PAP JOKES OF THE DAY 2

At each parliamentary session, all MPs flock into parliament like sheep. Most fall asleep soon after.
Can’t blame them. They herd all those speeches before.

Did Minister Cotton Chan support the sanction on Russia?
I’m sure he did. He doesn’t like competition from lenin.

If you ask Minister Chan which cotton is the best, he will surely say Egyptian Cotton.
Why? Because his Mummy says so.

Education Minister Chan made a visit to a primary school where a freshie first year student told him of his error of the century – that cotton didn’t come from sheep. The little kid told him wool came from sheep. The PAP scholar suddenly had a bright idea. He rushed to the Minister of Trade and Industry with a proposal to make wool steel.

We are lucky Lee Hsien Loong is passing the baton to Lawrence Wong.
Had it been Chan Chun Seng, Singapore could have ended up with a dictatorsheep.

If you ask Goh Chok Tong how much money you can squeeze into a peanut, he will say Mrs Goh once told him about $600,000.

One day at a parliamentary session, all MPs received a text message in their mobile. Later at the canteen break, they all realised they received the same crisp message that said :

 “370HSSV-0773H” 

 A small commotion followed as they puzzled over it. No one could decode it. That was until Ah Peh, the busybody coffee-boy, poked his nose in. One look and he told the scholars “Ai ya, you are all looking at the message upside down”.

Senior Minister of State for Health Janil Puthucheary, once visited the Institute of Mental Health. On a tour of the facilities he came across a room with a bath tub filled with water, a spoon, a mug, and a pail. Curious, he asked what’s this for? He was told this is where they test the patient's mental acuity. The subject is asked to pick which they will use to empty the tub of water fastest. The Minister smiled and said “It’s obvious if he is not a nut he will pick the pail”. Silence followed. The accompanying psychiatrists were too embarrassed to respond. Then Ahmad, the room attendant who was moping the floor nearby, said “No Sir, he should pull the plug.”

Minister Janil was shown another room where a test was in progress. There was a patient, an elderly man in his 50s, and a tester in the room. The light was then turned out and the room was in total darkness. The good minister was taken aback and one of the psychiatrists explained. "In this test, the tester will shine a torchlight up to the ceiling and ask the patient to climb up. Should he attempt to climb, of course, we know he is gone. Shhhh, let's watch."
Sure enough, the tester shone the torchlight up the ceiling and invited the old man to climb the beam of light. The old man backed off, refusing to climb.
The minister heaved a sigh of relief and said "Ah good. Now we know this chap still has his senses."
The psychiatrist said "Sir we don't conclude from observations. We pry into the subjects' minds, that's what we do. Shhhh. Watch."
The light came back on in the room. The tester appeared pleased and asked the old man why wouldn't he climb the lightbeam?
The old man said "Doctor, you think I'm crazy? What if I climb up halfway and you switch off the torchlight."

Remember a decade ago SMRT was beset with train breakdown issues all because million dollar salaried CEO Saw Phaik Hwa cut back maintenance to booster bottom line? All Singaporeans knew it was policy error except the CEO and the Transport Minister. Notwithstanding the Mercedes parked at her home, she still has appeal to some as she is apparently the low maintenance type.

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WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH SINGAPORE ELECTRICITY MARKET?

This report appeared on Jun 19. Bloomberg is a news aggregator and this article was carried by some other media. As for local media, only Business Times reported this. Bloomberg’s article comes with clickbait bombshell title, BT’s is subdued. Both reports are brief and leave laypersons wondering what’s the matter with SEM (Singapore Electricity Market).

Bloomberg says “Singapore plans to more aggressively regulate electricity markets” and BT says EMA “will introduce a temporary price cap on wholesale electricity prices”.

One may be excused to ponder, has the deregulation of electricity faltered?

SP (Singapore Power) sets a tariff which is fixed for 3 months. For this computation, SP imagines it is a new entrant employing the most efficient plant in the market, which is CCGT (combined cycle gas turbine) plant. It prices itself by computing its production cost and adding a gross margin enough to cover operation cost plus a decent net profit. Its production cost includes cost of capital, ie, plant depreciation. This is called the LRMC (long run marginal cost).

The wholesale market price is set every 30 minutes. Now suppose SP computes the LRMC every 30 mins, all cost will remain basically unchanged in the short term. However, its primary variable cost which is NG (natural gas) fluctuates throughout the day. Thus LRMC will be volatile with a close positive co-relation to the spot price of oil to which NG is pegged. See chart below.

Gencos bid at the wholesale auction every 30 minutes. They do not set their prices the way SP computes the LRMC. Gencos compute their production cost excluding depreciation. They then fix an offer price which they feel will be accepted in the wholesale market auction. As long as the price is above variable cost of production (ie covers fuel cost and plant variable overheads) gencos can continue in business because any sales revenue received in excess of variable production cost helps to pay for other costs which are fixed (including depreciation), whether they sell or not. This is the SRMC (short run marginal cost). Of course over the long term, SRMC that does not cover all costs and provide a profit is not sustainable.

