy fans, because want to sleep. Also, other stations had things where the station staff go handle “suspicious articles” like as if not suspicious. The object are sometimes very suspicious, like got one time was a pressure cooker (which, if you guys don’t know, people got make bombs before with those things). What if that thing explode? I don’t want to imagine.

Sometimes it even gets criminal. You know why LTA suddenly got idea to go cashless by 2020? It’s not smart nation, that is just excuse for covering up something worse. Because station staff always “borrow” money from the PSC cash drawer to buy lunch/dinner/groceries and then they either: lie on the cash report or they blame other staff for the shortage. That is what I suspect is true reason and there was this incident in the news where the Tanah Merah SM stole $20k from the PSC. Another thing is I heard got staff who always like to scold passengers if they blur or if they scold at them. I know we are not customer service kind of training, but that is bad customer service.

The staff not scared of being fired? They are not scared. Because every time got problem, CEO and top management, those university educated people, get the blame. They all attend the conferences and kena sai from public. We all are the ones who did it, but we never kena, only cut bonus or kena “strongly worded” email. Yes, maybe the pump incident they got, because that is almost criminal. But most of the time, our uncle Desmond and Khaw take the blame. We all don’t. Sometimes like ironic because the passengers give gifts to staff who I know are lazy. They all also cannot fire because: we all collude with our supervisors, who is usually someone we know who got promoted or they have no proof one. If got proof also, one of the colleagues say he gonna post on social media and shame SMRT and their million dollar management for firing someone who is working very hard to feed his family, even though I know he always cut corners and slack off. You know what? Singaporeans will accept the story, because blue collar worker kena fired by men in white. Oppo figures also repost, because can use for politics and shame government. Win win right? But commuters never win, the lazy staff will get the job back through pressure by public.

What can outside people do? Actually, I also don’t know. I want to say should follow Donald Trump (I don’t support him) slogan: “Drain the swamp”. The SMRT is just basically a swamp filled with leeches. Top to bottom, all of them like your NSmen: lazy, chao keng, siam and arrow people. People tell me they should replace Desmond with HK/JP/don’t know what CEO. But for what? Some colleagues even got the cheek to say: “better lah, cos japan ceo always take blame and they cut salary. Shiok, still can enjoy bonus.” and that cos Japan companies like to shame workers by removing responsibilities: “shiok ah. Don’t need to do work still get paid”. How to fix liddat? You need to remove this people, they already got the mindset of not doing work.

I heard SMRT is hiring FT from nearby countries because they not enough local talent who want to join MRT especially with the news. I actually support that idea, because they all are at least hard working and if they don’t do work, they have to leave Singapore. My colleagues all jealous when the FT gets award by SMRT, but my personal experience is, at least they do their work and they don’t go against everyone. I not saying that I want FT to work, but it’s actually better for the train system.

I finish ranting already, fed up but I like trains and the work. Feel free to ask questions, I am here to answer them. Don’t ask sensitive question, I don’t want people know.

Desmond Kuek - the Army trained Backstabber

According to inside sources in SMRT, 6 staff has been fired for owning up to falsification of the maintenance record despite being guaranteed no penalty would be meted during the “amnesty period”. The staff who came forward are from the facilities management department, in-charge of tunnel ventilation and anti-flood and anti-fire measures.

The move by former army general SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek to fire the staff who owned up is an open backstab despite him promising no penalties.

In a company email circulation earlier this week, SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek wrote that staffs who owned up before the commencement of a “full audit” would be excused from punishment:

“In order to quickly establish the extent of such improper practices, an amnesty period was allowed for staff to volunteer information in open reporting as a mitigation against further disciplinary action.”

On Oct 7, the train tunnels between Bishan and Newton were found to be flooded by rain water after the pump drainage system failed. The pump system maintenance records were later found to have been falsified according to a preliminary investigation report issued by SMRT and the Land Transport Authority (LTA).

SMRT CEOs Desmond Kuek and Lee Ling Wee, and the two Transport Ministers Khaw Boon Wan and Ng Chee Meng, refuse to take responsibility of the flooded train tunnel incident, and pushed all blame to SMRT employees for the “lapses”.

Latest Update on MRT Scandal:

MRT train collides with stationary train at Joo Koon station; 29 people hurt

SINGAPORE: Twenty-nine people were injured after an SMRT train collided with a stationary train at Joo Koon station at 8.20am on Wednesday morning (Nov 15), the Land Transport Authority (LTA) and SMRT said.
In its first tweet at 8.25am, SMRT said that a "train fault" happened at Joo Koon station. 

