Ong Ye Kung: Who says I’m a failure?
by Bertha Henson
MR ONG Ye Kung gave a wry smile. Why all these questions posed to him about throwing his hat into the electoral ring a second time? It’s odd, he said, that second-timers have to justify their re-entry into politics when it should be the best indication of their willingness to serve.
That’s because, I said, the whispering will go something like this: This Ong Ye Kung hor… Lost in Aljunied and then moved out to Sembawang where it’s safe with Khaw Boon Wan there. Then he joined NTUC and then got out to a nice cushy job in Keppel. Where got “staying power”? (By the way, his name is pronounced Yi Kang.)
He acknowledged that there would be such whispers. Even some residents in Aljunied GRC had taunted him for hanging around the ward after the People’s Action Party lost the GRC in the last election. Clearly, Mr Ong was prepared for these questions. And going by his answers, you could say he was “collecting” different types of experiences before going for Round 2 in this GE.
“I want to stay on in politics and strive to make sure that I get elected. I have stayed on this path. Why am I contesting this year otherwise?” Words of a typical greedy PAP politician. $1.5 million income plus bonus, bringing income to $2 million. While waiting for a second chance, a do-nothing job paying still relatively obscene amount is given.
It was a drizzly Tuesday morning and we were having coffee in Simpang Bedok. Like most politicians, he had asked to preview the questions for the interview in advance. That's the quality of the PAP politicians ...they need to have their staff to prepare them even for simple interviewsUnlike most politicians, he didn’t reply via email. He agreed to a face-to-face interview which ranged over the impact of the PAP loss of Aljunied on him, the changes the PAP needed to go through to maintain its relationship with voters and how meritocracy as practised in Singapore needed a re-think. He was recognised by the breakfast crowd. A coffeeshop uncle came up to shake his hand. A couple of others nodded at him.
On why he left Aljunied GRC: He didn’t leave it, he said, he was “re-deployed”. He has no brains ...he has no conviction ...he just wants the money and will sell his soul to the devil to get itHmm, he didn’t ask to stay on as adviser of the Kaki Bukit community groups? He merely reiterated his answer. That he was playing by the rules of the team. The team would decide who was best needed where. He gave a definite answer on where he would be standing: Sembawang GRC, a place which he describes as having “a lot of soul” and a model of what Singapore might be in the future – a preservation of the old while constructing the new.
On why he left NTUC: He was seconded to the NTUC while he was a civil servant and stayed on as its Deputy Secretary-General for two years after the 2011 GE. He left because he wanted private sector experience after his stint in the labour movement and his start in the civil service. In fact, he said being at a loose end after the polls gave him a sense of “freedom” to do as he wanted. Working for a GLC is not private sector experience! He is there to do nothing while earning a big chunk of dough
He recalled the culture shock he experienced on moving into the labour movement after such a long stint in the civil service where the focus was on processes and procedures. Former NTUC chief Lim Boon Heng had told him that in the union, “people don’t care what you know, they want to know that you care”.
“Relationships trumps everything. It’s about how you relate to people. It was humbling to walk into a factory or bus interchange and having to face angry workers and bus drivers. There were shouting matches and some times you get shouted at,” he said recalling the struggles to get the salaries of bus drivers raised.
Change from within
When Mr Ong was introduced as a candidate in 2011, he was tipped as a member of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s A-team which will form the core of the next leadership, along with ministers Lawrence Wong, Chan Chun Sing, Heng Swee Keat and Tan Chuan-Jin. A high-flying civil servant who is married with two daughters, he was a former principal private secretary to the PM and had headed the Workforce Development Agency. His secondment to the NTUC, had looked like the PAP’s grooming process. He left the civil service to stand for election.
The Aljunied results were a jolt, he said. It taught him that “nothing should be taken for granted”. Which was why he thinks speculation about “risky” or “safe” seats were meaningless, as the voters had demonstrated when they ditched two Ministers and a senior Minister of State. That was how he skillfully skirted over questions on what PAP Organising Secretary Ng Eng Hen had said about not risking ministers and those with ministerial potential in unsafe wards.
Wasn’t that why he was moved out of Aljunied? His reply: “Let’s focus on the constituency first.”
He is a joy to speak to. He doesn’t mind the same questions repeated in different ways; he knows what you are up to. He adds little details and anecdotes to his answers – unasked. Twice, he mentioned his father, Mr Ong Lian Teng, a former Barisan Sosialis MP who walked out of Parliament in 1966, especially when talking about policy changes and the “interesting times” then – and now.
He was pressed for his views on the PAP, which he said is still the best party to lead the country forward.
Has voter sentiment changed since the last GE?
“No, they remain the same. They still don’t want a dominant political party in power. They want more consultation even as they miss Lee Kuan Yew,” he said. The PAP needs to recognise this mainstream feeling and come up with a changed agenda or “risk being changed from without”.
So, has the PAP changed?
“Somewhat. Policies have moved to the left, with the Pioneer Generation package and so forth. There are infrastructure investments and we are now more discerning about the type of foreign workers we need.”
Is there anything else that needs changing?
He took a bit of time to answer this question. Then he referred to the speech made by Raffles Institution principal Chan Poh Meng recently warning his students against becoming insular as a result of the system of meritocracy which rewarded the children of better-off families. A multi-dimensional view of meritocracy was needed or Singapore risked becoming segregated.
He gave two examples of how he thought meritocracy should operate.
He found out that Keppel had a very low attrition rate of engineers and it made him wonder how the company kept its staff. The engineers told him that it was because the company treated them equally and didn’t care about any engineer’s background. It was performance on the job that counted. Mr Ong thinks that the Keppel managed its staff differently because it was a company facing worldwide competition.
He also told of how the London School of Economics trust, which he sits on, recently decided that it wouldn’t just look at a student’s results when awarding scholarships. Instead it would give the scholarship to a student who had managed to secure a place but was not from a privileged background. In other words, there was “merit” in being able to overcome the odds to enroll in a prestigious university.
When he unfolded his lanky figure from the coffeeshop chair and got up to leave, several people nodded at him and raised a hand in goodbye. Coffeeshop uncles are friendly to him, said Mr Ong, probably because they identified with how he was trying to pick himself up after the 2011 GE.
And no, that was not a “failure”; it was a “setback”.PAP Politicians always think that they are god's gift to the island
To be overcome.
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