Electricity is a unique market where supply must equal demand and available when needed. Too little supply, the system crashes and we get blackouts. The system must have the capacity to supply the demand needed, and also for reserves to meet increased demand. If capacity is just sufficient to meet demand and reserves, then all gencos’ production will be taken up 100%, which means they can price themselves to the moon. For a deregulated market to be viable, there must be some excess capacity. Excess capacity forces gencos to offer wholesale prices competitively to win dispatch for their plants. Some researchers say about 30% excess capacity seems optimal.

SEM has 100% excess capacity for many years resulting in wholesale prices way below tariff. 

The other factor that influences gencos’ wholesale price is of course, fuel cost. 95% of Singapore's electricity comes from gas turbines. Gencos’ SRMC moves in tandem with the price of oil to which gas prices are indexed. In the financial crisis of 2007, oil prices shot above US$106 in July 2008, and between 2010 to 2014 oil prices hovered at high US$90 to US$104. Tariff and wholesale prices increased accordingly. However, Gencos’ SRMC were still below LRMC. This is because the massive excess power generation kept gencos’ wholesale offer price competitive. That means the system held. The yellow band of SRMC-LRMC price variation remained and retailers could continue to offer discounts off tariff during those years when oil prices were much higher than the spike caused by the pandemic and Russo-Ukraine war in current times.

What is the problem with our current situation? The pandemic and Biden’s energy policy caused oil price to rise from US$50s in Jan 2021 to US$70s in Oct. In Qtr 4, the tension in Ukraine further fueled increases in oil price. The Russian invasion in Feb 2022 added more pressure on prices to peak at US$104 in April.

With fuel prices rising, we expect tariff and electricity wholesale prices to rise. But this time, wholesale prices shot through the roof bearing no co-relation to the quantum of fuel price levels. This time, gencos were dealing with not just the price of fuel but also with supply of gas. The convergence of several factors caused a gas supply squeeze – higher demand in winter, improved economy coming out of the pandemic, sanctions on Russian gas, and locally, decreased delivery of piped natural gas from Indonesia.

But why should gas supply shortage cause wholesale electricity prices to hit the roof? Well, with less fuel, gencos were unable to bid at their full capacity levels. In other words, the massive over-capacity in SEM technically disappeared. The wholesale market on the supply side became non-competitive and gencos had carte blanche to up the ante. This chart explains:

With gas supply shortage, gencos offer less to the wholesale market. This causes the supply cushion to decrease. Wholesale prices are extremely elastic to the level of supply cushion.

Under this scenario, the SRMC will close the gap with LRMC. As the yellow band disappears, retailing became unsustainable and retail market collapsed.

When excess capacity vanishes and greed prevails, gencos bid with SRMC now  way above LRMC, which means, spectacular margins. Did this happen? You can bet it did. (See charts in my previous electricity blog on 'shrinking supply cushion and price fixing'). Businessmen will be businessmen. They thrive in times of high price upheavals. I wrote in my previous blog 20 May 2022 'government did nothing to mitigate high electricity prices' to watch out for excessive gencos profits. So let’s take a look. Sembcorp’s net profits was up from S$279m in 2021 to S$848m in 2022; YTL was S$74m in 2021 up to S$110m in 2022. Others not available online, but rest assured they all laughed all the way to the bank. 

Minister Tan See Lang has explained we are now seeing the normalisation of wholesale prices. Theoretically, at the right level of capacity, SRMC should fairly jive with LRMC. That is a fair interpretation of normalisation. At this level, wholesale auction market remains competitive and gencos make fair profits. But retailing becomes unsustainable because that yellow band of cost differential between SRMC and tariff no longer exist. There was shedding of excess capacity in 2020 and 2021 but is still above the 30% level that is effective for normalised deregulated market.

Deregulated market is stabilised at the normalised level. Is SEM actually at this status? This needs serious data reviews and I do not have time for a deep dive into it at the moment. What is clear is the high oil prices are coming off and supply situation has improved tremendously. Yet we are still seeing extreme swings at the wholesale auctions with SRMC obviously much higher than LRMC. If excess capacity level is still at least 30% then it means gencos are maximising their margins, a kinder way of saying profiteering. How can they do this when 30% excess capacity level assures competitive bidding? It can only mean collusion or because recent events allowed gencos to better understand a higher bidding level will still get them dispatch. Or it could be they hold back supply which reduces the supply cushion thus jacking up prices.

We return to the news article. So what is the new regulation for TPC (temporary price cap) all about. SWEM (Singapore wholesale electricity market) currently has a price cap of S$4,200/mWh. This cap has never been breached in its history. TPC is a formulated price that is set at LRMC x 1.5. USEP (uniform Singapore electricity price) is the price gencos sell to SWEM at each 30 min period. A moving average of USEP is computed. If the marginal cost (ie the highest offered price accepted at auction) exceed this, the USEP for that 30 min period will be capped at the TPC. Gencos who bidded at higher than TPC and received dispatch will be compensated at TPC price. The cap is lifted once USEP returns to below moving average. The mechanism is set to incentivise gencos to commit their full capacity thus bringing excess capacity back into play and enforce competitive pricing like before. TPC compensates gencos at LRMC x 1.5. If their cost is actually higher, market rules exist for them to seek additional refunds.

