MND continues to throw smoke bombs over role of PAP “grassroots advisers”
From our Correspondent
The National Development Ministry has continued to throw smoke-bombs over the role of PAP “grassroots advisers” in a letter written by its press secretary Lim Yuin Chien, which was published in the Straits Times Forum today.
The letter was a direct rebuttal of a biting commentary published last week by Straits Times senior correspondent Sue-Ann Chia who earlier questioned the seemingly conflicting roles of a MP and grassroots adviser.
Mr Lim wrote that “the roles of MP and adviser are distinct and separate, even though government MPs, wearing their other hat of advisers, are expected to perform both roles.”
“Opposition MPs cannot be appointed advisers, because they do not answer to the ruling party. They have no constitutional or legal obligation to carry out national programmes on the Government’s behalf. Nor can the Government hold them to account if they perform this role unsatisfactorily.” he added.
That’s where Mr Lim is wrong. There is no such thing as a “government MP.” The correct term to use should be “PAP MPs”.
The PAP is NOT the government of Singapore which can be formed by a coalition of parties.
Mr Lim re-emphasized that “the LUP is not a town council programme. It is a national programme which receives most of its funding from the Government.”
And where does the government receive its funding from? From every citizen of Singapore including the residents of Hougang and Potong Pasir.
There is absolutely no reason why opposition MPs cannot be appointed as grassroots advisers unless they decline to work with the government.
The root cause of the problem lies in the lack of a clearly defined demarcation between the state and the party which resulted in many supposedly apolitical institutions like the People’s Association being made use of by the PAP to serve its partisan interests.
As the People’s Association is a statutory board, its members and grassroots advisers should have no political affiliations.
It is disingenuous of the PAP to appoint their losing candidates to continue “serving” in the opposition wards under the veneer of being the “grassroots advisers” appointed by the PA.
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Anonymous on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 9:54 am
Who says the elected opposition MPs in Hougang or Potong Pasir have ANY RELEVANCE OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO THE INCUMBENT in fact and in law? The incumbent is NOT the financial donor or sponsors to keep grassroot organisations to serve Singaporean. We Singaporeans pay taxes for these expenses.
To assert ridiculously that opposition MPs not being accountable to Government is reason why they cannot take power authoritative role in grassroots in their constituencies is akin to the Chinese proverb of “cutting someone’s annus to balance up the pimples on your ugly face”
Opposition MPs are only accountable to their respective constituents WHO BY MAJORITY VOTED THEM IN – not any 4-legged OR more species elsewhere.
Terrified on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 9:58 am
Statutory Boards should behave themselves if they were fed by taxpayers. Selective in serving taxpayers should not be encouraged or motivated by pap. Otherwsie it serves no purpose for Singaporeans to pay hefty tax – direct and indirect.
Anonymous on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 10:18 am
Opposition MPs have already kept quiet over this ignonimy for a long time now. Why is MND still barking like a wounded pit bull terrier?
MORE GUILTY MIND FOLLOWING BY GUILTY ACT OF SELF-JUSTIFICATIONS AND PUBLIC WHITE-WASHING???
Who believes those hollow preaching of virtues?
Washing a black ink stain on a white cloth only spread the stain bigger, don’t MBD knows this??
BuiTaHan on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 11:15 am
Who give these self-claimed grassroots advisers authorization to act for the residents in these constituencies ? These advisers are not even voted by the residents !!!
LeeLL on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 12:01 pm
The more Lim tries to explain, the more I cannot decide whether to laugh or cry. To laugh at the comical twist and turn
of the explanation. Or to cry that a senior civil servant like
him(or her?) could treat us like idiots and children.
Lim should lay low and stop torturing us further
x12831 on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 12:29 pm
“government MPs” – this is evidence of anomaly in Lee’s paradise: PAP is the Govt is the PAP – and since the various govt depts and statutory boards are part of the various ministries, by default they are also part of the Govt which is the PAP. Where is the line? You know what, it is ‘family’ biz.
Ben on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 1:14 pm
If that’s what the the MND thinks, then the only way to be truly accountable and non-partisan is for these people to be civil servants, not politicians! Politicians must be accountable to the people, not appointed like some CCP Communist Secretary!
Yamasam on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 1:42 pm
All civil servants know which side of their bread is buttered. As long as PAP has a stranglehold in parliament with no threat of being ousted from forming the govt, they will always do the bidding of their political master.
Even when it is black, they will paint until white as long as it is what their master desire.