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) later said it was alerted to the incident at 8.33am. 

In a joint statement issued at 11.12am, SMRT and LTA said a train heading in the direction of Tuas Link station stalled at Joo Koon station at 8.18am.
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A minute later, a second train stopped behind the first faulty train, the statement added.
"At 8.20am, the second train moved forward unexpectedly, and came into contact with the first train," the statement said. SMRT and LTA added that they are investigating the incident.

Twenty-seven passengers and two SMRT staff sustained "light to moderate injuries", and were taken to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital and National University Hospital (NUH).

Channel NewsAsia understands that 10 people were taken to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital and 15 sent to NUH from the scene of the incident.

Later in the day, Ng Teng Fong General Hospital received four walk-in patients, with the latest at about 7.30pm.

Out of the 15 sent to NUH, one declined treatment and returned home, while 13 others received treatment and were discharged. One passenger is currently warded for observation.

Out of the 14 injured admitted to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital, 11 were treated and discharged, while two were warded for observation and the new patient is being treated.

"The Ministry of Transport, Land Transport Authority (LTA) and SMRT will remain in touch with the injured passengers and others who may come forward later to offer the necessary assistance," LTA and SMRT said in an updated joint statement late on Wednesday.

A spokesman from Ng Teng Fong Hospital said among those injured at the hospital, two were assessed to have sustained injuries under the P2 category.

According to the Health Ministry’s website, medical care at emergency departments is prioritised according to four levels. In this case, the category refers to “Major Emergency Patients” who are usually unable to walk. Injuries under this category include limb fractures, joint dislocation and severe back pain.

Another eight sustained minor injuries and were assessed to be under the P3 category, which includes sprains and minor head injuries.

Facebook user Mei Anne wrote that she was a passenger on one of the trains, and hurt her back as a result of the collision.

Two trains collided at Joo Koon MRT station on Nov 15. (Photo: Facebook/Mei Anne)
A platform at Joo Koon MRT station was cordoned off with police tape following the incident. At least 10 emergency vehicles were seen outside the station.

At about 2pm, more than five hours after the train collision, SMRT announced that train service between Boon Lay and Tuas Link stations in both directions will be suspended for two hours.
"This is to facilitate the recovery of the two trains involved in this morning’s incident at Joo Koon MRT station. We are doing all we can to restore services safely and expeditiously," said the train operator in a Facebook post.

It added that free regular bus and bridging bus services are available between those two stations.
At about 3.20pm, one of the trains involved in the incident was pulled away in the direction of Tuas Link MRT station.

In an update at 5.15pm, SMRT said services between Boon Lay and Tuas Link station "have resumed but are running slower".

Commuters were advised to add 10 minutes' travel time between Jurong East and Tuas Link.

In an update at about 5.45pm, SMRT advised commuters to "seek alternative transport" or add 25 minutes of travel time for those taking the North-South Line. Free bridging bus services between Bishan and Yishun were available.

The delay was later increased to 40 minutes and commuters were advised to take alternative rail lines.

LAST MRT TRAIN COLLISION WAS IN 1993
The last time that an MRT train collision happened in Singapore was more than two decades ago. That incident, a front-to-back collision between two trains at Clementi station on Aug 5, 1993, resulted in 156 injured commuters.

An independent inquiry panel found that the accident was caused by a 50L oil spill from a maintenance locomotive which had been carrying out maintenance work at about 5am on the day of the accident.

Following the findings, SMRT revised its operating procedures to require staff to inspect the platform tracks for oil, and in the event of an oil spill, the train at the station preceding the spill will not move off until the train ahead has left the station.

Read more at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/mrt-train-collides-with-stationary-train-at-joo-koon-station-29-9407266

Why Are We Called Dogs?

Some kind words from our founding father. We the dogs had helped created such a successful city state. For who? The rich and powerful of course.

Latest Lie from the Prime Minister at CNBC Interview

Lee Hsien Yang has refuted his dictator Prime Minister brother Lee Hsien Loong’s claims that the siblings’ quarrel has been resolved. The PM’s brother who is in self-exiled in Hong Kong confirmed that the PM has lied during the CNBC interview a week ago, and that the PM never once made any attempt to resolve the issue:

“Our brother says he is unsure that the feud is solved. Notwithstanding his public statements, Hsien Loong has made no attempt to reach out to us to resolve matters in private. Meanwhile, the Attorney General is busy prosecuting Hsien Loong’s nephew for his private correspondence. The AGC’s letters make repeated reference to the family feud.”

