Have we been foolishy humouring ouselves the big deal about the EP?

[Confuseous]

Although the president has constitutional powers to be a custodian of the reserves, he has no constitutional obligation to be transparent about the amount of reserves we have (assuming he even knows, that is!). Nor is it in his job description to provide disclosure on when and how the reserves are used.

Citizens who clamour for transparency on how the GIC and Temasek Holdings fared in the 2009 financial crisis would be disappointed. Interestingly, at the end of President Nathan’s tenure, he almost off-handedly revealed that he had approved the use of the reserves a total of 27 times, for land reclamation and SERS (public housing upgrading) projects. Did these worthy projects warrant the use of the reserves? Have these initiatives been thoroughly studied and debated by parliament to ascertain their benefits? When were they authorised and what were the actual amounts utilised? The revelation threw up more questions than answers, and generated discomfort over the lack of reasonable transparency and disclosure.

If the elected president is nothing more than an overpaid, politically biased watchman with limited custodial powers that protects the ruling party more than it serves the well-being of the citizens, perhaps we have been foolishly humouring ourselves by casting lofty aspirations and accrediting undeserved sanctity to the office.

- http://publichouse.sg/categories/fe...esidency-–-misconstrued-or-misconceptualised?

 

[jeesus]

This is very true. PE 2011 was largely a statistics collation exercise.

Tan Cheng Bock said in a TOC interview in June:
"You cannot just pressure the President to let you know all the reserves, how much money Singapore got and so on. I think that's very dangerous, it's against our national interests."

On the other hand, he also said in the same interview:
"This importance of check and balances. You must have this check and balance."

He also mentioned that Parliament can remove the President, if the latter challenges the constitution.

In other words, the President should perform check and balances, but is not obliged to tell citizens exactly what is going on (you cannot handle the truth, people)...