Monday’s Parliamentary session on Ridout Road was not a debate so much as a torrent of angry, self-justifying and hypocritical verbiage from Shanmugam. Much of it was justifying SLA’s record of poor management of our precious land reserves. SLA in case any of you have forgotten comes under his control and Shanmugam appointed the head of SLA.

There is a lot to unpack from that session. I did attend parliament on the day and apparently some PAP all looked up when I came in but I had to leave early to deal with some business and to fly to London for a graduation event. Rest assured I will be putting out my analysis in a series of articles over the weekend. You can view the quick vlog I made outside on the day, below.

Meanwhile let us rewind a little to my open letter to our Elected President requesting a COI. Whilst not as exciting this is possibly the single most important thing that I or anyone else has written about the whole sorry saga. Because Rajahs of Ridout Road is at its heart about who we are as a Nation, indeed who we are as a people. It concerns our ambitions, our aspirations and the Singapore we want for our children and our children’s children. This tale of monumental arrogance, gross inequality and state incompetence hits at a time when all the other Singaporeans are really suffering from a squeeze in every aspect of their lives. RRR is a bread and butter issue and don’t let anybody tell you it isn’t.

I’m not sure there is anyone left anywhere in the world who still harbours the suspicion that Singapore is a democracy. We know intellectually that we don’t live in a democracy but still it seems that Singaporeans who should know better still harboured hopes in their hearts before July 03rd, that we aren’t completely totalitarian. Martyn See, by way of example, 6 days ago wrote a very funny post on facebook, a script on how he expected it to play out in parliament on the day.

Even his modest ambitions weren’t realised. I didn’t see any contrition, any humility. Not even crocodile tears. A lot of the questions I had raised were not answered or were partly answered with evasions. Frustratingly, what was revealed only threw up more questions. Some of the answers revealed details that were more egregious than I could have imagined. The snake and mosquito infested land that was added to the already palatial grounds?!! More of that later.

The only thing proven beyond reasonable doubt is that we needed an Commission of Inquiry (COI). To quote from my blog: “To ensure impartiality the Chair of the COI should be a senior judge from a Commonwealth country such as the UK, Australia, Canada, India or even Malaysia. Without an independent chair there is a high risk of a white wash.” I then followed up that article with an open letter to our President saying: “without a COI chaired by an independent judge how are we to find out which procedures were adhered to in the process that led to these two Ministers being able to rent these two enormous state owned properties at a time when they already owned prestigious and large family homes?”

Our Elected President Mdm Halimah Yaacob was not courteous enough to respond to my letter, even for a matter important enough to the good people of Singapore and the management of the reserves that two reports and a parliamentary session had to be convened in an effort to make it disappear. The farce that is now the Elected Presidency is one more nail in the coffin for any hopes we have of even the tiniest vestiges of democracy. Let’s face it, poor Mdm Halimah has never been up to the job. I’ve been writing about the massive surpluses for over 10 years and back then I wrote an open letter to Thaman and Christine Lagarde of the IMF as well. Our elected President doesn’t have the training or experience for the job but even worse than this, she doesn’t have the inclination. No president has since Ong Teng Cheong asked to be told the amount of the reserves. Obviously the man who played a key role in hiding Budget resources and the size of the reserves from Singaporeans when he was Finance Minister, Tharman, is not going to be independent. The only potential alternative candidate so far is George Goh who has said he doesn’t intend to be a check on the government of the day. In short a rehash of the co-driver analogy of Low Thia Kiang. So not independent. He vows to safeguard the reserves – without finding out what they are? All I had expected from Md Halimah was that she would show a teeny bit of interest in seeing that our reserves are safeguarded. Is that too much to ask?

In the case of Ridoutgate, an independent COI was the last mechanism for accountability left to us. Instead we got PAP bullying tactics from Teo Chee Hean to ram down our throats the outrageous claim that there was no conflict of interest. We were treated to the unedifying spectacle of Shanmugam saying that it was a waste of Parliamentary time for him to be held to account and that this was holding up very serious national business. There are zero checks and balances left. “Ownself check ownself” is what the PAP want to gaslight you into accepting but worse the PAP have done away with any concept of public service. White on white used to be a symbol of virtuousness/squeaky clean. Now it symbolises whitewash.

Democracy is dead. Long live corrupt authoritarian rule where power is used to defend the PAP Ministers and to silence those who would question them. From the very outset or very first instance of the B&W issues, Ministers in our virtual one-party state where the safeguarding pillars of democracy have been systematically dismantled, should have recused themselves in order to avoid any perception of conflict or lack of robust transparency and accountability. The first instance that I am aware of is:

Leong Mun Wai’s Written Question:

To ask the Minister for Law in view of reports on $200,000 per month rental for a Queen Astrid Park good class bungalow (GCB) (a) whether there is now a greater rental demand for colonial black-and-white bungalows; (b) how many colonial black-and-white bungalows exceed 20,000 square feet in land area; and (c) what is the land size, current lease duration and monthly rental for each of these bungalows.

Shanmugam. “I‘m afraid there is. a very real possibility of perception of conflict here. I will openly and of my own volition declare that i am a renter of one of these properties and my good friend Bala rents another. Our senior friend Teo Chee Hean advised us on the matter. Therefore i would ask the speaker of the house to allow me to recuse myself from answering this question“

Of course that didn’t happen.

What happened instead is that on Monday, Shanmugam used his Parliamentary privilege and his platform in the house as a bully pulpit from where he issued threats in a concerted attempt to intimidate his critics and ordinary Singaporean citizens. I’m sure that’s not how Parliamentary time is designed to be used and is a better example of wasting parliamentary time for what presumably would be private action by Shanmugam. It reminds me of the PM using his civil servants for a private matter when he sued the blogger Roy Ngern.

The hypocrisy of Shanmugam talking about family ( notable the grown up adult CEO of the Singapore subsidiary of an Indian company that the Economic Development Board’s investment arm invested in shortly after he joined) was not lost on those who know my family history and what was done to my wife and son. And before that what was done to prevent me being able to have a career in NS or after graduation in Singapore and how my family was destroyed by one vindictive old man who couldn’t stand being bested by an Indian Singaporean who won an SMC in a Chinese majority seat because it turned his racist eugenicist world view upside down. Kirsten Han summed it up in a tweet.

Thinking about how many palaces one family reasonably needs I am reminded of Koh Poh Koon (KPK). He said, “Everyone in Singapore has a car. I have two. ” He was haunted by this through successive elections with the media reporting that it showed he was out of touch with the ordinary working Singaporean. Indeed RRR coul dbe summed up as, Everyone in Singapore has a mansion. I have two.

Published by kjeyaretnam

I'm a Singaporean economist who became an opposition activist. I blog to provide an alternative to the porkies that the Pinkies tell. It just so happens that my alternative is the truth. That's why I've never been sued in any civil or criminal court no matter how hard hitting my criticism. I'm quoted and interviewed and asked to speak across the world but largely censored in Singapore in an effort to silence my political opinions. The left hate me because they think I split their vote and because I eschew their outmoded economic models. Models that don't work. The Right and the Conservatives hate me because I'm a liberal. I'm not sure what the middle think of me. I don't think there are more than a handful of people in the middle, here in Singapore. I'm a Singaporean born and bred, dual heritage, my parents Singaporean established here before the State of Singapore was created. I'm not Eurasian. I read economics at Cambridge and could be broadly described as from the Keynesian school but I believe in interventions. I was formerly a successful hedge fund manager. After economics and politics my greatest interests are history, film and Makan. I run but I run so I can eat like a Singaporean. View all posts by kjeyaretnam