In Aug 2017, Lee Hsien Loong contracted his crony Attorney General, Lucien Wong, who was his former private lawyer to prosecute his nephew Li Shengwu for contempt of court. The Attorney General fabricated a fake charge by taking a screenshot of Li Shengwu’s private Facebook post and demanded the latter to face prosecution.

Li Shengwu is currently a research fellow at Harvard University, and he will be taking a lecturer role at the school next year. The grandson of Lee Kuan Yew ironically imposed a self-exile on himself, confirming that he will not return to Singapore to face his uncle Prime Minister’s persecution. With Li Shengwu out of the way, Lee Hsien Loong’s son, Li Hongyi, has his way paved for premiership in the Lee dictatorship. Li Hongyi is currently a senior civil servant and “consultant” at the propaganda ministry, Ministry of Communications and Information.

The Fumbling Dictator

Indian Muslims are Malay. Appointed President is elected. Elections can be won without a vote. Resigning just a month means you are independent.

These irregularities turned into a reality and jolted many Singaporeans into realising that the country they called a democracy is actually a dictatorship. Under whose dictatorship then? Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his cronies.

Unfortunately the power weld by the dictator is not limited to himself, unlike his father’s time. Back then, Lee Kuan Yew was the sole leader whose words overwrite everyone, even of senior ministers. Lee Hsien Loong however created a consensus dictatorship and shared his dictatorship powers to his cronies.

Lee Hsien Loong’s ineffectual leadership gave rise to mediocres like Law Minister K Shanmugam, Minister of National Development Lawrence Wong and Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan, who acted like mini-dictators circling around the king. Like the eunuchs of a corrupted dynasty, the three corrupted ministers jeopardised the country’s judiciary system, town council system and public transport system.

Under Law Minister K Shanmugam, a crony Attorney General who was Lee Hsien Loong’s former private lawyer was appointed, the High Court was unable to define the first elected President without deferring to the Lee Hsien Loong-controlled Parliament, and the Parliament can twist facts because it is a “policy’s decision”.

Minister of National Development Lawrence Wong openly abused his ministerial powers to set Opposition Workers’ Party MPs up for corruption. The devious Minister for his smirk in Parliament known denied the WP Town Councils funding, then accuse them of not meeting sinking fund payment obligations. Minister Lawrence Wong is now looking to unseat 3 WP MPs – Low Thia Kiang, Sylvia Lim and Pritam Singh – by charging them of misappropriating S$33 milion in town council payments.

Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan is probably the worst among them all, doing next to nothing to fix the train system and even have the cheek to ask for a 7 year extension. When under intense public scrutiny over the increasing train disruptions, Khaw Boon Wan went into full denial mode: accusing the media of being tabloid, insisting that rail reliability is improving and using his fabricated fake news data to propose a fare raise. The superstitious Transport Minister even resorted to hiring religious leaders to pray for the broken public transport system.

Topping the corruption ladder is Lee Hsien Loong, who puts himself as the unchallenged Prime Minister,  Chairman of GIC, his wife Ho Ching as Temasek Holdings CEO, and empowering his Prime Minister’s Office with the corruption bureau CPIB, election department and Monetary Authority of Singapore under his charge, for more than 14 years.

The present state of affairs is a dark age for Singapore no better than the colonial times. Many Singaporeans are facing arrests from criticising the dictatorship, and a number has went into exile including Lee Hsien Loong’s nephew Li Shengwu and younger brother Lee Hsien Yang. States Times Review editor Alex Tan is also in self-exile in Australia, CPF writer Roy Ngerng is in self-exile in Taiwan and Youtube film maker Amos Yee is a political asylum seeker in US.

A change is unlikely to happen and the dictatorship will continue to endure in coming years as many “agents of change” leave the country fearing persecution while elections continue to be fixed with newer regulations to give the ruling party an edge no opposition party can catch up with. Many Singaporeans still in the city are hoping for divine intervention. When news of Lee Hsien Loong’s prostate cancer hit headlines, many rejoiced but only to to be disappointed that Lee Hsien Loong survived his third cancer. Obscenely rich as these corrupted dictators may be, death is the only equaliser.

