Tag: Lee Hsien Loong

SMRT Fiasco – Time For Heads To Roll

To call it a disaster may be an understatement for the quarter of a million people stranded by the train breakdowns last evening. Yes, we do see breakdown pretty often but what happened last night was unprecedented. 250,000 commuters were affected when no less than 57 train stations were rendered obsolete.

Some scenes of the fiasco last night

The scenes around the red dot last night were befitting of an apocalyptic blockbuster. Bus stops became obsolete, queues formed were so long that it gave the queues at Lee Kuan Yew’s funeral a good run for its money and people were lost, angry and unsatisfied, to say the least.

Bus stops became a thing of the past (Source: Renald Loh)

On social media, many Singaporeans lamented about how, in the face of constant breakdowns and now the nationwide disaster, unjustified the increases in the salaries of CEOs and fares were. In the past 5 years alone, commuters have seen fares increased 3 times.

To add salt to the wound, just last week SMRT CEO’s Desmond Kuek’s salary increased yet again. His salary has increased mulitfold in just a span of three years and he is now paid at least 2.2 million annually. With increases in salaries of the men in-charge and fare hikes, it is only natural that commuters expect a parallel increase in service standards, or at the very least, the maintenance of current standards.

However, that was not to be. The lack of satisfaction amongst millions of Singaporeans is justified, definitely more justified than the fare hikes and Desmond Kuek’s remuneration package.

SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek

Instead of taking responsibility and being seen on the ground to ensure commuters affected by the countless breakdowns get home safely, there was little else other than statements of ‘concern.’ from Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew. From a layman’s perspective, stranded at bus stops and faced with the never ending queue in the hot, humid and sweltering crowd, reflecting on the astronomical salaries the people behind the trains and the fare hikes is a real kick in the face.

Even if we can accept occasional breakdown, or even systemic infrastructural faults, complete lack of accountability should not be tolerated. And we saw a decent dose of that last night.

But things weren’t always like that, were they? There was once a time where the MRT was the pride of all Singaporeans alike and breakdowns were as alien as curry puff syndicates . So much so, in fact, that the PAP itself incorporated the MRT in it’s election posters.

A PAP campaign poster from 1998.

Now, that is one poster we’ll probably never see revived. Not with the way things are going. This poster surfaced in 1988, when the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew was our Prime Minister. Reflecting on last night’s fiasco, I can’t help but wonder, what would he have done?

I for one feel that, if the man was still around, such an incident wouldn’t even have happened. In fact, he would have tackled the problem at its core before it snowballed to the constant breakdowns Singaporean commuters face today. See, if there were one thing that separated PAP’s Lee Kuan Yew from the PAP of today, it would boil down to this – he never hesitated to make heads roll.

Let us cast our minds back to Mr Lee’s National Day Rally in 1984,

“Everything works, whether its water, electricity, gas, telephone, telexes, it just has to work. If it doesn’t work, I want to know why, and if I am not satisfied, and I often was not, the chief goes, and I have to find another chief. Firing the chief is very simple.”

Mr Lee and Mdm Kwa entering the train station

To cut the long story short, if Mr Lee was in charge, heads will roll. Mr Kuek and Mr Lui would be lucky to even stay in their positions, let alone collect millions of dollars. The PAP of the past sure is a far cry from what it is today.

As then Chief District Judge Tan Siong Thye during the Committee of Inquiry on the slate of breakdowns concluded:

That the incidents were preventable and that there was a “a gaping disconnect between what was formally on record and what was happening on the ground”.

And that gap is ever-widening. The PAP of today is great for soundbites, but when it actually comes to acting on their words – well, I’ll leave you to decide for yourself.

It’s about time that Singaporeans started voicing out for, as Mr Lee said, heads to roll. And the ballot box is a pretty good place to start.

Source: www.theonlinecitizen.com

July 9, 2015
Root Cause Not Found, Lee Hsien Loong ‘Very Concerned’

While an overnight sweep of the North-South and East-West lines turned up several faults including damaged power cables and water leakage, the authorities and train operator SMRT were still none the wiser about the root cause of yesterday’s (July 7) unprecedented breakdown — prompting Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to express his concern that the problem, which brought the two lines to a complete halt and left about 250,000 commuters stranded across the island, could flare up again.

Mr Lee noted that Land Transport Authority and SMRT staff worked overnight to check the trains, tracks and cables and the trains resumed full service throughout today without a glitch. “But because we have not identified the root cause of the power trips, we are still very worried that the problem may recur,” Mr Lee wrote on Facebook.

