This submission on Tomorrow.sg points to a post from Gayle Goh a National Education dialogue in which, if the blog post is accurate, a certain bureaucrat displays utter incompetence, both in public relations terms and in terms of explaining economic policy.
“We have to be realistic. There is a limit to how much re-training we can do for some workers, so we have to look overseas. Look at my generation, more than half of them didn’t even complete primary school education. What are we going to do? They are not going to conveniently die off…”
To make things worse, he expressed an opinion that Singapore’s involvement in the Iraq War is not based upon any principled consideration, but rather just a means for Singapore to ’suck up’ to the United States.
“The Americans were deluded, it doesn’t mean we supported them because we thought it would work. I believe the question you are too polite to ask is, did we suck up to the U.S? Well, yes, our basic interest was to show support for the USA, you are right. But what did we really commit to it? How much of our assets did we lend to Iraq? We put one plane in the air and one ship in the sea. And were we more of a target because of it? To which I reply…we were already a target before the invasion.”
Thus in one fell stroke, the bureaucrat demolished any rational and moral basis for sound economic policy, he has also undermined the proper and principled reason for our support of the Iraq War.
Its clear we are hiring the wrong people to work for our government.
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10 Comments
Hi han,
But it is of the highest possibility that what he said is true.
He is a perm sec afterall.
But it must be remembered that we shd judge a policy by its goal.
If the policy achieved its goal, it is a gd policy.
I for one had never doubted that we join the USA in iraq just to please them and I think it is neccessary for us to do so with min cost.
However his attitude towards lower educated Singaporeans appalled me.
I have the (mis)fortune of talking to someone with the PSC microchip.
His response? “Of course all nations only do things that are in their interests! Show me one that doesn’t!”
Or the favourite refrain, “It’s true!!!”
Anyhow it’s not that our bureaucrats are incompetent. It’s that they reveal the motivating philosophies of our government.
Would you rather that no one knew how we formulate policies? This is what happens when you hire too many engineers - you forget about the human element.
Cold pragmatism will come back to bite one day.
We put one plane in the air and one ship in the sea.
=====
Reminds me again of my Civilization 4 games where I need to suck up to civ A so that I can get a permanent alliance later. When this civ A ask me to join in the war with another civ that is far far away from me, I agreed and then basically did nothing, never send any troops to help A whatsoever.
And lo and behold, I still get a 4 modifier with Civ A “Our mutual struggle brings us closer together” or something like that hehe.
Kelvin:
Hello! Thanks for commenting here. I’ve been a fan of your economics work, so I’m very honoured to have your comments here.
Yes, I’m beginning to have a suspicion that our rulers train their servants in bureaucracy through the SimCity and Civilization games. It seems that the old Simcity games gave much greater weight to the ability of governments to create wealth than the later ones, which are slightly more similar to the real world.
Dear Han,
I actually disagree with you. I think we have the right person as a bureaucrat. He is a bureaucrat for heaven’s sake, NOT a politician(!). He is not in a position to require him say nice and PC things to have people say nice things about him. I like people who have the guts to speak their minds.
While his comments about the older workers may seem callous, he is just making a point that creating jobs is a responsibility that the bureaucracy has identified and realizes is not something that can be ignored. Judge him by what he does, not by what he says. If he can create the jobs, let him spout all he wants; if he cannot, then please give him the boot in double quick time. A bureaucrat is no different from you and I. They have their jobs and all they need to do is get their job done. It is not their job to say PC things.
I personally much prefer a bureaucrat who speaks his mind. Otherwise, it’s just too much trouble to try to decipher what he’s saying and figure out what he’s not saying.
Your views about international diplomacy seems somewhat naive. Singapore’s diplomacy is based solely on our national interests and it has always been this way. Since when has it ever been about morals and principles? It’s only couched in such terms when it’s convenient for us to do so.
Oh please cry more.
This blog needs more cowbell.
i think kelvin said it all.
That is clear that that particular bureaucrat needs to be fixed. Urm, his or her ability in public relations that is.
erm that bureaucrat is one of the old horses of the administration. Gets the job done, no nonsense, shoots from the hip. Either you love him or hate him, but you gotta give him his due for having the galls to speak his mind. Most wouldn’t survive that long if they were half as forthright.