19 May 2007

From City Hall to the Gaza Strip and back

A committee chairman resists stepping aside even when others have pointed out potential conflict of interest. The slippery slope to corruption begins with such lack of rectitude. Full essay.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

So what is PAP's political ideology? I can't seem to identify any other than monarchy and monetism.

Anonymous said...

what is "monetism"? maybe you meant "monetarism" from Milton Friedman, but I dont think his ideas fit in with government ownership of big corporations and social engineering; maybe you meant the style of Monet the painter, but that is even less related; maybe you just meant "love of money", but that would be a new invention

sgsociety.com

Yawning Bread Sampler said...

I think we know what the first anonymous means by "monetism". I don't think it is helpful to discussion to pick on language; things tend to descend into pettiness if this becomes a habit.

Anonymous said...

but how useful is namecalling? maybe it relieves frustration, because the speaker knows only too well the system is impregnable

sgsociety.com

Anonymous said...

in fact PAP does have an ideology: 1. maintain tight control, 2. develop the economy, and 3. share the benefit with people who work with the system; I assume to the first anonymous, 1 is monarchy, and 3 is monetism

Anonymous said...

I can understand the 'monarchy' part. Probably refers to how a special fami-lee and their kind holds special status in this country. Like a mandate from heaven of sort. Monetism = love of money?

Anonymous said...

The old NKF saga has highlighted how vulnerable governance in singapore to corruption due to its relatively closed political culture. Had Durai not taken on the Straits Times, his excesses would not be revealed.

While open systems may not guarantee clean goverance as we see in the cases of The Philippines and Indonesia, I am not so sure of the case of Singapore on whether there is less corruption, or less corruption reported or exposed aside from the occassional cases of bribes paid to petty health inspectors and junior police officers.

My inituiton tells me that at present, corruption is controllable in Singapore and that our leaders are generally clean. Nonetheless, I do have more faith in HK's ICAC than our CPIB not because of the influence of drama serials, but the increasingly ingrained consensus being gradually established among civil society, bussiness elite and the government on maintaining a more politically impartial administration. In this case, the ICAC is being seen more seen a public tool rather than a government apparatus

Singaporeans on the other hand, have just merely been told that they have a clean government and should therefore be grateful and not probe further.



Liew kai khiun