Mr Lee said he was “very concerned” about the breakdown and was briefed about the situation at the LTA Operations Centre today. “We are still trying to find out the cause of the problem… Hope we identify and resolve the faults quickly, to prevent further inconvenience to commuters.”

Earlier, the LTA and SMRT held a press conference where SMRT Trains managing director Lee Ling Wee said that overnight checks identified two damaged power cables along the North-South line near Bishan MRT station, a faulty relay system at Kranji’s power substation, and a water leakage close to the third-rail insulator at Tanjong Pagar station.

While these problems had been rectified, they did not provide a conclusive picture of what could have caused the multiple power trips, which intensified and forced SMRT to shut down the lines — which made up the bulk of the Republic’s MRT network and ran through 54 stations.

The problem, which was quite unlike anything SMRT had dealt with before, was baffling its experts. “We are not 100 per cent sure on the root cause,” he said. He noted that it could be a combination or any of several factors such as from train and track conditions, train frequency, and the amount of moisture on the tracks.

There are protective relay systems installed in power substations along the North-South and East-West lines, which are activated when voltage between the running rail and electrical earth surges beyond a safe limit. The fact that the running rail is connected across both lines complicates investigations, he said. “So it is very hard for us to isolate exactly where this breakdown in insulation was …(But) if we don’t do it, it will happen in different parts of the network, it is unpredictable, it is random, depending on how many train runs in the system. Where there are more trains, the chances of it happening is higher,” he said.

Train services ground to a halt at 7.15pm yesterday. The first signs of trouble surfaced more than an hour earlier, when SMRT detected multiple power trips. These were initially rectified but the power trips intensified in frequency and impact, and eventually caused nine trains to stall between stations. SMRT managed to get these trains moving again to the nearest stations before it shut down the system.

Working through the night, engineers checked the trains, tracks and power systems for anomalies such as burn marks, dislodged and dangling cables. Preliminary investigation initially narrowed the problem to a a faulty train but it was later found to be normal.

Mr Lee Ling Wee said the glitches discovered during the overnight checks were not identified during routine maintenance checks, which are conducted every six months, with more comprehensive checks carried out once a year.

“Our routine checks do cover these (components) but … it’s not like (checks are done) every day … so you can expect in an ageing system, some of these may fail in between the intervals,” he said. “There (was) no reason for us to suspect that these things will fail, because all regular maintenance checks have not uncovered such issues in the past.”

Nevertheless, he said that SMRT may increase the frequency of the checks and look into installing monitoring devices that can spot faults on a real-time basis. With 45 more trains to be added to the North-South and East-West lines after the completion of sleeper replacement and re-signalling work, SMRT will engage external consultants to assess the lines’ power capacity and robustness “with more urgency” following the breakdown, he added. LTA chief executive Chew Men Leong said a new voltage-limiting device has been piloted for Downtown Line 1, which can isolate power trips.

Transport experts whom TODAY spoke to called on SMRT to step up its maintenance regime, including by tapping technology.

SIM University transport analyst Park Byung Joon said that real-time sensors may help nip glitches in the bud. “Since it is not physically possible to expand maintenance hours, it is time to think about more expensive investments to enhance the maintenance schedule,” he said.

National University of Singapore engineering professor Lee Der-Horng added: “Perhaps (SMRT) should shorten the intervals between routine checks. I would have thought that SMRT would have accumulated enough experience and data to determine an optimal maintenance regime.”

At the press conference, both Mr Chew and SMRT chief executive Desmond Kuek apologised again to affected commuters. Mr Kuek said: “(The incident) is a stark reminder that the journey to bringing about a higher order of reliability and assurance is a difficult one … but we are committed to it.”

Source: www.todayonline.com

July 9, 2015
Postings By Han Hui Hui Shows That Roy Ngerng Wanted To Aggravate Libel (For Asylum)

So the 3 day drama in the High Court ended today with Roy Ngerng doing what he does best, misleading and being insincere in offering his apology. Senior Counsel Davinder Singh underlined this, as this Channel News Asia report shows:

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/roy-ngerng-has-not-been/1958428.html

To quote SC Singh:

“As you were incurring these expenses and filing fees, you were aware that if you continued to aggravate the injury, there was a risk that the damages could be increased,” the Drew & Napier lawyer said. “The sensible thing to do was to stop aggravating.”

“He is continuing to attack the plaintiff (Mr Lee) for improper motives,” he told the court.