It is not as unsettling as Bloomberg's article try to suggest. Meanwhile, rest assured EMA is still investigating the reasons for the price behaviour of the gencos. 

Read : Is Singapore electricity liberalisation a great achievement or a hullabaloo

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PAP JOKES OF THE DAY

No copyrights. Everything can be copied and used any way you wish.

SINGAPORE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION - CHANGE IS GONNA COME

I'm going to just shut up. You want to vote for wayang, or vote for change. It's free will. 

WILL SHENG SIONG GET A FREE PASS FOR BREACH OF LISTING RULES?

"Sheng Siong explains non-compliance, says ‘not necessary’ to add more IDs due to group’s size" Mon, Jun 12, 2023

The Business Times carried this article buried deep in its ‘market-companies’ section.
Straits Times, I believe, reported nothing. Not surprising.

SS operates the Shengsiong chain of supermarkets. The company is listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange. SGX listing rules require companies to have Independent Directors (IDs) and Non-Executive Directors make up a majority of the Board.

SS Annual Report for y/e 31 Dec 2022 indicated it has 5 IDs and 5 Executive Directors and expressed an opinion the Board has adequate independence and does not require additional IDs considering the company size.

On Jun 8 SGX wrote to SS advising the breach of Board rulings. SS has responded to explain the non-compliance, insisting they have confidence their Board has independence and they have already explained this in the 2022 Annual Report. Which means what exactly? That SGX should go pound sand?

After parliament, are we now to accept “ownself check ownself” in the corporate world? Market watchers surely understand the SS snub of SGX isn’t an empty challenge but came with the sheen of authority rubbed onto those close to the Emperor. Will SGX produce some new lexicon in classical Singapore Inc fashion to allow SS continuation of its breach of ruling? Or will SGX demand compliance and show us external regulatory mechanism wins over “ownself check ownself”? Will SGX chair Koh Boon Hwee show his mettle, or slink away like an eunuch? Time to go buy some popcorns from Shengsiong and watch the next move of SGX.

I remember the early days of SS when their shop was a mess. An acquaintance once told me an insider friend narrated how disorganized the operation was back then. Credit to them for coming a long way and establishing themselves today as a household brand.

SS is so much a part of our daily life that it gets into the background of our mundane routines. There are two things about SS that trigger quick recall for most folks. One is the 2014 kidnapping of the CEO's 79 year old mother. The police were super efficient. The 2 kidnappers were arrested within 2 hours of $2m ransom being dropped off. Mom was unhurt. The other is the Prime Minister’s daughter is married to the scion of the owners of SS. Inevitably, gossip there always will be when such relationship exists. There is much disquiet about SS’ ability to secure many HDB retail space. Such talk is unfair and prejudiced since we know HDB, URA and SLA let out their properties by public auction.

Currently SS has 68 stores island-wide. Two of these seem incongruous – the one at Woodlands Industrial Park E7 and Serangoon North Ave 5. These 2 are located in industrial parks. Is there a reason why SS is allowed to conduct commercial business in an industrial park? It is very highly unlikely there was a rezoning for change of use. Is there some special process to obtain change of use?

In 2001 department store operator Mustafa Centre had a 6 storey warehouse at Aljunied Industrial Park. URA turned down Mustafa's 2004 application to change the building's use to a wholesale centre for household goods and appliances. Mustafa proceeded without aproval to operate a department store on the first level and a supermarket on level two for a few weeks in 2009. Within weeks, URA shut down the operation and Mustafa was fined $10,000. Commercial activiies are not allowed in an industrial park.

Is there a reason why SS and Mustafa are treated differently? Excuse me while I go feed my worms.

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VIVIAN POKED THE RUSSIAN BEAR FROM THE SAFETY OF HIS RIDOUT LAIR.

In the Russo-Ukranian conflict, Singapore's knee jerk reaction in imposing a unilateral sanction against the land of the Rus is, in my humble opinion, an error in foreign policy. I have often said, as in investment decisions, one should not criticise from the wisdom of hindsight. Having blogged a contrarian view from the very beginning, I suppose I hold a higher ground to now review that decision in light of subsequent events and understanding.

Vivian’s SOP explanation was Singapore abides by international law so as a small country, we need to speak out when a country invades another. In the real world, everybody understands in matters of foreign policy, principles are tempered by overall state interests. It is one thing to speak out against Putin sending troops into Ukraine, but an entirely different matter to take unilateral action to sanction Russia. In so doing, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakhrishnan went against Singapore age old wisdom of nonalignment. Will this set a policy precedent in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan? Of course, that is a very complicated situation. The sanction against Russia sets a dilemma for when it comes to Taiwan. Jump into the fire and sanction China, or be a hypocrite.

