Chitchat Train Debacle - Malfeasance in S'pore Stat Board ?

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Stat boards are enacted by an Act of Parliament to allow the public service to operate certain functions more efficiently and with greater degree of focus and attention rather than be stifled by the Civil Service Bureaucracy and the never ending red tape. PUB - Public Utilities Board did the job brilliantly for years and in the early early years the single largest contributor to the state's consolidated funds. Here are some interesting cases where governance of Stat Boards have failed.

1) PUB - despite its exemplary performance one of the biggest and longest running case of corruption involving PUB's Dept Head of Electricity Choy Hon Thim and foreign contractors some of them well known MNCs were uncovered not by the Auditor General, the CPIB or any law enforcement agencies. It was his wife and his son that walked into CPIB office to detail the extent of the corruption when Choy took another woman. The damage was never close to what was revealed in court. The main fixer, former PUB staff jumped bail and now sipping latte in Melbourne.

2) SMC - Many people can't tell the difference between Singapore Medical Council (SMC) and Singapore Medical Association (SMA). In fact when Old Man's brother was involved there was nothing in between the entities except the occasional ray of sunlight passing thru. The first is a Stat Board and the second is a lobby group that looks after member's interest. There is no other better example of a fox given the duties of watching the hen house.

Here is an interesting case from SMC. Former PAP MP and corporate lawyer Alvin Pang famously billed SMC, a stat board $100k an hour for court appearance. Yes, you saw it right - $100,000 Singapore Dollars for 60 minutes of court time and this was not the only item in the bill that shocked people. He had billed SMC $1.33m in total. The High court revised it to $317k. He had overcharged SMC by a staggering 300%. Again it came to light not because of auditor's scrutiny, or a govt agency checking the books. It came to light when the husband of Dr Susan Lim challenged the bill in court. Time for another proverb - took a thief to catch thief. The end result, he was quietly told to step down at the 2015 elections with his SC title intact. Message to anyone cheating the govt or the taxpayers - if you are caught, we will let you go quietly so you would not do it again.

3) LTA - Here is where there is a pattern forming. On 5th July a not for profit new agency FACTwire dropped the bombshell of defective Singapore trains being returned to the factory in China after 5 years. 26 trains costing in excess of $350m dollars. Again revelation came from outside and this time from another country that stepped into Singapore to get the evidence. This is not a case of returning a faulty set of equipment to the vendor. This is equipment running into millions of dollars paid for taxpayers. Yes, Taxpayer. These are not expenses incurred by SMRT which is public listed company whose financials are open to scrutiny. These are incurred by LTA, a public body.

Here is an even bigger surprise. For the years 2012 to 2015, there is not a single mention of the systemic defects found in all 22 trains from one of the largest contracts signed by LTA and the subsequent variations order for the 4 affected trains in any of their annual reports or their report to Parliament as required by law. Surely the defects found in all the trains in a single contract are so bad that they have be returned must surely be single most important item that must be reported in the annual report and parliament.

Maybe LTA or Minister of Transport can cite cases where the entire rolling stock from a single contract has been returned to the factory anywhere in the World.

4) NPB - The brompton bike debacle that engulfed National Park Board also was uncovered by a member of the public after an initial tip-off in the press did not spur the authorities to check their tender system which was compromised.

So we have 4 stat boards whose poor conduct came to light from actions taken by complete outsiders. The question that comes to mind is how many of other cases are there in all other stat boards? If they can bury 26 defective trains and its eventual return to factories due to systemic failure, I am sure culture that has evolved would not bat an eyelid to hiding an elephant behind a tentpole.


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