Roy had no qualms in misleading the public to donate to his ‘legal fund, yet in the end he blew all of that, not only gallivanting around the world’ but even taking funds from foreign sources. Only to come to court to again say ‘he’s sorry and had no intent to defame.’ In the end what did that $110,000 from 1200 donors achieve when he discharged his latest lawyer, George Hwang last week and defended himself with Ms Han Hui Hui appointed as his ‘co-counsel?’ Under misleading remarks of fighting for people’s CPF return, he took $110,000 which could have helped many of those very CPF members with debts or in dire need of them. He could have settled the matter very early on by agreeing to the demands in the letter and apologising unreservedly. He would have walked away with a ‘moral victory,’ made the PM to look like a big bully and then continued to fight for the people without a need to waste $110,000. In doing so, he now has made crowd-funding for those who really need it more difficult. Take a look at his advice to Amos Yee, who also crowd-funded $20,000, which also wasn’t required as his lawyers were doing his case pro-bono.

Senior Counsel Davinder methodically and systematically ripped Roy’s arguments to shreds proving time and again his deceit – saying 1 thing and doing another.

Simply put, Roy has no qualms in blowing away money and teaching others likewise on how to obtain it with misleading remarks and not coming clean. Some people ask me why I continue to attack him and the rest of the Looney Fringe – well this is why – lying and being untruthful. Until then, I was a fellow supporter – I was encouraging him and Ms Han, thinking they were doing it for selfless reasons – fighting for a cause, being true activists. It all changed when I found the ulterior motives and I first raised the alarm in this blog post on him seeking asylum.

Until today Han Hui Hui and Roy Ngerng are asking money from the public, if not from their personal pages then via their Empowering Singaporeans FB page. Both are working in tandem and in concert to deceive the public that they are ‘fighting for them,’ yet both have no qualms in going abroad and telling lies to their selected audiences. They want fame at all costs, yet do not work, do not go out to help the needy, rather chose to play ‘victim’ at every stage. Heaven forbid if they are elected – they’ll squander all the public funds they get their hands on and blame somebody else for it.

I was a bit lazy then to upload the Facebook messages between me and Ms Han, but now that the case is over in court, let me share them. Since then I’ve been proven right each and every time, the words and actions by them have shown them to be what they truly are – opportunists with misguided notions of self importance. Note these are not words by a casual observer – it’s by Ms Han, Roy’s very own right hand ‘woman.’ Her actions are done with his blessings and in concert with him. And so here they are in sequence:

1) Me chiding HHH for upping the ante with postings on her FB page.

2) HHH claiming it was Roy who asked to up the ante.

3) Buttressing the PM’s case of making the slander worse by aggravating it.

4) She claims that this is what Roy, Leong and Ravi wants.

5) At that point of time, I was under the impression that his lawyer M Ravi was behind this too. I later found out (and confirmed by SC Singh) that Ravi was in the dark about all of this.

6) She voluntarily mentions asylum the 1st time. I wasn’t taking it seriously then and made a joke about it.

7) All this transpired before the Monday deadline, the earlier conversation took place on Saturday May 24th 2014. Thinking Roy was being badly advised, even by M Ravi, I volunteered to go meet him at Ravi’s office on Monday.

8) Then on Monday May 26th, SC Davinder sent a fresh notice rejecting Roy’s supposed ‘apology’ after it was revealed he not only made a new video but disseminated it (and the blog post he was to take down) to lots of people at home and abroad (as stated in the CNA article above). I was angry at those actions and told Ms Han off. She responded by stating again voluntarily – he was doing this for asylum.

9) This time I took it more seriously and probed further and she explained:

So there you have it – from the mouth of Roy’s best pal and confidant – his true intentions. Now before you say she’s making this up, do consider that at that point of time, we were friends – I genuinely believed that Roy and her were fighting for justice, they were passionate about the CPF issue, a bit misguided but their hearts were in the right place. Then this bombshell – all this was just a mere gimmick, telling the public and supporters 1 thing but doing another.

Of course since then Ms Han has either blocked me or closed this account in the hope it won’t come to light. Furthermore it shows here as Facebook user – so was it really her or me making this up? Fortunately I did a screenshot of this conversation where her name is shown. Here’s 2 examples:

Proof from Points 6 & 7 above that it was Ms Han Hui Hui and no one else who volunteered this information on the motives of Roy Ngerng to aggravate the libel.

Conclusion.