The knee jerk sanction was an appeasement to Western war-mongering. It laid blame squarely on Russian imperialism without recognising the geopolitics at play. Russia had explained their action is a limited military operation to defend Western Ukrainians of Russian descent and de-Nazisification of the country. Their strategic strikes seem to bear this out. Western governments lay blame on an offensive Russia, disregarding the fact it is Nato expanding eastwards and not a Russian expansion westwards, that underlies the geopolitics at play. Singapore is dancing to the beat of western war drums.

Western Ukraine had been bombing civilian targets in Eastern Russian-speaking Ukraine for 8 years and Singapore had remained silent. Ukranian forces were fingered in the downing of Malaysian flight MH17 which took 298 lives with NATO and US cover up, and Singapore was silent. Singapore did not support Moscow's call for an international investigation into the undersea Nordstream gas pipeline bombing which was an act of terrorism, notwithstanding we are a small nation with many undersea infras to protect.  The sanction broke ranks with Asean countries and is insensitive to their concerns.

The ever pragmatic Singapore government obviously had to balance Western appeasement with economic implications. To this end, Singapore sees Russia as a minor trade partner, that being reason why Vivian made the decision to poke the bear and demonstrate how pugnacious the little red dot can be. Don’t play play.

Lee Kuan Yew once mentioned his secret to a healthy life is to consume about 80% to stomach capacity. A heavy and full meal makes one lethargic. By extension, the wisdom is some hunger drives a person to strive. Shakespeare puts it succinctly, “when it surfeits, the appetite sickens and so dies”. Does it seem Vivian, luxuriating in his palace at Ridout Road, and having his “3 meals in restaurants”, no longer has his nose on the ground?

The sanction seemed impetuous and reminisce of Temasek’s due diligence of FTX. Perhaps the effect of  an over-consumption of US and Nato confidence and secret objective of breaking up Russia after the war.  Has Vivian miscalculated on the relevance of Russia post Ukraine conflict? 

Singapore walks through thick and thin with the unelected globalist crowd at World Economic Forum and World Health Organisation, intending to go willingly to the guillotines of vaccine passports and ESG entrapment. WEF is all about globalist economic and political capture under the guise of holding comprehensive agendas covering a broad range of topics, such as geopolitics, climate change, technology, and economic trends. with plenary sessions, panel discussions, workshops, and networking opportunities, not to forget cultivating a corp of future leaders to infiltrate governments. Meanwhile, in July, will Singapore follow US and ignore St. Petersburg Economic Forum, or unabashedly go attend. SPIEF is a major international economic forum. SPIEF focuses on topics related to the Russian economy, international investment, and regional development. It typically includes panel discussions, business dialogues, and industry-specific sessions. It is Russia-centric which means a loss of opportunities ahead for counties on the “unfriendly list”.

Vivian got Singapore into Putin’s “list of unfriendly countries”. Will there be significant economic punishments? Russia currently ranks number 11 in the world in terms of nominal GDP. The 6 Western countries ahead of Russia has economies which are either sputtering or the governments are committing economic suicide (US, Germany, UK, France, Italy and Canada). Far from being crushed, Russia has benefited from the sanctions in ways the West and Vivian never understood.

The West had betted Russia's economy is weak, Putin is an unpopular tyrant, start a war with Ukraine, destroy Russian gas supply to EU, impose sanctions, and there will be a revolution and regime change, just like the Maidan Revolution of Ukraine in 2014 engineered by US. The West failed to understand in Russia, Putin is a hero who brought the country back from the brink of collapse after the break-up of USSR. Western media have you believe Putin and his crony oligarchs are extremely corrupt who plundered the country and Russians are suffering. What they are not telling the world is Russian oligarchy is the creation of the US. After the break-up of USSR, a bankrupt Russia took on massive loans from IMF. Boris Yeltsin, first Russian president, was forced to acede to IMF demands to reform the country from a central planning to a market-driven economy. Four top economists of Harvard were roped in to implement a shock therapy of privatisation. Jeffrey Sachs, Lawrence Summers, David Lipton and Jonathan Hay became known as the Harvard Boys. The boys wheel and deal together with corrupt elements in the Russian government. In the end the boys were kicked out and returned home in disgrace after creating the ground for the rise of Russian oligarchs.

Basically, it was Yeltsin who put the Russian crown on Putin. Yeltsin needed someone he could trust and a strong man to run a country crumbling into criminality. Putin’s first task was to stop capital flight. To oligarchs who bring capital back to deploy in Russia, he offered the olive branch. Those that don’t, he went after. Roman Abramovich of Chelsea FC fame, for example, invested back and did much charity work in the motherland. There are many like him and they got on well with Putin. Western media of course, point to these relationships as proof of corruption.

