Category: Politik

Independent Accountants For AHPETC Should Be Free Of ‘Apparent Bias’

Should the High Court decide that independent accountants should be appointed to safeguard government grants to Aljunied-Hougang-Punggol East Town Council (AHPETC), it should not involve the accounting firm involved in the Auditor-General’s Office report that found major lapses in the town council’s accounts.

AHPETC’s lawyer Peter Low argued that this is to guard against the possibility of “apparent bias”. The Ministry of National Development (MND) will also be the accountants’ paymasters, he added.

In March, the ministry proposed that the court appoint Mr Ong Chao Choon and Mr Chan Kheng Tek from accounting firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, to be Independent Accountants of AHPETC, or any other people the Court deems fit and proper.

In February, the Auditor-General flagged major lapses in “governance and compliance” following an audit of AHPETC’s accounts for the Financial Year 2012-13.

The hearing continues.

Source: www.todayonline.com

May 6, 2015
Malaysia High Commissioner To Singapore: Bilateral Relations Is Special And Substantive – Part II

CONTINUED

You mentioned that one of the measures to ease congestion at the two checkpoints is possibly a new bridge; can you elaborate on that? Can you also give us some updates on the High Speed Rail?

The congestion is particularly acute at the two checkpoints, especially during the weekends and holidays. The designs of the two checkpoints do not allow ease of congestion. So we need a new bridge. In fact, my Prime Minister proposed this idea during the previous retreat. He termed it as the Friendship Bridge, so we can have a modern design, beautiful structure, to represent the status of our bilateral relations, something that we could be proud of. So this is what Malaysia has in mind and I think more details will be raised by my Prime Minister.

On the High-Speed Rail, we expect Singapore to announce the terminus or the station in Singapore. We have announced our station in KL, Bandar Malaysia, last year during the retreat. So Singapore is expected to announce the location of this station at this retreat. And we could see the steady progress of the project. I think the project is on the right track; this project, though, is very complicated because it involves two countries, so a lot of issues have to be discussed and agreed upon.

There was a report this week that the High-Speed Rail is probably not going to meet its 2020 deadline and will be pushed back by two years. Can you give us the reasons behind this reported delay?

Well, that is only speculative. This project is very ambitious, you know, but as far as Malaysia is concerned, we still maintain the deadline and we hope to achieve, to implement fully, this project by 2020. So as it is, we don’t expect any delay. But as I said, this is a very ambitious project, so they may encounter some challenges, but I think it is still early for us to say that it will be delayed.

Do you think that race and religion are getting more politicised in Malaysia, in light of the recent church protest and the debate on marital rape. What do you think these portend for social order in Malaysia?

As you know, Malaysia is a multi-cultural, multi-religious country. Muslims are the majority, but other races are free to practise their religious compulsion in religion. But, of course, there is a small minority, and isolated incidents such as the church incident, which the majority of Malaysians condemned. So this does not show that we have religious intolerance in Malaysia. I think in any country, there are some people who have extreme views, and some groups may take advantage of these groups.

As ASEAN Chairman for this year, what are KL’s priorities?

I think this one is very timely because, as you know, we just concluded the 26th ASEAN Summit. We have eight priorities during our chairmanship, namely 1) to formally establish the ASEAN Community; 2) to develop the ASEAN Community’s post-2015 vision because we need to move forward; 3) to steer ASEAN closer to its people, we call it people-centred ASEAN; 4) to strengthen the development of small and medium enterprises in the region; 5) to expand intra-ASEAN trade and investments; 6) to strengthen ASEAN institutions, including the ASEAN Secretariat; 7) to promote regional peace and security through moderation. Moderation is one of our themes during our chairmanship, and finally 8) to enhance ASEAN’s role as a global player.

Can you comment on the threat posed by the Islamic State? What is the essence of Malaysia’s strategy to combat terrorism?

We view this threat very seriously. We strongly condemn the Islamic State. It does not represent the true teaching of Islam because Islam is a religion of peace and not violence. We are very concerned because they advocate violence … and they use social media to influence young people, people without enough knowledge about Islam.

Malaysians who were involved in the Islamic State, most of them do not have enough knowledge about Islam, so they are being manipulated, being brainwashed. That’s why we advocate the global movement of moderates because we are a proponent of peace, moderation and modernity. And it was agreed to by ASEAN.

