Comments, opinions and an occasional ramble
Should Wong Kan Seng be sacked? Tough question.
The release of results of the inquiry into the Mas Selamat fiasco has resulted in renewed calls for accountability (note: this generally reads as the sacking of DPM Wong Kan Seng) by Singaporean netizens. PM Lee Hsien Loong has come out to defend Wong Kan Seng, saying that Singaporeans should not slip into a “witch-hunting mode”.
I find it interesting that PM Lee chooses to use the term “witch-hunt”. Putting on my critical media scholar hat, I think PM Lee is trying to frame the discussion to his benefit. By choosing to use the term “witch-hunt”, PM Lee is essentially throwing in a smoke grenade to obscure the differences between accountability and witch-hunt, probably hoping to equate the two so that he can turn the spotlight away from the issue of accountability.
Having said that, I do think that PM Lee has a point too. I mean, how far up the chain of command should the blame be laid? Some time back, a soldier escaped from his army camp with a rifle. Should the chief of army, chief of defence force and the minister be sacked for that? Or should the transport minister be sacked for the Nicoll Highway incident? It’s a tough call for PM Lee on whether he should sack a minister who is not directly responsible.
Besides, it would be counter-productive to sack an obviously talented person over a mistake he/she is not directly responsible for. There is more value to the organization in keeping such people. Of course, whether DPM Wong is of such a pedigree is open to debate.
PM Lee also said that we have to be careful of breeding a culture where people are afraid to make mistakes. That point is well-taken. I think we need to leave some allowance for honest mistakes. However, then question would be why are the guards considered to be negligent instead of making an honest mistake? Why are mistakes for some people tolerated, but not others?
I guess there are no straightforward answers. I personally would like to see something more substantial than an apology, although resignation is not necessary. Maybe a big pay cut? Or maybe a demotion to Minister of State? 
| Print article | This entry was posted by Aaron Ng on 23/04/2008 at 1:06 pm, and is filed under Perspective. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 2 years ago
I would settle for a parliamentary reprimand (if sg still has these things) so that it would be on record.
about 2 years ago
On TV, I saw WKS cleared his throat when PM Lee was relieving him from the fate of resignation. I can see his relief when that statement of PM Lee was put across to everyone. He is lucky this time, but not all the time.
about 2 years ago
As we said in our editorial, the question of culpability is not limited to the toilet break per se. The ensuing series of events after that showed the Minister of Home Affairs’ failure – even today, more than 50 days after the escape, he has been unable to find him nor give more information to the public., besides repeating that “investigation shows he is still in Singapore”.
To only think of responsibility in the narrow scope of the escape itself is erroneous.
The biggest flaw, in my opinion, is the Minister of Home Affairs privately telling the Director of ISD that he can keep his job – simply because “I have known him for many years”.
This at a time when investigations were going on – both from the COI and the CID.
If this does not compromise investigations, then I do not know what is.
Also, notice that the MHA has a hand in all the investigation – COI (2 members who have worked or is still working for the MHA) and the CID (a dept in the MHA itself and whose report is not made public.)
So again, responsibility is not limited to the how of how Mas Selamat escaped but also to the ensuing series of interest of conflicts which the Minister of Home Affairs was involved in.
Regards,
Andrew Loh
about 2 years ago
I think at the moment, WKS is not blind to the fact that there is a lot of public pressure on him to actually pay some attention to what it means to be accountable, be it on his own position or that of the Director of ISD.
This being a sorry state of affairs aside, I believe that the signals are being sent out to the politicians that the ground is not going to be forgiving anymore.
It is not due to Mas Selamat’s escape alone, but a convergence of many things that they’ve often said to be out of their control.
The writing is slowly going on the wall. The ball is in their court now.
about 2 years ago
I pity the 2 gurkha guards who gave up the warmth of the family to work here. I would want the COI to check what were the protocols in the situation – they were told NOT to talk to the detainee to prevent them socialising. In this case, were the guards following the rules of the SOP drawn by ISD operatives- in case of doubt, refer to the ISD girl immediately and do not talk to the deainee. Therefore if they were following procedures not to talk to detainee, they should not be blamed. COI should then point the blame upwards. At the end of the day, if you know the PM and WKS personally, your job is safe. That is the culture of elitism, nothing about witch hunt or what have you.