The poor and the working class population of Singapore are living without dignity: More young Singaporeans are unemployed, or working in part-time stints without a future. The “more fortunate” ones on full-time jobs are stuck with 60-hour work weeks with no overtime pay. The middle-aged Singaporean employees get displaced by cheaper foreigners. The disabled and unemployable elderly ones stricken with health problems pick cardboard for a living or beg on the streets selling tissue paper, while the rest works as cleaners, security guards or in low esteem jobs earning the pity stares of the people around them. Retirement is a far-fetched dream as CPF payout dwindle from the increasingly stringent withdrawal laws. Everyone is stressed out for good reasons: suicide rate is going up, crime rate is going up, unemployment is also going up, cost of living is going up, public transport is failing and a myriad of other social problems are surfacing. This is Singapore.

Yet on the very same island, there is the affluent and rich. Sitting on the top 1% is the corrupted ruling party members who reward themselves with million dollar salaries. Costing a total of S$53 million a year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s administration is the most spendthrift government in history. The corrupted dictator rewards himself with S$2.2 million, and weld complete control over the country’s finance.

CPF funds and the national reserves are invested by the country’s only two sovereign wealth fund companies: GIC and Temasek Holdings. Lee Hsien Loong puts himself as the chairman of GIC and his wife Ho Ching as CEO of Temasek Holdings, and gambled in the global stock market with Singaporeans’ money since 2002.

The dictator also positioned the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) under his Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), and manipulated the interest rate payment of CPF – giving cheap credit to GIC and Temasek Holdings which profit from the difference in special government securities bond and their real return from global investments. At 2.5%, CPF pays the lowest interest rates among all retirement funds.

Aside of dipping his hands into the national reserves, Lee Hsien Loong renders himself above all forms of investigation by putting the corruption bureau CPIB under his PMO command. The dictator appointed his former private lawyer Lucien Wong as Attorney General, and commence prosecutions against the opposition and his critics, putting them in jail or bankrupting them through defamation lawsuits.

Such atrocities are not uncommon among dictators in history. Lee Hsien Loong is just another corrupted politician leeching off the people he is “serving”. The Prime Minister is just a fake title he wears while exercising the actual power of an emperor like a monarchy. Singapore did not get its independence in 1965, Singaporeans merely swapped their former British colonial master for a new one. The British were untouchable before, just as a PAP member today is.

To worsen things, Singaporeans are neutered and indoctrinated with the belief of “changing a system from within”. Those who tried gets swallowed by the dictatorship, while those who refuse to prove their loyalty are kept away from power.

Dictatorships are overthrown, not voted out in rigged election designed to keep the incumbents in power. Just like how the powerful British colonial masters were overthrown, Singaporeans must resort to public protests. The people must not be afraid to sacrifice themselves engaging in civil disobedience to overthrow Lee Hsien Loong.

The passage of time teaches oppressed people how to overthrow a dictatorship, and in all cases blood is shed. A coup d’éta, political assassination or uprising are called “revolution” when a new government is installed, or “terrorism” when they fail. Losers are never kindly treated in history, no matter how just their cause was. Henceforth, the success of any operation will earn you the label of a “patriot” or “terrorist”.

How does one motivate himself into taking these perceived drastic solutions, depends on the vision he has for the country. The oppressed looks only at the past and present and think to themselves: “If I obey, I am good.” This is also why most Singaporeans are pessimistic in their outlook, it is hard for one to be forward looking when there is a need to suppress his thoughts and hold his tongue before he speaks. To them, Lee Hsien Loong can never be overthrown and illegitimate methods must never be entertained.

For a start, Singaporeans must change their mindset and look to the future. The future where Singapore can truly be an egalitarian society where the weak is supported, and where the wicked no matter how privileged is punished. A Singapore where the people actively participate in policy formulation, and not for the sake of earning brownie points from a small elitist class of aristocrats. A Singapore where people voice dissent and criticise freely, without fear for his freedom. A real nationhood, and not a false democracy.

Shanmugam: Parliament is Sovereign To Decide When To Start Counting The 5 Presidents

Law Minister K Shanmugam brought prata-flipping to a new level in Parliament yesterday (Oct 3) saying that appointed President Wee Kim Wee is elected because he took the Attorney General Chambers’s (AGC) advice. However, he contradicted himself in the same speech saying that the AGC’s advice is irrelevant, and closed the matter without further questions.

“Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the next election will be reserved for a Malay president and we have taken advice from the AGC. What Ms Lim is saying is that we are starting to count from here because of the AGC’s advice.  I think that was never suggested…  In any case, the legal advice given by the Attorney-General is irrelevant as the question before the court was whether the decision to count from President Wee’s term was constitutional… PM took the same position, he explained in Parliament. We decide but we took AGC’s advice. Did anyone say we are going to decide this way because this is the way that AGC has told us that we have to decide? That would make no sense because Parliament is sovereign.”

