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So, I was reading this long article, it was an interview with Elite Tay Kheng Soon. Lets remember this guy is the elite of the elite, an internationally recognized architect, and an award winning architect, designer of Golden Mile Complex, brother of Minister Tay Eng Soon, owner of his own architect firm, and generally rich as hell. Many Sammyboyers here know him by reputation or even personally. In his role as an elite architect, he has naturally many interactions with the govt and the higher ups and powers to be in the govt. His comments about the govt and the inner workings of the govt reveals just how incompetent and screwed up it is. All these shit about them deserving the bestest salary in the world, and about how great they are and how much they have done for the country, are all lies when you read this conversation with TKS. Here are excerpts from it and my comments on it.
Bharati Jagdish: Your engagement with the Government on planning issues wasn't always positive. Why so?
Tay: We didn't set out to be negative at all. Unfortunately, the Government at that time, and to some extent even now, is rather unaccepting of alternative points of view. So inevitably, we came into conflict.
I mean, take the case of the expansion of the Paya Lebar Airport. SPUR took it up very publicly, because we got a map that showed the expansion of Paya Lebar Airport with two additional runways, including the existing one, which would have meant that the whole of the Katong, Mountbatten areas, and the Pasir Ris, Tampines areas would have been totally sterilised as a result of the entry and exit of the flight paths, the noise, the crash zones, etc. That would have killed one quarter of Singapore.
Bharati: You wanted for it to be in Changi, and it did end up there.
Tay: We simply went public on it and said it ought to be moved to Changi because the British had announced a pull-out east of Suez and Changi RAF Airport would become available, so why not move it there? And then all the flight paths will be over the sea, and the noise and the dangers would be handled much better.
Bharati: And it is in Changi today. So what exactly led to that? Earlier you mentioned that the Singapore Government in those days, and you said even today, is not very accepting of ideas that don't concur with their own. But the airport ended up in Changi as you had suggested and is still there today.
Tay: Not only ideas that don't concur with their own, they have a monopoly … They want to maintain a monopoly of wisdom. So any other wisdom that comes out from other sources has to be proscribed.
Bharati: But we should acknowledge that the airport is in Changi today.
Tay: Yes. So the initial reaction by the Permanent Secretary of National Development at that time, Mr Howe Yoon Chong, was to really scold us publicly. He said that we shouldn't bother ourselves with such important issues. We should just spend our time looking at drains and maintaining the roads. But to his credit, it was he eventually who championed the move to Changi.
Its interesting to note here that he said the govt back then and even today was unaccepting of alternate ideas and viewpoints. We are not talking about political viewpoints here. But rather about economic, and industrial and infrastructure viewpoints. Is that why we were caught with housing shortages and price increases in flats? Is that why we were caught with flooding constantly? Is that why we were caught with very congested MRT and constant breakdowns in it? I can only conclude that the answer is yes.
So, it was TAy and his group that suggested the move to Changi, In retrospect, it was the correct and only move. And he made a strong case for it. Added to the fact that he used a whole range of input, such as knowledge of the UK withdrawal and availability of Changi AB, to present a cogent logical argument for the expansion of Changi, and yet was publicly scolded by Howe Yoon Chong for his troubles. A smaller man, with less confidence would have cowered and dropped his balls the minute a Minister criticize him publicly. I refer to Law Minsiter Shan and Professor Low. A smaller man would have given in and publicly admitted his choice of Changi was wrong. And the PAP would have gone ahead and expanded Paya Lebar with one quarter of SIngapore useless due to the flight paths of the planes.
Its very interesting too that he mentions the PAP needs to have a monopoly on wisdom. If any wisdom does not come from the PAP, then its "proscribed", in other words, forbidden and denounced. Herein lies the problem. The PAP has showned that recent calibre of higher officials are at best average mortals. For them to have a monopoly on wisdom coming out of these average or below average minds is scary. SIngapore is a small country. Every one of its citizens is its own precious resource. To the ever lasting shame of Old Fart, instead of taking everyone's idea, shifting through it, and finding the ones that are better then his own, his own arrogance prescribed the opposite approach. for such a small country like ours, we cannot live on imported FTs, or fake GDP growth by building lots of flats, we have to live by our wits and our cunning. This, we have not been doing, because the people with the wits and cunning are being frozen out of the decision making process. The PAP's view is that if you are not a scholar, and a scholar approved by us and a scholar who went to the right school and the right scholarship, then you have no view or that your view is automatically inferior to theirs.