So Roy can go and deny in court and especially to his foreign supporters that he is being bullied and tormented. He can lie to hard-core opposition supporters that he’s being up front and truthful, but he cannot run away from the fact that his very own ‘co-counsel’ and best friend ‘let the cat out of the bag,’ that all he did was with an ulterior motive. He never had the interests at the people at heart as he claims even suggesting that he writes nothing but the truth in his blog – The Heart Truths. Rather his actions and flip flopping show a different side. He tells a different thing to each of his preferred audiences and conveniently blocks or ignores hard questions about his motives and actions.

In fact we needn’t go so far, at that point in time he had 1 of the best human rights lawyers around, M Ravi, to defend him. Why didn’t he just leave it to Ravi to handle Davinder Singh and the PM? Surely that’s the most logical thing to do when you face a letter of demand and potential lawsuit – leave it to your lawyers. Why do things without consulting him first? Why do things behind his back? Ravi would have complied with the terms laid out by Davinder and worded an apology to the PM’s liking and the matter would have been resolved there and then! He would walk away with a moral victory and could have continued to fight for the people he claims he wants to fight for. But that was never the case was it? No it was all about him and his self interests. It was to gain monies from unsuspecting followers. He’s no hero, he’s just a liar trying to trick unsuspecting people into believing he fights for them and wants to be rewarded with fame and money for his exploits, and possibly asylum. Of course he was too dumb to realise that no country would offer him asylum, so he tries to make himself the consummate victim, in the hope it’ll pay off eventually. And that’s why I termed him ‘The Looney Fringe.’ Anyway let me end with this warning I gave Ms Han then – again I was proven right.

Source: http://anyhowhantam.blogspot.sg

July 5, 2015
Unnecessary To Sue Roy Ngerng – Just Answer Our Questions On CPF

By his own admission, Lee has been following Roy’s blog and decided to SUE when he thought the latter had ‘crossed’ a line.

If Lee had been taking his responsibility and duty as the prime minister seriously, why did he allow bloggers and other citizens to continue if he sincerely felt that they had got their facts wrong in their quest (for transparency among others) that Roy and others have doubts, questions and queries regarding their CPF which is no less than their nest egg and savings for their retirement and twilight years.

I find it incomprehensible and insincere that he should find it condescending to provide proper replies and responses to such doubts which he is duty bound to do. He could have EASILY instructed his subordinates in charge of the CPF to lay out the details being legitimately sought after by the citizens of Singapore who have a very fundamental right to knowledge and facts about what is happening to their CPF money.

It is pertinent to repeat that the queries about our CPF are a DIRECT RESULT of the aftermath of the hundreds of billions of losses incurred by the GIC and Temasek, Singapore’s sovereign funds, that are managed by Lee, his father and their gang.

IMHO, this entire sorry episode and expensive law suit that Lee has chosen to drag Roy into could have been completely avoided had Lee has felt it duty-bound enough to provide proper responses. It is evident and appalling that it is entirely of Lee’s making when he is in the best position to allay the fears of Singaporeans with concrete facts and figures about how our CPF is being managed and invested.

The fact that up till TODAY, many doubts remain and many questions about the CPF remain unclarified and unanswered underscores this inexcusable reticence and reluctance to inform Singaporeans. Citizens could hardly be faulted if they harbour mistrust and suspicions about the handling by the govt of our CPF.

It changes NOTHING of this mistrust and suspicion even if Lee were to sue a hundred Roy Ngerngs successfully. He may win all the legal battles but surely he is going to lose the war for the hearts and minds of Singaporeans.

george

* Comment appeared in TRE article: Roy: Mr Lee didn’t suffer lower standing due to my articles

Source: www.tremeritus.com

July 4, 2015
Reform Party Demands Full Accounting From Lee Hsien Loong On The Use Of State Resources In Connection With Ongoing Legal Proceedings In Personal Capacity
Reform Party is concerned that the Prime Minister in his personal capacity as Mr Lee Hsien Loong is currently engaged in a defamation suit against the blogger Roy Ngerng. When any Minister, let alone the Prime Minister, is involved in legal proceedings in a personal capacity there may be implications for them in their official position.

By his own admission, the PM’s lawsuit, where he is seeking a significant sum in excess of S$400,000 against the unemployed former health worker blogger is a private matter and has nothing to do with the official duties of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Can the PM assure the citizens that he can carry out his duties as a public servant funded by the taxpayer and simultaneously be engaged in a legal wrangle which has now reached the high court, without significant impact on those official duties? If so, we ask for those assurances to be made public.

