The more one reads Heng Swee Keat and Chan Chun Sing's woeful and lame excuses in defending the non-accountability of top leaders when things fail, the more one fears for Singapore and the danger that lies down the road for this country.
An unaccountable leadership is dangerous for it leads to abuse of power, and worse, mediocrity for the country - for a country led by those who could excuse away their failures will go nowhere.
The two ministers - a future PM and potential DPM - claim that risk taking is the reason why we should not "indiscriminately" sack top people who fail.
But Singaporeans are not talking about indiscriminate firing.
What Singaporeans are talking about are clear failures which are not held to account.
A good example is that of SMRT under Saw Phaik Hwa. She was not fired. Indeed, she was paid millions of dollars even as the system collapsed before our very eyes.
And where were those who were supposed to have oversight, those at the LTA, for example? Clearly, they were sleeping. Yet, none were held to account.
Saw's successor, Desmond Kuek, didn't do better either. But similarly, he too was paid millions - at one point paid more than the prime minister! - even as the train system continued to degenerate, resulting in deaths on the tracks.
And then there is the Hepatitis C incident, and the many problems which continue to besiege the Sports Hub, the multiple breaches of data at MOH, the 9 deaths in the SAF in the last few years.
What have all these got to do with this "risk taking" the two ministers talk about?
Nothing, really.
But not a single person at the top in all these instances have been held accountable.
What is happening, it seems to me, is a cowardly elitist leadership making excuses publicly to protect its own kind.
This is a sign of weak, very weak, political leadership.
How do we know this?
Because this same leadership hold others to account, even for the very very small misdemeanor.
When an opposition MP alleges the govt put out "test balloons", the govt attacked her viciously in Parliament, demanding a retraction and an apology.
When a blogger merely shared a post on Facebook, he is hit with a defamation suit.
When another Facebook user made a PRIVATE post about the judiciary, the AGC goes all the way to the US to serve him contempt of court papers.
When a teenager made a blog post about Lee Kuan Yew, he was arrested, handcuffed and shackled, charged and then jailed. Also he was incarcerated in the mental hospital, IMH, to be 'labelled' as a mental patient so that his future would be ruined forever!
When an activist organised an indoor SKYPE chat - yes, a SKYPE chat - he is charged for illegal assembly and subsequently found guilty and will spend time in jail.
And just recently, they even came up with new laws/rules to punish security guards who fall asleep on the job!
Security guards can be jailed and fined for falling asleep on the job.
Pause. Think about it.
And here, they are making excuses for themselves when they themselves fail in major ways which affect hundreds of thousands and even millions of people?
If you pay yourselves millions and millions, implying that you are the absolute best public servants on the planet, then we should and must hold you to a much higher standard.
Indeed, for the kind of obscene money we taxpayers pay you, we expect nothing but perfection.
Otherwise, why are you shamelessly paying yourself so much with taxpayers' money, taxpayers - many of whom are struggling to make ends meet..
At the end of the day, the non-accountability - no matter how you sugarcoat it in defence - leads to danger for Singapore.
For if that is the kind of culture the political leadership encourages, then it will permeate down the line through all of society.
If my leader is not held accountable, why should I, a mere rank-and-file nobody?
And if you are not holding yourself accountable, what moral authority do you have to demand that of others?
It is toxic, corrosive.
Our founding generation of leaders did not make excuses for failures. That was how Singapore became what it is today.
If this current leadership was in charge back in 1965, Singapore would never have made it this far.
To this end, Singaporeans must be educated/self educate that the government and the party are 2 different entities. Without the party, the government will still function tomorrow.
Also the government is there for the people, not the people to be there for the government!
When the incumbents are there in power for too long, they will stoop to whatever levels to anchor themselves and their family members into the establishment so that they can rip all the resources from the country as well as deprive the citizens of a chance to do well.
When the incumbents are having a hard time with more opposition, they will not have time to line their family members with jobs in whatever new organisations they create as they are busy to fight for their own survival!
Let them have a taste of their own medicine, they are in the comfort zone for too long that they must be made to work faster and betterer!
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