TR EMERITUS

Mdm President “My role is not to checkmate the Government. No, my role is not that. My role is to make sure that our reserves that are released are used in a manner that is meant for our national interests.” This will be her last NDP 23. She is not running for another term. Six years brings her to 70 years old. There is a season to be president; and a season to be a distinguished commoner. President Halimah (“Halimah”) said: “When a people retire, the first thing that they do is they try to catch up with the time that they have lost with the family.” She has five children, all grown up, and 2 grandchildren. I guess she is the most controversial president after Ong Teng Cheong (OTC). Unlike OTC, our de facto first elected president, Halimah walked into Istana, unchallenged. Two man-made hurdles seemed to pave the presidential path for her. First, it was the hard-to-swallow reserved election. It felt like a late delivery, and it was served cold, leaving many wondering whether the power-that-be had too much of a hand in it. And it came at a bad time too, when Tan Cheng Bock (TCB) was all armored up for the second bite of the electoral cherry. TCB lost just a nose tip to Tony Tan (between 35.2 and 34.8, that’s just 0.4). That was 2011, and TCB was the hot candidate in 2017, if not for the reserved presidency. Well, as a point of contention, and even giving it a benefit of a doubt, the EP could be necessary for racial fairness and harmony. But one has to question its timing, coming at the heels of a candidate who had the trade wind under his presidential sail. The other hurdle was about raising the shareholders’ equity bar from 100m to 500m in value. The first hurdle held back the indefatigable TCB, and the second swept away the other two Malay presidential candidates, Salleh Marican and Farid Khan. They ran short and was disqualified before their shoe-laces could be tied. Emerging from this controversial haze is Halimah. It’s ironic that she recently remarked: “Public office is never a walk in the park, is it? You have to expect to be scrutinised, to be criticised, to be questioned.” That’s true. And she took all the critiques about her being “selected” instead of being elected in her stride. But, despite a flat-footed start at the race, Halimah earned some brownie points identifying with the majority of Singaporeans when she insisted that her dwelling place remained as it was. In the initial months, she was known as the HDB president hailing from Yishun. She had lived there for more than 30 years. That humble optic was both democratic and meritocratic. But it soon became quixotic, if not unrealistic, due to security reasons. And off went the president and the president’s men to a much more exclusive estate where heads of state belong. She may have a jumbo-sized heart for the people, but her jumbo-size government subsidised flat at Block 633 had become a PT Barnum’s tourist attraction. And the corridor of the estate was just too narrow to accommodate the safety and regality of the presidential personality. Now, after six long years, Halimah is done. She has run the best she could. And it was not the best of times for her, considering the Covid pandemic. Coming 70, she is back to the race for family, friends and worthy causes, and in my book, they are equally presidential. She is no less grateful for the opportunity to make an enduring difference. But she had had a fair share of taking up the “tremendous responsibilities” of the presidency, and it’s time to pass the baton to a relatively younger candidate (I guess you can put your bottom dollar on another minority-race president, since he’s all strapped up at the starting lineup, standing all alone, whistling to himself, while the other two struggle to qualify). Let me end with the demonstrated fortitude of Halimah. She answered the call. She made the sacrifice. She may be paid well, but like she said, “it’s never a walk in the park”; though incidentally, Pinic@Istana and Garden@Istana programmes were her brainchild. As an aside, she made Istana a wheelchair-friendly space, to make the “national asset” accessible to all. While SR Nathan approved the withdrawal of $4.9b of the nation’s reserves in 2009, Halimah drew down close to 10x of that, nearly $40b. That was a furnace moment for her. She did her job to safeguard the people’s savings and the future of Singapore the best she knew how. In a recent interview, she recounted that she and her prominent advisers attended 50 meetings with ministers of Finance, Trade and Industry, and Health, and was briefed frequently about fiscal matters, public health and the economic crisis Singaporeans are facing. It was a time she had sleepless nights. It was clearly unprecedented. No one had the benefit of hindsight at that time. Halimah could very well go down in history as a prodigal president rather than a prudent one. It is no doubt an honour and privilege to be the president of a wealthy independent state, which most of us can only dream of. But, the challenges are immense and real. It takes a mind and heart that are decades in the making thru industry and character to steer from that commanding height. Notwithstanding the controversial start, Halimah has proven her mettle. She had run another race for the last six years, and had run it well. Strictly speaking, she may not be the people’s choice, but she has won the people’s heart. For a brief human life, when spent, will have to look back, not so much at his/her accomplishments, but at whether they were done to the best that one could ever give, and with a clear conscience. That takes stamina, integrity and a good heart. Halimah embodies all that, and I say it’s time to give credit when credit is due.   Michael Han * The author is a Director at Hoh Law Corporation and blogs on Facebook.      Read More →