Because of the potential implications for conflict we believe the PM must give a clear and detailed accounting of all or any taxpayer funded state resources, official resources, official machinery and official personnel used in the period starting with the monitoring of bloggers, research and information gathering through to the issuing of legal letters, the follow-up, the subsequent legal action and the current hearings to assess damages and the media and PR management throughout. We believe we should also be informed as to how much time and what resources were expended by state legal officers and civil servants in advising the PM on the implications of legal proceedings in his personal capacity.

We respectfully request answers to the following questions:
1. How much time has your Official Press Secretary -a civil servant whose salary is also tax payer funded –spent in meeting journalists, researching, composing and writing letters on your behalf to foreign newspapers such as the Economist, defending your position over your personal lawsuit ? What economic value would you put on this or if it is not possible to assign a dollar value how many man-hours have been expended so far?
2. Did the PMO bill you personally for the total cost of using your Press Secretary on your private business?
3. Did you pay the cost of other resources used to assist you in your suit against Roy Ngerng?
4. State Media photos show you arriving at court in a chauffeured limousine. Did you use your own car or an official car to transport you to the hearing when you gave evidence at that hearing?
5. If it was an official car, did you pay for the use of the car, the driver, the petrol?
6. Who paid for the cost of your bodyguards or any police escort to accompany you to the hearing?
7. Was any extra security in place and who paid for that?
8. Did you take official or unpaid leave for the day you spent in court fighting your private matter or do you expect taxpayers to finance it?
9. You are paid at least $2.4 million p.a. out of state funds as PM to run the country and for your MP duties. How much of your working time has been spent on your private lawsuit against Roy Ngerng? Again can you assign a dollar value to this and will you be refunding the taxpayer?
10. We are further disturbed by your admission in court under cross-examination by Roy Ngerng that you had been watching him for some time “making more and more outrageous allegations about the CPF, stopping short of accusing me of doing bad things personally, but coming closer and closer to saying that.” Please clarify how much time, for some time is, in real terms. Mr Ngerng for example, started blogging in 2012. How much of your working time would you estimate has been spent in “watching” what bloggers are saying or might be about to say? Do you watch these bloggers on official machinery? Do you consider that you can monitor all these bloggers over a period of time and still run the country efficiently? Would you say this is the best use of taxpayers’ money?
11. Maybe you do not watch the bloggers personally. Do you in fact watch them personally or do you have private or state funded staff watch them for you? Have you set up a special unit within the PMO to monitor bloggers and social media including Mr Ngerng for comments that you do not like personally or that you consider defamatory of you in your personal capacity? Is this being paid for out of State funds?
12. You are presumably aware that Tan Tock Seng Hospital dismissed Mr Ngerng for among other things, misusing hospital resources. Similarly NUS sacked Chee Soon Juan in the early 1990s for using office stamps for a personal letter even though he had sought permission. Would you not agree that if you have used state resources for your own personal interest such as this lawsuit against Roy Ngerng, then you are guilty of the same misappropriation? At the very least would you not consider that you are giving the taxpayer poor value for the salary they provide?
Reputational Damage

We are further concerned that the Prime Minister’s responses in Court to questions set to him by the unemployed former health care worker and blogger Roy Ngerng show him in a poor light. Even though he is suing the blogger in his personal capacity he cannot escape the fact that he is Prime Minister of Singapore and as such his snide and sarcastic ripostes in a Court of Law may be deemed by many to be unseemly for a man in that position. Particularly given the huge disparity in income, status, power, influence and wealth between the Prime Minister and the blogger he is suing. Has the Prime Minister not considered that he risks bringing the office of Prime Minster into disrepute with such actions?

For example, his admission that he monitors bloggers watching for them to step over a line and be clearly defamatory. Does he not consider that this will appear unseemly for a man in his position? Additionally his response to Mr Ngerng’s analogy about a knife and a cut finger “knowing you it may be” reveals a personal animosity unbecoming of the leader of a developed nation.

We do not challenge the judgement that has already been made in his favour but we would like to know whether with all the legal and media handling advice at his disposal, the Prime Minister was not warned of the dangers of the Streisand Effect.

We trust that the Prime Minister is not too busy monitoring the worldwide web to respond and look forward to a clarification that no official resources have in fact been expended or if that is not the case to a full and frank accounting.

Kenneth Jeyaretnam

Secretary-General

Source: Reform Party
July 4, 2015