What the West and Vivian cannot comprehend, is that the sanctions did for Putin what he himself could not fully accomplish. The international sanctions forced the oligarchs to bring capital back to Russia or be confiscated or stolen by the Western countries. So as Western countries wallow in economic slowdown due mismanagement of pandemic, suicidal slide into dystopian socialism, sabotaging their own energy and farming industries, opening their borders, promoting lawlessness, cultural and societal shift to madness, exploding national debt supporting Ukraine, bringing their countries to unbridgeable political divisions – with all these nonsense going on in the West, something is happening in Russia which has largely gone un-noticed. The return of capital has caused a mini economic boom.

The West and Vivian had thought sanctions will stop the export of Russian gas and other products and bring the country to its knees. They never computed Russian products continue to move round the world via third countries. But again, Vivian probably does not know how sanctioned goods are shipped via Singapore into Myanmar.

Russia is one of those countries that stands to gain in climate change. Warmer climate is turning Russia into a serious agricultural powerhouse. Another economic driver for Russia is the much touted maritime Arctic trade route under development by the Arctic Council of which Singapore is a stakeholder. Getting Singapore into Putin’s “unfriendly countries list” is Vivian’s achievement. Thanks to Vivian, opportunities in Russia's trajectory of becoming the world’s biggest agricultural producer, and its vast Arctic coastal development, will see a diminished role for Singapore.

Most importantly, dedollarisation presents the greatest danger and challenge for Singapore. The diminished role for US dollar as number one world reserve currency is inevitable. It is no longer a question of will that happen but how fast. A Trump win 2024 may slow the death of US$ a bit, but it will happen. A Democrat win and the dollar may collapse as fast as possibly the next administration. The weaponisation of the currency and SWIFT payment system has completely destroyed trust in the West. To maintain Singapore's role as an important financial centre, we need to be plugged into dynamically evolving restructuring taking place. Two of the most important developments will be in BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. As the rest of the world moves away from Western influence, BRICS and SCO are shaping up to take centre stage in international affairs. The leadership of both organisations lie with China and Russia. Being in Russia's ‘unfriendly countries list’ is going to come back to haunt Singapore. A Lee Hsien Loong – Vivian leadership has damaged Singapore's foreign relationships with two super powers. Its not a nice place to be in.

Does the government realise the sanction is not in Singapore's best interest? I’m thinking the answer is YES. These two reports from government media said it all. On 7 Mar 2022 in writing about the ‘unfriendly countries list’, it proudly showed Singapore’s name. Four months later 1 Aug 2022, it quietly omitted mention of Singapore. Mike Pence famously said bears do not go away, they merely go into hibernation. Vivian must know that the Russian bear will awake from its slumber, and when it does, its going to be mighty pissed off being poked.

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THARMAN FOR PRESIDENT IS SO TROUBLING IN MANY WAYS

By all accounts, Tharman seems like a very decent man. He is absent the dismissive, obnoxious demeanor of Teo Chee Hean (Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security), the Mandarin entitlement posturing of Chan Chun Sing (Education Minister), or 2 combative rottweilers Indranee Rajah (Minister, Prime Minister's Office, Second Minister for Finance and Second Minister for National Development) and Grace Fu (Minister for Sustainability and the Environment) or fawning kings-in-waiting Lawrence Wong (Dy Prime Minister and Minister for Finance) and Heng Swee Kiat (Dy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies). Tharman looks more like a stern bureaucrat than a politician.

As Senior Minister and Coordinating Minister for Social Policies, Tharman once made the anti-government statement that the policy of continual dependence on foreign labor is unsustainable. That certainly caught the attention of many in light of the extremely unpopular CECA, the Free Trade Agreement with India. A PAP self-criticism or admission of mistake is as rare as the Cullinan Diamond. Alas, it was an unlocked potential that sputtered, never allowed to be explored. Was that a one-off comment for the gallery or he received some ominous phone calls that evening? A million dollar salary has a way of sorting things out in one’s brain. Psychiatrists call that a moral hazard. Will this moral hazard as a PAP stalwart be simply carried into the presidency? Is Tharman after all, simply switching a million dollar chair for a two million dollar seater?

Kenneth Jeyeratnam reminded us of Tharman’s breach of the Official Secrets Act when the latter, as Director of MAS’ Economics Dept, showed some journalists advance GDP growth data. He was fined S$1,500 and the journalists poorer by S$2,000. In Uniquely Singapore legalese which can explain how one man can form a mob, it was easy explaining why the one who gives is punished less than the one who receives. Tharman was careless. Was the court watching out for Tharman’s planed political trajectory? A fine above S$2,000 disqualifies a person from standing for election. I am curious. In all his travels overseas, when Tharman fills the disembarkation card, which box does he tick when asked ‘have you ever been convicted in a criminal court”?

Government mouth piece media Chanel News Asia screamed this headline.:
“Lee Hsien Yang unlikely to meet criteria to run for elected presidency given court finding of lying under oath: Lawyers” (4 Mar 2023)

CNA reported “.. lawyers said that earlier court findings that he (LHY) and his wife had lied under oath in judicial proceedings could see him fail to meet the criteria of being a candidate. This is regardless of the outcome of ongoing police investigations into the couple for potential offences of giving false evidence in the proceedings over Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s will.”