Tan Kin Lian & Family I came from a family of 6 children. We lived in rental rooms, and had to move from place to place on expiry of the lease. My father lost his livelihood during the Indonesian confrontation in 1965. I left school after secondary 4 to work to support the family. At that time, I was among the top students in Raffles Institution. I worked for 12 years in various jobs and qualified as an insurance actuary. I was recruited to run NTUC Income insurance in 1977 and worked there for 30 years. The assets of Income was $28 million when I joined and increased by 600 times to $17 billion when I left in 2007 at the age of 59 years. I enjoyed working in Income because it was a cooperative society. Most of the profits that it made were ploughed back to give higher bonuses to its policyholders. They do not go to pay big dividends to shareholders or to pay high salaries of the board and top management. I also run Income frugally and kept the operating expenses low. This helps to keep the premiums low, so that the policyholders pay less. During my time, there were over 1 million policyholders who were insured by Income. They know that I run Income for the benefit of the policyholders and they were happy with the benefits from their insurance policies. I hope that these policyholders will support me in this presidential election (tentative) and ask their children to support me also. I fully met the criteria to contest for the presidential election, as the shareholder equity of Income exceeded $500 million during the last three years of my service there. I believe that the same principle should apply to running a country. The government should keep its expenses low, including the salaries of the ministers, so that the people enjoy a lower cost of living and pay less taxes. For myself, I lived a frugal life and encourage other people to do the same. I was active in serving the community. I helped the MP to start the first residents' committees in Singapore in 1979 and led the fund raising for its first community center, raising funds mainly from the residents (not business tycoons). I continued the grassroots work for 20 years. After I left Income, I continued to be involved in social issues in Singapore. I started a business in computer software and also traveled regularly to provide insurance consultancy in Indonesia. My wife has been a homemaker after our marriage. She took care of three children and now helped to look after five grandchildren.   Tan Kin Lian      Read More →

The graveyard of corporations that collapsed due to unethical behavior is populated by many whose demise bear two commonalities - (a) there was creative accounting involved, (b) only a handful of insiders knew what was happening. The lesson being exclusive corporate governance and opaqueness has existential risks. In the case of Barings Plc (1995) only Singapore branch general manager Nick Leeson knew about the unauthorised speculative trades he was conducting. As for Enron (2001) only a few directors and executives knew about the large losses concealed. Recall the Carrian Group (1983) which took the live of Bank Negara Malaysia’s internal auditor in Hongkong, no one knew the small group involved, although Najib was a suspect. As for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (2008) good old Bernie seemed to be the only person in the driver’s seat. The list goes on. Coming to Singapore Inc, how many people know the state of the national reserves? I think you can count with your fingers. Segregated responsibilities mean almost all functionaries have no idea of the big picture. Only a cloistered few are privy to state financial secrets. The stage is set for financial disaster when mistakes or losses are covered up, creating further mistakes and losses in a plunge down the rabbit hole, or when rogue elements control this inner circle. The men in whites believe in PAP moral determinism. As long as they are in government, there will be no financial indiscretion. But a fluke election might see an opposition in power. It is for this reason that first generation leaders revised the Constitution for an elected president to hold the second key to past reserves. With election round the corner, many good folks have expressed opinions of how an upright and independent president can better protect national reserves and help set the moral compass for the government. To them, I have two words -’dream on’. The scope of the function of president is restricted to a ceremonial role. The president has absolutely no business with the acts of the Executive except for passing Spending Bills. That is the only time when the president can ensure expenditure does not dip into past reserves. Even then, it is one thing to look at budgets, and another thing when it comes to actual cashflows which has nothing to do with the president. Does President Halimah know where the S$25b to recapitalise MAS came from? It's not a spending, so Halimah heard about this only from the news like everyone else. And should a president go kamikaze against government policies, Devan Nair and Ong Teng Cheong may have advice for him/her in their dreams. It was no surprise Heng Swee Kiat was earmarked to take over the reigns from PM Lee Hsien Loong. When Heng’s ‘East Coast Plan’ evaporated and he had to recuse himself for health reasons, the selection process ensued. In many online discussions on leadership transition, in the guessing game, my money had always been on the one who end up as Finance Minister. Again it was no surprise LHL, de facto the party, will pass the baton to Lawrence Wong who landed the finance job. My brother and I have been PAP watchers for decades and we have been right on the mark many times. We have been acutely aware of a certain predictability to LKY and PAP. On leadership transition the path is through famiLee (Singa-lingo for Lee family lineage), PMO (Prime Minister’s Office), MAS and MOF (Ministry of Finance). Goh Chok Tong, Lee Hsien Loong, Heng Swee Kiat, and Lawrence Wong, all flowed through one or more of these three agencies. The reason is obvious. They are all privy to state financial secrets. Keep top secrets exclusively to a tightly knitted few. In the case of PMO, lower level staffers must also have access to restricted state secrets. These personnel must by necessity be managed with kids’ gloves as reciprocal to sealed lips. See the rise of Grace Fu, Iswaran, Indranee, and Lucien Wong who never got charged for theft of documents and retains the AG post long past statutory retirement age? Could that privileged position of untouchability have emboldened Iswaran to whatever acts that led to CPIB investigation? Iswaran’s case may end in one of 3 ways - (a) The law will take its natural course; (b) A negotiated way out with a light sentence; (c) Iswaran will go the way of Phey Yew Kok who promised to “tell all”, whatever that meant, and then disappear from the face of the Earth. Indranee Rajah has been a Minister in PMO, currently is Second Minister for Finance, and Second Minister for National Development. She is also Leader of the House, in a position where she tries hard to emulate the no nonsense toughness of LKY. There is no doubt she is being groomed for higher office. Much will be clearer when LHL steps down and Wong takes over the premiership. Would Indranee take over Wong’s role as Minister of Finance, or will the coveted job fall to rumoured famiLEE Chan Chun Sing? Whoever takes the coveted MOF job is destined for top honcho crown. My money is on Indranee, notwithstanding her biggest setback is she is not Chinese (actually Indian father, Chinese mother). Indranee has the honour of being the MP to represent LKY’s old constituency of Tanjong Pagar. The leadership issue boils down to state financial secrets - “He who knows most, wins”. As it stands for now, none has a better claim to the seat than Indranee. All financial state secrets there are, whether good or bad, remain under tight control. That is the be-all and end-all.   Patrick Low * Article first appeared on Down The Rabbit Hole.        Read More →