The corrupted Law Minister also took a snake bite at Opposition MP Sylvia Lim who criticised that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong misled Parliament:

“There is only one person in this House whom the courts have held to be misleading Parliament. And he is not from the PAP.”

Opposition MP Sylvia Lim has earlier given two quotes in parliament saying the ruling party has misled the people.

On 8 Nov 2017, PM Lee Hsien Loong told Parliament: “We have taken the Attorney-General’s advice. We will start counting from the first president who exercised the powers of the elected president, in other words, Dr Wee Kim Wee.”

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean also confirmed a day later saying:

“On the reserved elections and how to count, I would like to confirm that this is indeed the AGC’s advice and, if not and you do not think that it’s correct, I think it’s possible if you wish to challenge judicially.”

Sylvia Lim

“The Government had engaged in ambiguous language and red herrings. We in this House should have been told in no uncertain terms that it was the Government that wanted to count from Dr Wee Kim Wee. The Government should have defended its own decision on why counting from President Wee was appropriate. It should not have evaded the debate by using the AGC’s advice as a distraction, and then gone to court to say that the AGC’s advice was irrelevant.”

Minister Yaacob: Chinese do not understand how Malay and other minorities feel

Minister for Communication and Information Yaacob Ibrahim stepped up on racial divisions today (Oct 4) telling state media reporters that the Chinese majority in Singapore does not know how the Malay feels.

“It has been a difficult and challenging journey for my community. Sometimes, the majority does not know what it feels to be a minority community.”

Without giving any example, the Minister in-charge of propaganda and Muslim affairs also played the victim card and said that Singaporean Muslims have been “under constant scrutiny” after terrorist attacks overseas made headlines news in recent years:

“It is not a pleasant experience when your religion and your religious orientation is under constant scrutiny. For the Malay-Muslim community, this sense of being misunderstood is deeply felt, having been in the spotlight for quite some time. It has been a difficult and challenging journey for my community.”

Creating a climate of fear and distrust among Singaporeans has been a secret formula of the ruling party PAP government. The dictatorship presents itself as a champion of racial harmony, but it’s national policies are inherently racist which disadvantages the minority in housing, military and even the election.

The PAP Minister also blamed the internet and foreign news media for “leading” a few into making racist comments:

“New media and the anonymity it lends have led to individuals denigrating other religions or sowing discord between communities over the Internet, inadvertently or otherwise.”

Minister K Shanmugam: International ranking is fake

After facing criticisms over Singapore’s 151th ranking on press freedom, Law Minister K Shanmugam hit out in Parliament yesterday (Oct 3) saying that the international ranking is fake and biased. The Law Minister said that rankings that rank Singapore poorly are “patently false” and specifically singled out international press freedom ranking:

“I am usually careful of such studies and reports that sometimes rank us at the top and sometimes rank us at the bottom… we have to be discerning about these rankings and how they are done and the political objectives behind them. Sometimes, ignore them, when they are patently false and not hold them up as a mantra. In 2008, RSF ranked us 144 out of 173 countries, below Guinea, Sudan, Pakistan, among others. I pointed out in 2009 that the International Herald Tribune (IHT) had a news story on Guinea. It was one or two days before I made my speech. IHT said that people were being gunned down by ‘brutal military junta’ and women were being raped on the streets, but in RSF’s eyes, their press freedom was higher than ours.”

Law Minister K Shanmugam angrily said that the researchers at Reporters Without Freedom (RSF) should go to Afghanistan and Pakistan because Singapore do not detain journalists:

“Singapore continues to fare badly and is ranked 151 out of 180 countries this year by RSF, below countries such as Guinea. Gambia, where journalists were detained, media outlets shut down, Internet disconnected, international phone calls banned last year; South Sudan, where it was described as having one of the world’s most serious refugee crisis, suffering the effects of a devastating civil war. Afghanistan is ranked ahead of us. Pakistan is ranked ahead of us. I would invite RSF to please go there.”

The Minister ended off his speech saying Singaporeans do not need to hear bad news of poor ranking:

“And really, you don’t need studies and reports. You look at our lived reality. What is the experience? Your experience, my experience, experience of our people. You know the answer.”

However the Law Minister conveniently left out the fact that internet blogs and websites have to place a S$50,000 bond when writing articles on Singapore current affairs. There is also a media ban on Election Day and Cooling Off day, while the mainstream media was able to carry on reporting propaganda material. Singapore’s legal media companies are also heavily influenced by the government on editorials, and the national papers Straits Times often publish fake news and half-truths to promote government agendas.