With regard to the strategies, recently our Parliament passed four Bills to conquer terrorism. Our police are working very hard. Our authorities are also working closely with the authorities from Singapore, in terms of sharing of information and intelligence. The threat is not only in Malaysia; the whole region will be affected by the Islamic State.

How does Malaysia view China’s rise? Is Malaysia concerned about the developments in the South China Sea, especially with regard to the recent flurry of reclamation by China?

Well, the rise of China has brought prosperity, not only to Malaysia, but also Singapore. The whole region has benefited from its rise. China is our biggest trading partner and I think the same goes for Singapore, and we have also a big Chinese community in Malaysia. In fact, Malaysia was the first country in ASEAN to establish diplomatic relations with China in 1974. So our relations with China have been long-standing, strong and substantive.

We always maintain that any issues must be discussed amicably and peacefully, based on international laws, based on friendly relations. So, we are working together in ASEAN, and as reflected in the Chairman’s statement on the South China Sea. (The statement expresses serious concerns on the land reclamation being undertaken in the South China Sea.) The statement also touched on the Code of Conduct (COC), which is very important. The leaders “urged that consultations be intensified, to ensure the expeditious establishment of an effective COC”. So we would like to see the COC expedited, so it can give the guidelines for countries on how to deal with issues in the South China Sea.

How do Malaysians view the open calls for Prime Minister Najib’s resignation by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad? Is there a general sense that Malaysian politics is becoming increasingly fractious?

In any democratic system like Malaysia’s, the government of the day must be allowed to run the country, to govern the country as it sees fit. But (as) in any democracy, Malaysians are free to criticise the government. And the government has to defend its actions. So PM Najib has come out publicly to answer the criticisms by Dr Mahathir, showing his regard to Dr Mahathir, who was our PM for more than 20 years. I think social media has amplified the situation. But I think the government is addressing the issues raised by Dr Mahathir, and we will wait for the outcome. For instance on (strategic development firm) 1MDB, our Auditor-General is addressing the issue, and we will wait for the report by the Auditor-General.

What do you think are the issues that Malaysians are most concerned about right now?

I think the issues are quite similar to other countries’, you know, Singapore’s also. There are issues such as the cost of living. We just introduced the Goods and Services Tax last month. GST in Malaysia is rather unique. Unlike in Singapore, our GST is applied only on certain items. Some items such as foodstuff, medicine, education, are exempted from GST.

So there is some confusion, and some traders are exploiting it, so there are some complaints with regards to the implementation. But in any new system, there are bound to be complaints. We hope that this could be rectified in due course, and people, I think, will realise that we need the GST. Because 160 countries have GST and we are one of the last that have implemented this GST. That is, I think, one issue.

The other issue is, of course, terrorism, threats such as the Islamic State. And the government, as I mentioned, has taken actions to kill this issue. So I think these are the two main issues that Malaysians are concerned with.

Source: www.todayonline.com

May 5, 2015
Lee Wei Ling: Timeout After Papa’s Passing

My life changed on March 23 when Papa died at the age of 91. As he aged and his health failed in the five years prior to that, I took his welfare into account in every decision I made. His death was hardly unexpected; yet, Papa’s passing affected me more than I had anticipated.

I had not travelled alone since 2009 after he asked me to accompany him on his working trips. After Mama died in October 2010, Papa’s health deteriorated. So I restricted my travels abroad to the ones where I could accompany him as I was concerned about his fragile health.

Following Papa’s funeral, I was not feeling up to a distant trip so soon. But friends encouraged me to attend a week-long meeting organised by the American Academy of Neurology in Washington DC, which began on April 18. After that, I would visit a close friend living in Ithaca, New York.

I was hesitant about the trip as I was spent. My muscles were stiff and my body ached. In fact, I remained this way until the day I left Singapore some two weeks later. I travelled in spite of my misgivings because I decided that I needed to prove to myself I was capable of being as daring and reckless as in the past when I travelled alone.

The journey lasted more than 24 hours. But amazingly, when I landed in Washington DC, I no longer felt stiff or sore and was not hobbled by jet lag either. So I checked into the hotel, washed up and changed into a pair of running shorts and T-shirt – and jogged to the meeting’s venue at a convention centre to register and attend the lectures.

