CSJ is not happy with PAP.
10 h ·
The Parliamentary sitting that exonerated Ministers K Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan was utterly unsatisfactory, raising more questions than it answered.
The anger of the public is palpable and warranted. This is because, one, the PAP has drummed into our minds that land is scarce in Singapore and, therefore, we have to be crammed into small and expensive HDB flats.
But as with the classic adage that “some people are more equal than others”, the two Ministers find themselves living in enormous and opulent properties – properties that citizens can only dream of but are constantly told that we cannot aspire to.
It is especially galling because such contempt for the people is explicitly written by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) that anyone who wishes to live in such residence must have an income 3 times the bid rent and of “sound financial status”. And who determines the bid rent and financial status? The ministers, of course.
Herein lies the problem. The bids for the bungalows were not made by the Ministers themselves but their wives. Did the SLA determine that the wives also earned at least 3 times the bid rent of $26,000 a month? If not, how did it know that the women were of sound financial status? Was SLA told that they were the wives of the Ministers’? Did this affect the decision-making process?
More importantly, why did Shanmugam and Balakrishnan not apply for the rental in their own names? Did they think it was inappropriate to do so?
Two, PAP Ministers have long been criticised for paying themselves the highest salaries in the world as far as governments are concerned. One of the reasons, or so it has been proffered, is that ministers will not be in want of anything lest they be tempted by corruption.
But as wealthy as they are now and living in houses that the vast majority of Singaporeans cannot afford, the two Ministers had sought to live in even bigger properties.
And all this time, the size of HDB flats has gotten smaller.
The ethics in such a situation is what grates Singaporeans’ sensibilities to the very core. While berating and lecturing the people about living frugally, the PAP continues to demonstrate its hypocrisy with ministers luxuriating in opulence.
And whenever the SDP calls to reduce the prices of flats, the PAP accuses us of wanting to raid the reserves because anything short of the exorbitant prices is tantamount to stealing from future generations.
Again, another example of a broken system of one set of rules for the rulers and another for the ruled.
Third, and perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the saga, is that the rentals were not proactively revealed to the public by the PAP. When Ministers, who are in charge of the government, do private transactions with the government, it should not be whistleblowers who reveal the facts.
It is the Ministers who must volunteer, promptly and forthrightly, the information. Mr Shanmugam and Dr Balakrishnan did none of this.
The biggest indictment of the Ministers may not come in Parliament as the PAP has come out in full-throated support of the two. But, in the minds of the people, the episode carries the stench of hypocrisy of the highest order.
This matter has shown, yet again, that without a strong opposition presence in Parliament, Singaporeans cannot hope to hold the ministers accountable.
To salvage the woeful debacle, only an independent commission of inquiry, one perhaps chaired by a retired judge or law professor, to delve into the case and ask the necessary questions will suffice. Anything less will stoke the public’s resentment even more.