The only way for the civil servants to be non-partisan, it is to have a 2-party system. Then there won’t be certainty which party/parties will form the next govt at every election, and the civil servants cannot be partisan to any one party for fear of losing their position should the other party is voted into power.
Fed Up Citizen on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 2:58 pm
This MND Press(ed?) Secretary Lim Yuin Chien should be sacked from the Civil Service. He/she is making the MND and the govt looking more stupid and defensive than they already have been. Why can’t MND simply admits that its leadership has made a blunder by mixing selfish political interest with the business of national administration?
If this is the kind of talent we are having, it really speaks volumes about the selection process and quality control in the manpower resource management of the govt manpower management departments.
How can such a person be made Press Secretary!?
citizenofSG on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 3:03 pm
PA was formed by the PAP government to watched over all of us. It will surely remain faithful to PAP irregardless how surreal it may be. Of course we were being fooled, since when we were not. The money that fed PA that made them looked good like Santa Claus come from us, who else but with a little political chicanery, the PAP now fathers the organization.
The way out is to have the opposition formed a mirror organization of their own to compete with PA. Not to say the opposition may face considerable challenges with coming up with finances, I doubt PAP would let it survive. We are forced to eat humble pie.
Anyway this issue reflected small mindedness of Mr. Lim from HDB, just an announcement and give some face to the opposition MPs means nothing at all. What is the fuss about?
cy on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 3:47 pm
ben has a point abt the politicians like 党委书记 in the role of grassroots advisers. as we know in china,a party secretary has more power over 省长, 市长
so low thia kiang being only a district head cannot override the “party secretary” even if low is from opposition party.
anyway, i thought this Lim has said “agree to disagree”, why the bother to drag the matter out again,looks like PAP forever wants to have the last word.it just makes them look more detestable.
Alan Wong on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 4:20 pm
Maybe Mr. Lim should also clarify who should be taken to task & made accountable for Temasek’s massive losses.
Is it the current Temasek CEO Ho Ching, her husband our current PM, our SM Goh Chok Tong, her father-in-law our MM or our President ? Our opposition MPs ? Chee Soon Juan ?
Surely there must be someone responsible ? None ?
btan on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 4:37 pm
The ROOT of the problem is there simply are not enough opposition MPs in parliament. If they have more than 1/3 voices, the government cannot anyhow do what they like with respect to appointing key persons in stat boards and such.
Two opposition MPs simply do not have the vote to call for motion of no confidence or other measures to challenge PAP.
We also should have laws to disallowed voting by party-whip. The casino debate is a good example where even some PAP MPs are opposed to it but are unable to vote against it due to party whip.
Watch in youtube how opposition MPs try to table a motion to abolish the GRC system which is detrimental to them winning seats in parliament and how PAP can bulldoze them down with little efforts.
For every one opposition MP standing up to speak with issues, PAP can easily counter-bombard that MP with 10 of their own MPs (actually no need 10, 2-3 will do).
LKY can casually table a motion and 81 stooges will just say “aye”.
THIS is the root of all the problems.
The solution is voters have to understand this, accept the merits of a 2 or multi-party system and vote more opposition MPs in to check on PAP. This is regardless of whether PAP is doing a good job or not.
By not actively supporting and voting to create a 2 party system, voters are selling themselves short by causing a single party to dominate parliament.
Many voters are still being idealistic and want a “balance” view and judge candidates by their individual merits. Others are having an attitude of “not in my ward” where they do not mind opposition MPs in other ward but not in their ward.
We simply cannot have our cake and eat it at the same time. More voters in more constituency have to wake up like those in PP and Hougang and vote in the opposition or else we will forever be dominated by PAP and be made a mockery of a democratic country.
abc on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 6:08 pm
I would like clarify that the government is not the ruling party. Even if PAP wins all the seats, the government is one that is voted in by the people. It is just that all the MPs happened to come from the same party.
what we have today in Singapore is a PAP-led government. Anyone who tries to blurr the line to suggest that Government = PAP or vice versa is really telling a lie. the 2 Opposition party members are part of the government. So, it is correct to say that the success of singapore is also attributed to the government and hence also from contributions of these 2 opposition members.
what PAP wants to do is to suggest that the Opposition members are not part of the governments. They further try to corrupt it by underminding their wards with appointed leaders and channel all goodies through these individuals. They do this by hoping to confuse the people that all goodies are from PAP but the reality is that it is from the government.