As lectures started at 6.30am from the second day, I decided to run instead of walk to the venue in order to save a few more minutes for sleep. I would also run back and forth from my hotel to the venue to attend the lectures.

By embarking on such shuttle runs three to four times daily, I clocked an average distance of at least 10km a day. What made these runs more challenging was that I had to cross busy streets and step up and down the sidewalks, often in the dark.

At the meeting, I tried to absorb and remember new information and concepts. The regimen I constructed kept my mind away from dwelling on the loss of Papa, except at night when I was trying to sleep. I was moderately cheerful during the day. Learning combined with exercise has always had an anti-depressant effect for me. So I felt as if I was 40 years old once more during the meeting.

After the conference, I travelled to Ithaca to stay with a close friend. She, too, had lost a loved one recently. I thought we could console each other.

My friend is four years older and I call her jie jie (“elder sister” in Mandarin); in fact, being motherly is a more accurate description of her behaviour towards me. And when she greeted me, I had an immediate and overwhelming sense of belonging.

My stay with jie jie was the downtime I needed. I occupied my time with routine – grocery shopping, gardening, twilight walks and drives to scenic sanctuaries. It was early spring in Ithaca, and life was returning after an apparently harsh winter. Daffodils and hyacinths were in full bloom, and the trees were starting to leaf out.

My friend remarked that the changing of the seasons seemed to reflect the cyclical nature of life and death. For me, it was reassuring just to have the sense of continuity, the familiarity of

a beautiful Ithaca, and the comfort of an enduring friendship. While this was a welcome change of scene, it was hard not to turn my thoughts to Papa. But unlike the period of two weeks prior and two weeks after his death, thinking of him now evoked a dull ache that was replacing the sharp pain I felt previously.

I suspect this ache will always remain, but perhaps to a lesser degree as time passes.

In my article published a week after Papa’s funeral, I wrote that I must now move on to face life without him. That was a declaration of hope rather than a statement of fact.

I will move on, I have to. But as a friend who had experienced the passing of his parents long ago recalled, that sense of loss and the ache will never completely disappear.

But today, the sun was out, and as I ran up my friend’s driveway, the budding trees and flowers greeted me. We went for a walk at my favourite waterfall, Taughannock Falls, where I have asked my friend to scatter my ashes after I die. But for now, life is sweet.

My way of coping with my father’s death is to be grateful that my parents lived happy lives. Old photographs of Mr and Mrs Lee Kuan Yew together, young and obviously in love, and more recent ones taken in their eighties and evincing mutual affection, remind me of what my father said when he saw me sorting through pictures of himself and my mother. “How lucky I have been,” he remarked.

Yes, my parents were lucky until Mama’s devastating stroke in 2008. Subsequently they suffered, as anyone who has lived for so long usually did in the last few years of their lives.

Still, 60 years of happiness surely outweigh a brief period of suffering. As I see it, my parents were fortunate to have been able to spend their final years in their marital home, a privilege rare among couples.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

May 5, 2015
Is PAP The Only Viable Option In Singapore?
Mr PM, please consider this.

Many times, we have been repeatedly told that PAP is the only and viable option? Question is how believable is this today??

In order to put this question to rest, an objective approach substantiated by hard facts and plain and transparent logic may help the good citizens to decide for themselves.

Let us score PAP’s performance against the fundamentals that concern all Singaporeans.

1 Integrity and Meritocracy are sacred principles in Singapore never to be compromised. This is the branding of Singapore.

Integrity – IDA fake degree, Witchhunt on Aljunied TC vs PAP TCs – Aimgate, Jurong TC where PAP grassroots leader is TC GM is supplier GM, Lehman Brothers in PAP TCs, Sengkang saga with HDB and MND, Nee Soon MP company is TC supplier, lawyer MP overcharging by 1M….

Meritocracy – this is easiest to debunk. SMRT!!!!, Youth Olympics, MP Intan endorsing cheat Yang Yin, IDA employing fake degree person, Jurong TC just cannot keep rats and bugs away, Tanjong Pagar visit by MP once in 5 years according to a TP resident, family, relatives and crony network ….