CNA quoted “lawyerSSSSSS” but mentioned no names. Quoting an unnamed source is unethical journalism, quoting many unnamed sources is highly unethical journalism. I would like to ask Navene Elangovan and Charlene Goh who filed this report, which lawyers they spoke with because the last time I checked Sec 19 of The Singapore Constitution, there is nothing that disqualifies LHY from running for President. The only way LHY can be disqualified is for a compliant Presidential Selection Committee not be satisfied “that he is a person of integrity, good character and reputation”. That determination will have to rest entirely on their take of the judicial proceedings CNA mentioned. This will be on a slippery slope because it was a case relating to the professional misconduct of LHY’s wife. LHY was not on trial. True that a police investigation into his purported perjury is in progress. It would be prejudicial for the PSC to discuss this. Should the PSC have a higher calling to consider this course of action, it must weigh whether the fact that Lee Kuan Yew’s lawyer M/s Kwa Kim Li, who has now been found guilty of lying in the case regarding 38 Oxley Road, mitigated the actions of LHY. More importantly, PSC must then hold Tharman’s breach of the Official Secrets Act to the same moral accountability.

As a matter of fact, even without LHY in the race, PSC has to demonstrate it has evaluated Tharman’s brush with the law and why they find no issues with integrity, good character and reputation. PSC needs to address this even if it is to a reticent public. Failure to do so calls their credibility into question.

In the political divide in Singapore, pro-PAP voices, and certainly our ever-present Polish blogger Critical Spectator’s knee-jerk reaction to Tharman’s announcement of his resignation from the PAP to enter the presidential race, is to jeer at the opposition's inability to produce a candidate. This irritates me to no end. It borders on a juvenile inability to understand the presidential election is non-political. And it is the PAP’s stealth legislation that has turned it into a political event. It is fast becoming a six-yearly farce of PAP musical chair to push a cadre to the elevated ceremonial role.

The fact that Tharman gets to sit on the chair itself is troubling. In PAP’s changing of the guard, unofficial polls put him as people’s choice to lead the ruling party. The Party decided he is not suitable and was bypassed. He is now deemed best suited for the top job in the land. What is good for the gander is not good for the goose. It feeds the speculation the party is inherently racist.

On paper, the terribly restrictive constitutional criteria for a presidential candidate lulls the citizenry to the PAP’s contention of the need for someone with a rare DNA who can guard the national reserves from a rogue government. In reality, it denies Singaporeans of choices. Because the schema enshrines candidates coming from the dominant PAP factory, the Office of the President has evolved into the Mother of ‘ownself check ownself’. "Ownself check ownself" is a unique Singlish slang for self monitoring or self-regulation. This is a deprecating attack dressed in humour by the opposition on the government’s propensity to whitewash shortcomings by appointing individuals or entities within the Executive to investigate their own actions. This PAP weakness has been argued in parliament. For the PAP, self-policing is good. For the opposition parties, self-policing is good but external policing is better.

The PAP has been in power since independence in 1965. Lord Acton’s quote on the corruption of power rings true. The men and women in Whites now see themselves as omniscient. "Ownself check ownself" has been normalised as a management doctrine of the government. Goh Chok Tong has sang in praise of it. Ong Ye Kung said at a forum organised by the Institute of Policy Studies last year : "People can say 'ownself check ownself', but I see it always as a virtue — if ownself cannot check ownself, you're in big trouble." The PAP has now made "ownself check ownself", a faulty generalisation fallacy, into a thought-terminating cliché – a commonly used phrase to quell cognitive dissonance to end the debate with a cliché rather than a point. It is an intoxication of power to the extent of an inability to discern impartiality is the mainstay of the search for truth.

Certainly a self-monitoring mechanism is good for an individual, a system or an entity. Everyone needs the little voice inside of us otherwise known as conscience, to check ourselves and help us make rightful, ethical and moral choices. In systems there are built-in self-checking utilities like redundancy tests. For entities like companies, self-policing or self-regulation, there are functions like internal auditors, to proactively monitor their own conduct or performance to ensure compliance with standards, rules, or ethical guidelines.

The PAP captures the essence of "ownself check ownself" as internalised functions. If this is all there is to it, the PAP might as well close down the Inspection Dept of MAS and all external auditors are un-necessary. It is a terribly erroneous view that the opposition and 47% of Singaporeans have been trying to get through to the government. Any management guru worth his salt will advice the PAP the applicability of "ownself check ownself" is contextual. For an ongoing concern, there is the issue of who checks the checkers. Thus the need for MAS inspectors, external auditors, head office inspectors etc.

"Ownself check ownself" is essential for internal line management. For third party satisfaction, an external check is the norm. Thus we have external auditors, MAS inspectors, health inspectors, inspectors from far away head offices, and the government has its Internal Auditor General, etc.

The crux of the public’s discontent is to PAP’s application of "ownself check ownself" to investigations into wrong doings or failed services. It cannot be that the ruling party of scholars do not believe in independent reviews, the further removed from the Executive the better, in such circumstances. The normalisation of "ownself check ownself" is disingenuous and borders on fraudulent practice.