This game that PAP has been playing had worked for the last 40 years. However, somehow suddenly the general public refused to accept this thought process anymore. I suspect its because of the years of mistreatment of the 2 opposition wards and this sense of fair play that is missing. It is bottled up and ordinary quiet singaporeans are speaking up. You can only fool the people for so long. When its not fair, one day it’ll catch up with you. This is the starting point of what’s to come.
But as with the PAP, there’ll be change in strategies but their confusion techniques will be alot harder today as the people are more questioning and able to see through the lies.
It’ll be interesting days ahead as we head into an election next year. They actually thought the ground is sweet (that’s why they announced the LUP for the 2 wards) about 3 months ago but I think they realized its actually sour. It looke like back to the drawing board for them. Look out for more goodies before they start another buildup for the elections.
citizenofSG on Tue, 27th Oct 2009 10:29 pm
@abc – great piece of work and the explanation of things. However there is one thing that is really shaping politics in Singapore, it is the internet. We always have brave and gongho people around but they are short on ideas how to rebut the PAP. If more people like you who come to open up our eyes maybe someday we can do start the wind of change and we are not afraid to change I assure you.
It is unlikely the election will be next year because there is the soccer world cup. Probably after that i think.
janetnt on Wed, 28th Oct 2009 1:08 am
IF the government can only work with its own MP, then its not a good government at all.
What the Fish on Wed, 28th Oct 2009 7:54 am
MND has done Singapore’s opposition a big favor and kicked PAP smack on its face.
Based on MND’s logic that MPs (regardless if its PAP or opposition) are not accountable but the grassroot leaders are then:
1) What on the bloody earth has those PAP grassroots been doing all these years depriving the opposition held estates from the upgrading? so these bunch of incompetent chaps have failed all the residents until now right?
2) Since MPs are divorced from grassroot decisions, Singaporeans should now no longer feel threatened if an opposition MP gets elected since all grassroots are runned by PAP anyway.
Wow what a bunch of extremely clever people we have at MND I am sure LHL, GCT and LKY will be ensuring they get a big fat bonus for their superb effort.
stan on Wed, 28th Oct 2009 9:45 am
first the miw uses lup as bait and you can see most of the pap won election areas with LUP except the oppositions. now they say grassroot advisers are in charge? so who do i believe when it comes to LUP? the gov? the grassroot advisers or the miw?
Jim on Thu, 29th Oct 2009 3:47 pm
Hi All,
Please show some sympathy to the Press Secretary. Remember this: Whatever has been written by him has to be vetted eventually by his boss Mah Bow Tan before being given to the newspapers.
Who knows…. His replies might have been severely edited by his boss? Maybe his original version was neutral instead?
mack on Sun, 1st Nov 2009 11:11 pm
just vote the opposition in next time lah.. PAP still got so many advisors to run the show u scare they will fall?!!?
PMET on Tue, 3rd Nov 2009 12:11 pm
To Jim on Thu, 29th Oct 2009 3:47 pm,
ha ha ha ha ha… “Please show some sympathy to the Press Secretary. Remember this: Whatever has been written by him has to be vetted eventually by his boss Mah Bow Tan before being given to the newspapers.”
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…
“Whatever has been written by him has to be vetted eventually by his boss Mah Bow Tan” indeed!
ha ha ha ha ha…
It is so obvious that the LUP in opposition wards are being used as a political tool to gain brownie points for the two losing PAP candidates.
What the MND is currently doing is akin to walking into a company (eg, Temasek Holdings) and telling the front reception to perform investments in certain equities, bypassing the relevant authorized parties and then claiming that the CEO has no say in the matter.
Do you think that is the way to do things?
Given that even the Town Council Act is written as such that ALL LUP MUST go thru the Town Council Committee (Source: http://www.temasekreview.com/2009/10/29/town-council-act-cap-329a-states-clearly-that-govt-must-work-with-town-councils-run-by-mps-to-implement-lup/), shouldn’t the relevant authorities, in this case, the opposition MPs in the opposition wards, be the one handling the LUP project in the first place?
Call a spade a spade. If the MND made a mistake interpreting the law, a simple “Opps, I’m sorry, I made a mistake. Let’s see how we can make amends” will go a long way. Instead, the MND is trying to bulldoze their warped logic into people hoping that they will accept it.
I sure look forward to the day where I can see MBT and MND eat their own words for flouting the law.
Question now is, are we going to be getting another “So what? It happened. Let’s move on.” from the PAP again?
Or are they going to ensure the proper rules, laws and processes be followed to the Tee and mete out the relevant punishment and demand the relevant apologies to be made to close this whole LUP matter?