about 2 years ago
I pity the 2 gurkha guards who gave up the warmth of the family to work here. I would want the COI to check what were the protocols in the situation – they were told NOT to talk to the detainee to prevent them socialising. In this case, were the guards following the rules of the SOP drawn by ISD operatives- in case of doubt, refer to the ISD girl immediately and do not talk to the detainee. Therefore if they were following procedures not to talk to detainee, they should not be blamed. COI should then point the blame upwards. At the end of the day, if you know the PM and WKS personally, your job is safe. That is the culture of elitism, nothing about witch hunt or what have you.
about 2 years ago
Andrew,
You have made valid observations, although I do wonder how much information should be released without compromising operational effectiveness. That is a tough call to make. I would like more information and I would advocate greater transparency but I think we have to be a little sensitive to operational issues too.
The conflict of interests, in my opinion, will happen no matter what because the levers of power and authority are too tightly controlled. Whoever sits on whatever committee of inquiry under whatever government arm will have to meet certain qualifications in order to warrant a seat on the committee. That in itself will lend certain bias.
In anycase, I doubt that true objectivity is ever possible so the best that we can do is to ask whether despite the possible conflicts of interest, has a thorough job been done? If we are not satisfied, then obviously we have to try and push for more.
about 2 years ago
It’s God’s will.
We should all thank to Selamat for showing us the brutal truth of high-paid coffers.
Now, coffers !
please tell us how much reserve we have and how it is used. Don’t tell me billion dollars go through toilet break and disappear overnight !!!!!!
about 2 years ago
Taxpayers did not pay peanuts to get that kind of monkey excuses. The whole thing abt high pay is that we are now in a transactional kind of governance. After this fiasco, i don’t think i am getting my money worth, so should i ask for a refund or change the duty manager? Citizens are asked to bit the bullet during hard times so why shd the top people have their cake n eat it while the pawns get scarificed? We are not talking abt an escaped convict but a hardened terrorist bent on inflicting damage to our society. Therefore, accountability shd be from the very top. Complacency has already set in from the very top and looks like it is not going away soon.
about 2 years ago
Aaron,
The easiest way to avoid any conflicts of interests, even if it is ostentatious, is to:
1. Include opposition members in the COI.
2. Take the COI out of the MHA Minister’s purview and put it under the President (as the WP suggested).
Doing these would at least address the question of impartiality and independence.
about 2 years ago
WKS without a doubt has little talent, other than being a PAP or Lee loyalist.
Mas’s escape and the sheer magnitude of the blunder aside. This is a minister who is in charge of all the necessary resources at his disposal to catch Mas after the breakout. Look how convenient PM and the media totally skipped this area. Two months on, countless resources spent, not counting the costs and inconveniences to businesses, and what results have they achieved? It is fair to say the operation has been a total failure. They cannot even confirm whether Mas is still on the island or not!
So again do we say “oh WKS is not directly involved, so he is blameless”. At the very least he should be relieved of his duties as minister in charge for this reason.
And then let us not forget 2006 General Election and how he mercilessly tore into James Gomez, even initiating police action against an innocent man. So do we now so easily forgive WKS? Does he even deserve a second chance considering he has been home affairs minister for over a decade? Let us not forget too that his ministry failed to catch Mas several yrs ago allowing Mas to slip out of the country.
Quite frankly WKS has no credibility left. His reputation is in tatters. If he does not even offer to resign and do a public apology then the worst about PAP and its leaders is confirmed. Anyway it is too late now, he has missed that window of opportunity to do the right and honourable thing.
about 2 years ago
why does everyone talk about complacency when its plainly obvious that the physical fencing and the way the CCTV upgrade was done is really an issue of lack of COMPETENCY ?
about 2 years ago
Don’t blame the guards entirely, there are SOPs, Crisis Management Procedures, etc at most sensitive installations but the gist is did the senior officers ensure and remind his men to follow rules and regulations? Have they done any security survey and was it done by a security expert? By not having any grills in the toilet sounds funny and by blaming the CCTV cameras are still on testing or validating sounds even funnier in today’s advanced technology. Ask any security systems expert and they can verify it. Perhaps the senior officers at the higher chain of command needs to be disciplined rather than the junior officers because as senior officers they are not only possess higher academic qualifications, but they were supposed to have good leadership qualities.