I have no problems with Tharman as our head of state, At the personal level he has the decorum for the office. However, the Constitution places on the presidency a unique critical role of guardian of our national reserves. Tharman has been a government and PAP man his entire adult working life. As President it would make him the Mother of "ownself check ownself".

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SINGAPORE TURF CLUB – RACING INTO OBLIVION

The announcement of closure of STC by 2027 does not bother me one bit as I do declare I am not a punter. This news, however, jotted my memory in a few ways back when horse racing was at its old Bukit Timah grounds. I recall elder brother telling me when I was a little kid that the two most prestigious clubs in any prominent cities is not golf clubs, but horse racing and yacht clubs. Well there goes one prestige for Singapore. In my youth I spent some time bunking at a house at Bk Timah some distance away from the turf club. In the wee hours of 4 or 5am in the mornings I would be awakened by some muffled voices over a megaphone. I was told those were horse trainers going through morning routines. Then the dreaded weekends when Bk Timah road traffic was jam-packed with punters in all shapes and colours. Whilst I am no punter, I was a weekly visitor on Mondays …. to work. I was a junior audit clerk with Turquand Young and my Monday task was to witness the incineration of used bet slips by club officials.   

Almost all Singaporeans will simply receive the news with some nostalgia. That's about it. All will accept the explanation of falling attendance as the cause and conversion of the land for housing as a positive. None will question the veracity of the decision which seemed out of the blue, nor reflect on a time in the distant past when there was a power-grab by the government.

STC was a private club founded in 1842. Some time in late 1980s, the government grew uncomfortable of a private club holding immense wealth and huge plot of prime land. It’s a secretive club and no one from the public has any idea the amount of undistributed wealth it had accumulated over 150 years. Should it decide to dissolve one day, it would have certainly made several Jeff Bezos then. It had such potential political power it needed to be controlled. The government tried to put its man on the board. The job fell on the Minister of Law, the affable Eddie Barker. STC snubbed the government and Barker did not get the votes. Back then. I was already a PAP watcher and thought STC was finished. As predictable as the sun rising in the morning, the government almost immediately created the Singapore Totalisator Board in 1988 and set up the Bukit Turf Club as agent to operate the horse racing and 4D operations from STC which was dissolved in the same year. Adding insult to injury to old members, in 1994 Bukit Turf Club changed its name to STC.

Was there equitable distribution by STC members upon dissolution, I have no idea. Whether it was the most audacious wealth grab, confiscation or redistribution, I leave it to you to decide. A hint lies in the massive social spending by the Board as it embarked on an incredible donation spree in the years following its creation. I am not making any moral judgment, simply narrating past events.

The 120 hectares of land will eventually be added back to the government’s land bank for future needs. For the $500m sunk into the Kranji race course development, it’s about throwing $20m to the wind each year for last 2 decades. Trust a bunch of government appointees to run an 180 year old institution into the ground. William Henry Macleod Read, who started the club in 1842, must be turning in his grave.

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IS THE GOVERNMENT ALWAYS ON TOP OF EVENTS AND NEVER BLINDSIDED?

In 2018 ACRA refused the registration of OSEA Pte Ltd by Thum Ping Tjin and Kirsten Han. OSEA’s mission was to provide editorial services to New Narratif and organise fora, workshops and other events. New Narratif is an online news outfit based in Kuala Lumpur where Thum is managing director and Kirsten is editor-in-chief. ACRA’s justification was OSEA and NN have political agendas. NN is funded by foreign entities and foreign subscribers. More specifically, NN receives grants from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. Soros is the most evil man on planet Earth who enjoys creating chaos all over the world under the guise of philanthropy, and then swooping in to extract his pound of flesh. Ukraine is the hottest spot in the world today that is on the brink of nuclear war, and Soros’ OSF has it’s dirty finger prints all over the place.

Thum and Kirsten can play coy and innocent, but the duo ain’t Kenneth Jeyaratnam, Leong Mun Wai, Goh Meng Seng, Chris Kwan, Sudhir Vadaketh, Teo Soh Lung, Lim Tean,  and many others, this blogger included, who criticise and question the government where we dim fit. We are voices of the citizenry who meant well for the country we love. OSEA has bigger objectives for South East Asia. It was to be registered as a fully owned company of Observatory Southeast Asia UK. NN KL is fully owed by NN UK. Thum is on the board of both UK entities. Ownership of these UK companies are unknown. It is quite clear there are dark motives planned for OSEA.

Am I unforgivably harsh on Thum and Kirsten? Head down to newnarrative.com and what do we see – a dive into current hot societal changing topics that have done irreparable cultural damages to US and other western countries, namely transgenderism, ‘my body my life’ under the guise of re-productive health, binary non-binary nonsense. All right out off Sorros’ OSF playbook, how sweet. Rome didn’ t fall in one day. It will take thousands of newnarratifs to plant the seeds and generations to poison minds in our part of the world to plunge into the woke insanity of the West.