Bharati Jagdish: Your engagement with the Government on planning issues wasn't always positive. Why so?
Tay: We didn't set out to be negative at all. Unfortunately, the Government at that time, and to some extent even now, is rather unaccepting of alternative points of view. So inevitably, we came into conflict.
I mean, take the case of the expansion of the Paya Lebar Airport. SPUR took it up very publicly, because we got a map that showed the expansion of Paya Lebar Airport with two additional runways, including the existing one, which would have meant that the whole of the Katong, Mountbatten areas, and the Pasir Ris, Tampines areas would have been totally sterilised as a result of the entry and exit of the flight paths, the noise, the crash zones, etc. That would have killed one quarter of Singapore.
Bharati: You wanted for it to be in Changi, and it did end up there.
Tay: We simply went public on it and said it ought to be moved to Changi because the British had announced a pull-out east of Suez and Changi RAF Airport would become available, so why not move it there? And then all the flight paths will be over the sea, and the noise and the dangers would be handled much better.
Bharati: And it is in Changi today. So what exactly led to that? Earlier you mentioned that the Singapore Government in those days, and you said even today, is not very accepting of ideas that don't concur with their own. But the airport ended up in Changi as you had suggested and is still there today.
Tay: Not only ideas that don't concur with their own, they have a monopoly … They want to maintain a monopoly of wisdom. So any other wisdom that comes out from other sources has to be proscribed.
Bharati: But we should acknowledge that the airport is in Changi today.
Tay: Yes. So the initial reaction by the Permanent Secretary of National Development at that time, Mr Howe Yoon Chong, was to really scold us publicly. He said that we shouldn't bother ourselves with such important issues. We should just spend our time looking at drains and maintaining the roads. But to his credit, it was he eventually who championed the move to Changi.
Its interesting to note here that he said the govt back then and even today was unaccepting of alternate ideas and viewpoints. We are not talking about political viewpoints here. But rather about economic, and industrial and infrastructure viewpoints. Is that why we were caught with housing shortages and price increases in flats? Is that why we were caught with flooding constantly? Is that why we were caught with very congested MRT and constant breakdowns in it? I can only conclude that the answer is yes.
So, it was TAy and his group that suggested the move to Changi, In retrospect, it was the correct and only move. And he made a strong case for it. Added to the fact that he used a whole range of input, such as knowledge of the UK withdrawal and availability of Changi AB, to present a cogent logical argument for the expansion of Changi, and yet was publicly scolded by Howe Yoon Chong for his troubles. A smaller man, with less confidence would have cowered and dropped his balls the minute a Minister criticize him publicly. I refer to Law Minsiter Shan and Professor Low. A smaller man would have given in and publicly admitted his choice of Changi was wrong. And the PAP would have gone ahead and expanded Paya Lebar with one quarter of SIngapore useless due to the flight paths of the planes.
Its very interesting too that he mentions the PAP needs to have a monopoly on wisdom. If any wisdom does not come from the PAP, then its "proscribed", in other words, forbidden and denounced. Herein lies the problem. The PAP has showned that recent calibre of higher officials are at best average mortals. For them to have a monopoly on wisdom coming out of these average or below average minds is scary. SIngapore is a small country. Every one of its citizens is its own precious resource. To the ever lasting shame of Old Fart, instead of taking everyone's idea, shifting through it, and finding the ones that are better then his own, his own arrogance prescribed the opposite approach. for such a small country like ours, we cannot live on imported FTs, or fake GDP growth by building lots of flats, we have to live by our wits and our cunning. This, we have not been doing, because the people with the wits and cunning are being frozen out of the decision making process. The PAP's view is that if you are not a scholar, and a scholar approved by us and a scholar who went to the right school and the right scholarship, then you have no view or that your view is automatically inferior to theirs.
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