about 2 years ago
actually – do we want to believe the CCTV is out of order in the first place- or is it only a claim by COI or Whitley centre that it is out of order. If the election centre has CCTV, working overtime on James Gomez, the CCTV here is not working in a detention centre? Sure or not?
about 2 years ago
I did not think it absolutely necessary for WKS to resign until I was reminded of his vicious and uninhibited diatribe against James Gomez during the 2006 election. This is clearly the behaviour of a hypocrite who should step down or wait for the people of Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC to unceremoniously vote him out in the next election. I hope his time has come.
about 2 years ago
Righteousness exalts a nation.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/righteousness
about 2 years ago
Hi Aaron,
I believe that it is not the fault of the policy-makers (WKS) here. Instead, the problem lies with the enforcement of such policies. Very much like in the Army, how many directives are actively followed or strictly adhered to.
It is the people down the line who are at fault.
Then again, why should WKS be worried about getting the sack. He would be able to command the 2.2million outside should be leave. RIGHT? haha
about 2 years ago
Hi Aaron,
I believe that it is not the fault of the policy-makers (WKS) here. Instead, the problem lies with the enforcement of such policies. Very much like in the Army, how many directives are actively followed or strictly adhered to.
It is the people down the line who are at fault.
Then again, why should WKS be worried about getting the sack. He would be able to command the 2.2million outside should he leave. RIGHT? haha
about 2 years ago
Hi Derrick,
If you say that it is not the fault of the policy-makers and that the problem lies with the enforcement of such policies which you actually mean the gurkha guards did not perform their jobs properly. Then may I ask who set the policy to employ them? Please answer?
about 2 years ago
I still don’t understand how a fat man could have gotten through that tiny window.
about 2 years ago
Hi Neo,
Policies are set with very utopian mindsets. Further guidelines to policies serve to preserve the original intent of such policies.
The problem doesn’t lie solely on the Gurkhas. It is more of an unfortunate culmination of factors. Complacency, as the government puts it, is very much at work here. And as I have mentioned, there definitely are guidelines about the physical security of prisions or in this case, dentention centres – which probably resulted in the ‘planned’ installation of window grills etc. That is why enforcement is so critical yet lacking here.
The question here, really, is whether there are yardsticks or measures to enforce enforcement.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who will guard the guardians? [Socrates] – Plato’s The Republic
about 2 years ago
It just hit me.
Will we be led on to enforce^n (enforcement).
We need an anthropologist here.
about 2 years ago
The findings from the investigations were pretty lame as far as I can see.
1) Renovation works not done due to poor communications with contractors
2) Officers who allow Mas Selamat to close the door in the urinal
Is that how things are supposed to function in ISD? Yes, it is not Changi Prison, but does the people acknowledge the potential danger of the people housed there?
I think such lax attitude should call for a parliamentary reprimand, as mentioned above. As a record.
It is true – PAP has hounded the opposition for errors etc during elections. Isn’t this some kind of double standard when it is their own internal people?
True, the Director ISD should take most of the blame. But being Minister, the leader should be accountable and answerable eventually.
The fact the PM Lee gave such a short time for Low to respond before he walked off from the parliamentary stand is also a show. Who could have responded in such a short time? Perhaps he should have directed the question not just at Low, but at the Parliament in general. Looking at the short vodcasts, I can sense many of the MPs themselves cannot buy such an explanation to the escape.
about 2 years ago
WKS should go for the sake of accountabilty. Lee related or not, this time there is no excuse, otherwise, PM and his cabinet will lose all credibility!
about 2 years ago
I think we are asking the wrong question. If we only asked the question whether WKS should resign on account of Mas Selamat’s escape, then I agree that on balance, he should not because it is unreasonable to expect the leader to be accountable for such lapses as you have explained.
But if we were to ask whether WKS should resign on account of failing to apprehend Mas Selamat, a man acting alone, who had maybe 10 minutes headstart, with no money, even with the largest manhunt in Singapore’s history, then I think the answer is yes. Because the failure to apprehend Mas Selamat after his escape under the circumstances shows a clear lack of competence.
about 2 years ago
To know who are responsible for Mas Selamat’s escape, e.g. whether he has any help from supporters or insiders and whether WRDC staff were involved thru astronumerology, where only a person’s Date of Birth and gender is required. One can also know anyone’s characteristics and their positive and negative traits as well. So anyone want to know more please email me.
about 2 months ago
Now for the security breach at Changi MRT depot, the time for WKS should end soon.