SINGAPORE — Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan has thrown his weight behind SMRT’s senior management amid questions about how they were taking responsibility for the flooding incident at Bishan MRT station last month.
The key is in the quality of the leadership, said Mr Khaw, who was responding to questions about how SMRT can be more at proactive troubleshooting problems during the Parliamentary debate following his ministerial statement on the Oct 7 incident.
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He also revealed that SMRT group chief executive officer Desmond Kuek, who took over the reins at SMRT in 2012, had volunteered for the position. “He wasn’t parachuted in or being asked to go and fix this, he volunteered for this job. As the former chief of defence force, I know his heart is in the right place,” Mr Khaw said.
There have been calls among some members of the public for Mr Kuek to step down from his post after last month’s press conference on the flooding incident. Mr Kuek had said then that there were “deep-seated cultural issues” within the company that contributed to the major train disruptions since 2011.
Mr Khaw also spoke about SMRT’s work culture in his ministerial speech. “If there is poor work culture, the CEO is responsible. You set the corporate culture,” said Mr Khaw, who later told the House that Mr Kuek had been “working very hard to try to change work culture” at SMRT.
Mr Kuek, who was seated in the public gallery during the debate on Tuesday (Nov 7), remained stony-faced throughout the session. Also in the gallery were SMRT’s chairman Mr Seah Moon Ming, SMRT Trains chief Lee Ling Wee, Land Transport Authority (LTA) chief executive Ngien Hoon Ping and LTA deputy chief of Infrastructure and Development Chua Chong Kheng. During the sitting, the minister had also looked up at the group on a few occasions when he made mention of them.
Making reference to Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu’s Art of War, Mr Khaw said there are bound to be defeats and losses in this “multi-year war” to improve rail reliability. And if people were to attack the troops or call for the switch of a general each time something disappointing happens, this would be a “sure strategy for failure”, the minister said.
The minister noted, however, his regret that it took “so long” to bring in Mr Seah, who succeeded Mr Koh Yong Guan in July.
Recounting his discussion with Temasek chairman Lim Boon Heng on leadership, Mr Khaw said even though the former chairman has been at SMRT for several years, he made it quite clear in his suggestion to Mr Lim that “no matter how brilliant you are, I think it’s time for change”.
Mr Koh had been the independent director of SMRT Corporation since April 2007, and of its wholly owned subsidiary SMRT Trains since May 2007. He held the position of chairman of both boards since July 2009 until he stepped down this year.
“My only disappointment is that we took so long before we got this done. If Mr Seah was earlier executed in this change of leadership, maybe we could have avoided this,” said Mr Khaw.
The minister added that he and his friends from the engineering sector were “embarrassed” that the Hong Kong rail system was running better than Singapore’s. “For a long time, we always compared ourselves to Hong Kong and said we are far ahead of them, as engineers. And when their MRT is running much better than our MRT, it’s terrible,” Mr Khaw said.
During the parliamentary debate, some Members of Parliament also raised questions about how the incident could affect the bonuses of staff that were not involved and what were some of the human resource strategies to retain competent staff.
While he noted that the questions should be directed to SMRT, Mr Khaw said the issue of bonuses is a “completely different story” from the amnesty offer. SMRT will have to work closely with the union to find out how best to handle the amnesty offer, quickly uncover the gaps in place and use the opportunity to forge closer relationships.
The rail profession should also remain attractive, particularly to young Singaporeans, through better salaries and status for the profession, among other things, he said.
He also agreed with Dr Lee Bee Wah’s (Nee Soon GRC) comments about the need to ensure the SMRT staff continue to take pride in their work and keep their morale up.
"It is crucial to maintain their pride in their work and as long as they are doing their work conscientiously, I think we should lend our support," he noted.
While this has been a difficult challenge, improving rail reliability is not something Singapore cannot manage.
“Yes, it has cost us individually – maybe personal health and maybe family life, but I think it’s a meaningful job that we decided to take on, whether its Desmond Kuek or Seah Moon Ming or Ngien Hoon Ping,” he said.
http://www.todayonline.com/singapor...eered-job-has-heart-right-place-khaw-boon-wan
