Our newly minted Law Minister and Second Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam in his maiden parliamentary speech as a Minister told the House and the population in general to take the recent Home Affairs team’s lapses in the correct perspective, that our men and women in blue must not be expected to be ever-vigilant as that would put an undue strain on them. Such strain would result in our brave men and women in blue becoming risk-adverse and wont to make judgments for fear of being wrong.
Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng backed it up by saying that his Ministry must not be expected to keep our island air-tight, that MSK could have easily or easily not escaped our shores into Indonesia. Indeed he cited no existing country that could keep its borders air-tight. 147 million travelers is no small joke.
Health Minister Khaw reminded us not to be closed minded about ideas, no matter how radical or controversial they are. In the case of organ trading, he reminded us that legalised organ trading is not an impossibility, as long as the correct monetary figure can be arrived at. Afterall, Iran has a great organ trading, nay, sharing system in place.
Our politicians decry “unfair” reports citing “lack of understanding of our culture”, yet proudly announce favorable reviews. When the US State Dept cites Singapore as a Tier 2 country for controlling human and sex trafficking, our Dear Leaders decry the lack of “understanding of local conditions”. Similarly our MM’s citation of an IBA report during a feisty court case, yet on the same foot denounce the very same organisation later.
All explained away as “inaccuracies” or “rethinks”.
It has become increasingly clear that our PAP government has been explaining away almost every misstep they’ve taken or are about to take, with an Wikipedia-esque encyclopedia of obscure statistics and anecdotal evidence. Like how Sweden has an unemployment rate of 15%. In actual fact, while the Swedish government has officially announced an unemployment rate of 5%, independent reports have pinned it to 15%, 3 times the official value, in 2006.
So when is it right and when is it wrong? Clearly that’s entirely up to the PAP. It’s nearly farcical that our politicians are time and time again caught out in using findings to their advantage when they see fit. Even the truth behind slowing construction projects can be reworded into “deferments” and “resource re-channeling”. S$5 billion? What’s the truth of this one? A building boom bubble that was about to burst? Are this generation’s leaders running Singapore to the ground? Even one of our mainstays, grand National Day parades, have come under flak, for ripping off a Japanese ad in a recent tv spot. That’s alright, afterall aren’t we all about copying original ideas when it comes to tv programmes? Idol, Dance, Lyrics, Cooking, you name it we’ve copied it. Let’s just hope we didn’t copy National Day parades because North Korea did it. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, no?
Explaining away wrongdoing shows a lack of accountability and responsibility on the part of our Government. The proper thing to do with errors is to step up, admit the error, and accept judgment.