2 The application of the Rule of Law is to be administered equally to all in Singapore, no exceptions and discretion.

SPF, AGC on RN, HHH, Ravi, Amos Yee, LTA parking violation exception, Ello, the twins of PAP Jasons…..

3 The job market available to Singaporeans must be fair in terms of total cost to employ, no unfair hiring practices, need for credible qualifications and adequate labor protection for all.

Government opening doors even wider to all Asean citizens, of which 80% indicated they want to work in Singapore. 80% of the working population of Asean population!!!! If you think today is bad, just wait till 2016 when this horror is unleashed on Singaporeans by the our government.

The fake degrees and millions of third world cheap labor will descend like swarms to attack our jobs, your families, destroy our Society. Then, even our 70 year old senior citizens will have competition in cleaning tables at hawker centers and selling tissues. Already happening today!

4 CPF / Medishield… is our money and for our retirement use at age 55.

No need to say more. You must be blind if you do not know whats happening here. This is the greatest perversion of trust.

5 Accessibility to affordable, efficient and effective Healthcare, Education, Social Welfare, Transportation are basic requirements to be made available to citizens.

What do you think of our glorious SMRT? What the hospital availability? What about the numerous obstacles to getting welfare aid. How about the millions of dollars of scholarships given to foreigners whilst our children are struggling with education loans.

6 Accountability and transparency of Government to the people.

CPF, GIC, Temasek, Healthcare, SMRT, Grassroots organization and PA….

Now that we have reviewed the performance of PAP, then do scoring.
1. Scoring the card will produce some rather obvious conclusions.
2. Then you will ask yourself, ‘If we do not vote PAP, then vote for who?’
3. Then the obvious question dawn on you. ‘What is the contribution of these people in government so far. Nothing or worse, negatives? Why do we have to pay million dollars for this kind of results??????”
4. The next obvious question, ‘You mean NOBODY can do better than this???????????????’
5. Suddenly incredulous enlightenment happens. ‘Actually anybody can do better than this’
6. Further light shines brighter. ‘ And Cheaper too’
I exaggerate you not here. The conclusion is made simple and straightforward because the current government, infested with half dimwit under talents whose only talents is sucking up, has made it so easy to flush their flaws and misdeeds for all to see.

Most damning of all, the neutered leadership have chosen if not silence, then equally appalling moronic and twisted logic as their incriminating defense.

Spencer Goh

* Comment appeared in TRE article: PM: Next GE about forming new leaders to lead SG

Source: www.tremeritus.com
May 5, 2015
Can We Still Call This The Light Touch?

Forget the irony of the Media Development Authority asking The Real Singapore to cease and desist on World Press Freedom Day itself – and to be honest, someone at MDA must really have a hugely twisted sense of humour.

What is even more concerning is the fact that there are so-called analysts who are “media observers and academics” who believe that MDA’s move reflects a “light touch” towards content regulation.

The points made by these “experts” would sound reasonable on any given day – MDA’s action was justified and reasonable because TRS is really an “extreme case”. But when we take a closer look at what this “extreme case” is, the argument becomes problematic.

For a start, almost all of them cited the legal woes of TRS as a means of justifying MDA’s action. MDA has, of course, lately stressed that it “would still have initiated the suspension even if there were no sedition charges. MDA’s move is also not dependent on the outcome of the sedition charges. As such, the issue of sub judice does not arise.”

If so, why then would these experts point explicitly to TRS’s legal woes? The views held by these independent observers, evidently based on MDA’s media statement, suggests that MDA need not have the intention for sub judice – really, who would, given our punitive laws? It does not, however, reduce the risk of sub judice. Otherwise, can anyone else charged for contempt now say, “I would have posted those remarks independent of the outcome of the court case”? Go figure.

Disregarding the legal reasons – which to date has yet to be decided by the courts – we would also find problems with the other reasons cited for the suspension: Namely, TRS’s alleged “bad behaviour”.

Professor Ang Peng Hwa of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University said that MDA’s decision “helped shed some light on how the Internet Code of Practice… can be used”. Prof Ang justified this by saying that TRS’s case “is not just any case that comes along, but one that has public sentiment against it and a court case”.