My point on OSEA incident is simply this. I applaud ACRA’s pre-emptive strike against OSEA. However, while Singapore government is well-informed and acts fast and tough, it does so only when one strays into it’s turf. In OSEA’s case, control over media and information dissemination. Yet in other areas which presents national risks, it has often offered concessions andperhaps late on the learning curve. A few examples will illustrate this.

Read my old blog on Nugan Hand

Nugan Hand Bank is a mystery. Surely MAS knew this was a CIA bank deeply involved in drug trafficking and money-laundering. Yet it was granted a banking licence.

Surely the government is aware WHO is a captured international institution. Philanthropy capitalism may be a recent economic term, but it has manifested itself far and wide in the last decade. Yet Singapore is so eager to cooperate and sign over our sovereignty with the new Pandemic Treaty. Minister Josephine Teo recently took a huge entourage to EU to take part in a workshop on how to control the citizenry in the next pandemic they know is coming.

Smart city is a term I am wary and sick of hearing. To show off our one-up progressiveness, we die die must be at the forefront of technology or what ever new market developments. So we jump start 5G gadgetry with absolutely zero study nor concern of dangerous health issues from radiation. Let’s not put impediments in the path of huge corporations waiting to cash in on IOT (internet of things). 5G radiation and graphene nanoparticles of the mRNA vaccines in our bodies might well be a perfect storm coming. No one is safe. Even if you are proudly un- vaccinated, you are likely to have the graphenes through shedding.

Read three years ago I blogged the retail electricity system is not sustainable.

We divested power generation plants to foreign entities on an ego-driven trip to build the first open market electricity system in Asean which has failed. I blogged some time back on why the retail electricity model is not sustainable and will collapse under certain circumstances. That has already come to pass.

Read three years ago I blogged why Singapore MRT model is inferior to HK MRT 

The Singapore MRT model condemns riders to perpetual cost-driven ticket price increases. This is because SMRT has only farebox revenue and lacks other sources of income to subsidise cost. And the reason is 'land value capture' in Singapore accrues to a renter class. Whereas HK MTR reaps the benefit of higher values of land around the station to provide a source of funds to socialise costs.

In January this year, Minister Josephine Teo cut the ribbon for SICPA’s new regional HQ in Asia. SICPA is the world leader in secure track and trace solutions for governments. It owns the patent for a special colour-shifting ink used in printing currency notes that prevents counterfeiting. It is also used to print excise duty stamps. Whilst we are so eager for technology plays, never mind it is just a HQ, I wonder if Teo is aware this low-key secretive Swiss company with world wide businesses has been consistently complained to buying their way into the market, often by corrupting politically connected persons as ‘local consultant. Example in Philippines during the Arroyo admin, they used the nephew of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo. They were under investigation in 14 countries. Cozy Davos connection can do wonders. 14 countries dwindled down to 3. Investigations took almost 10 years and finally last month, Swiss authorities found them US$91m for bribery in Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela. Singapore likes to boast use of latest technology. Let’s see if we will use SICPA tax stamps. Kenya claimed SICPA tax stamps bumped up the prices of a range of consumer products.

Singapore likes to suck up to latest technology to be top of the class. What else can best explain the blind faith in an untested novel vaccine. Why do the best brains in the world rush to inject trade secret ingredients into our bodies, more or less by coercion, for a relatively low threat infection? When the world by now has realised the pandemic scam, the ineffectiveness of the vaccines, the irreparable harm to humanity of the mRNA spike proteins in our bodies, Singapore remains fixated on pushing for boosters and getting kidos to take the jabs.

Read almost two years ago I blogged about Duke-NUS collaboration in the Wuhan Covid research project

Victoria Nuland, US diplomat or under-secretary of one department or another, an evil American who has her hands dirtied in many corners of the world, had admitted to having 26 biolabs in Ukraine. The DOD (US Department of Defence) later upped the numbers to 46. Why am I talking about all this? It’s the irreverent question – does Singapore cooperate with the DOD in any medical research projects? One wonders in the first place what is ‘defence’ doing in biological research. I blogged previously that Duke-NUS had a role in the Wuhan-Fauci gain of function project on a DARPA grant. A local institution sponsored by a grant from a foreign DOD to engage in biological research work, and our authorities know nothing? Neither believable nor forgivable.

Why am I bitching about this? You see, by law, Americans cannot conduct a lot of dangerous biological research work in US. So the delinquent and lawless DOD outsourced to foreign lands. This is a big problem that has crept closer to home. There are several US military biological research labs in Indonesia and Philippines. US has conducted certain biological research work which irked our 2 Asean neighbours. With our prowess in science and technology, our coziness with US, and most importantly, our interest in life sciences, both as economy drivers and investment targets, easily makes a US-Singapore partnership a no-brainer. I am wondering if we are actively collaborating in any dangerous research.

For a list of US labs in low resource countries, click here. Of course they declare all those non-military research work carried out. It’s the dual function research that they do not declare which matters.

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