Presumably by “public sentiment”, Prof Ang would have an objective measurement, as a person of academic outlook would, and it might not be wrong to assume that he was referring to the petition for TRS to close down, which garnered about 1,300 signatures. If so, then a necessary comparison was the petition for STOMP to close down, which garnered 24,000 signatures.

When TOC raised queries to MDAabout what they intend to do with the STOMP petition, the reply was for us to identify for the agency where STOMP has done wrong and bring it up to them for evaluation.

“STOMP, like other class licensed and individually licensed sites, is required to comply with the Internet Code of Practice. If you have come across instances where STOMP is in breach of the Code, you are advised to bring these to our attention and MDA will investigate accordingly.”

However, MDA’s tone in relation to TRS was vastly different. In its media statement, the media regulator said that it was “satisfied that Takagi and Yang have contravened the Internet Code of Practice (ICOP). They have published prohibited material as defined by the Code to be objectionable on the grounds of public interest, public order and national harmony.”

How was MDA “satisfied” that TRS was in breach of the Code? Did someone come across instances where TRS breached the Code and submitted a report to MDA? If not, then how different was it from “public sentiment” against STOMP?

Between STOMP and TRS, how then has this case “shed light” on how MDA used the Internet Code of Practice? Has the light touch gone so light as to become invisible?

Then we have Singapore Management University law professor Eugene Tan, who opined that “this is the first time that MDA has resorted to suspension, but when you put it against the backdrop of TRS’ alleged egregious conduct, it becomes more of a question of when (to suspend), rather than whether.”

Earlier, when Breakfast Network decided to close down because it found MDA’s regulatory regime too onerous, media academic professor Cherian George had called it the end to the “light touch” policy. He opined that Breakfast Network tipped the scale because the “death by red tape” was unprecedented.

“Singapore’s vibrant ecosystem of socio-political blogs was spared the discretionary licensing regime that has blocked the development of alternative print and broadcast media. Blogs could be punished if what they published broke the law – but they were never expected to persuade regulators that they deserved the right to publish before they were allowed to do so.”

Ai Takagi and Yang Kaiheng with lawyer Choo Zheng Xi (image – CNA)

Indeed, bloggers can be punished if what the published broke the law, and TRS is facing the same now in a pending court case. But since when does it justify closing down an entire website, which is by all counts just as punitive, if not more so, than denying Breakfast Network the right to exist? How can the current order to close a website be a “lighter touch” than requesting its owners to take down objectionable content? To begin with, has MDA tried getting TRS to remove the pages it was “satisfied” contravened the Internet Code of Practice?

In that sense, the first time that MDA has “resorted to suspension” is not a light touch approach, as Prof Tan would have you believe. If anything, the touch just got heavier, simply because we have no reason to believe that MDA tried any other approach that would have been less heavy-handed.

And to cap it, we have this comment attributed to former NMP Calvin Cheng – “socio-political websites that operate within Singapore’s laws and social norms have nothing to fear”.

Unfortunately, Mr Cheng is gravely wrong, and the gravity would be worse if MDA has indeed censored TRS for flouting “social norms”. Efforts to repeal the death penalty, 377A or capital punishment are not “social norms” any way you look at it. Is Mr Cheng then suggesting that websites which champion these causes also go up for a review under the Code? What other “codes” would MDA tag onto the Broadcasting Act for its evaluation? Would it even tell us?

Personally, I’m not a fan of TRS. I find their content laughable at best, and downright unsavoury at worst. I’m definitely not agreeable to how they source for their content. But what bugs me more than a website like TRS, which I can always ignore, is MDA’s rationale and standards for the action it has taken against TRS, which I definitely cannot ignore.

To call it a “light touch” approach is to continue dabbling pointlessly in that tiring argument that the government will keep its hands off, until it has to. MDA has thus far not brought to the table clarity about when it has to step in, or on what basis it is stepping in.

And we are supposed to be assured that there is a “light touch” – TRS got shut down only because it did the bad stuff. If so, can MDA now step up and identify where exactly all this bad stuff is, and why it warrants closing down an entire website? Under what circumstances does a government agency have the right to make that judgement call?

MDA has been offered the opportunity to respond to this commentary.

Source: www.theonlinecitizen.com

May 5, 2015