WP's Low wrong not to investigate hawker cleaning incident: PM
By Leonard Lim
Singapolitics
Friday, Jul 12, 2013
SINGAPORE - Workers' Party chief Low Thia Khiang cannot leave grave doubts about the integrity of his fellow MPs unresolved, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Friday, in his first comments since a dramatic exchange between one of his ministers and the opposition party in Parliament earlier this week.
"This is not how members of a First World Parliament should conduct themselves," he added, in an oblique reference to the WP's slogan in the last general election.
"Neither is this the sort of politics Singapore needs," Mr Lee said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan produced a dossier containing evidence that a staff of the WP-run town council in Aljunied GRC, had asked hawkers to pay for the cleaning of their market's high areas. Such cleaning is usually done and paid for by town councils.
WP chairman Sylvia Lim, who also chairs the town council, denied the charges.
Dr Balakrishnan accused the WP of being "false and untruthful", saying the crux of the matter was about integrity and clean politics.
On Tuesday, Mr Low promised to try to find out who had actually asked the contractor to quote for the cleaning. But on Wednesday, in an interview with reporters, he "reversed course without explanation", said PM Lee, when he said that he would not conduct any investigation.
Mr Low had then questioned if the exchange in Parliament was "good politics", brining up PM Lee's comment a week ago that the country needs to get its politics right.
Yesterday, PM Lee turned this argument back on the WP.
"Good politics is first and foremost about integrity," he said.
"Singapore has succeeded because we have honest, upright people in politics: people who can be trusted to uphold the public interest, to speak the truth even when it is inconvenient, and to admit mistakes when things go wrong."
This, he said, is how the Government has built trust between Singaporeans and their leaders, worked together to build the nation and improved everyone's lives.
"If we cannot trust a politician to tell the truth, then we cannot trust him or her to safeguard public funds, to put public interest ahead of personal gain, or to make decisions affecting the well-being and security of Singaporeans," PM Lee added.
Dr Balakrishnan's statement in Parliament was not just his personal opinion, the Prime Minister said, but the government's official position which the Cabinet had approved.
Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take part in the political life of a society......
Political repression is sometimes used synonymously with the term political discrimination..... often is manifested through discriminatory policies, such as human rights violations, surveillance abuse, police brutality, imprisonment,....... stripping of citizen's rights.............
Where political repression is sanctioned and organised by the state, it may constitute state terrorism, genocide, politicide or crimes against humanity. Systemic and violent political repression is a typical feature of dictatorships, totalitarian states and similar regimes......... Repressive activities have also been found within democratic contexts as well...........
In some states, "repression" can be an official term used in legislation or the names of government institutions. For example, the Soviet Union had a legal policy of repression of political opposition defined in the penal code, and Cuba under Fulgencio Batista had a secret police agency officially named the "Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_repression
LTK should just say "let the people decide". Nuffield said.
LTK should just say "let the people decide". Nuffield said.
This is how Vivian can avoid be personally responsible for his remark ...."Dr Balakrishnan's statement in Parliament was not just his personal opinion, the Prime Minister said, but the government's official position which the Cabinet had approved." Now we know why he dare to waive Parliamentary Privilege.
If this goes to a lawsuit ...the judge will be able to side with the government.
The WP should come out with a strong response and work the grounds to get their message out. The message is simple - NEA screwed up and tried to pin the blame on WP TC. The minister's record speaks for itself - overspending on YOG, unable to deal with dengue, unable to deal with haze, bashing the poor.
hahaha...it is precisely scums like you that I looked down.....You are quite good. Effectively, LTK said precisely that.(let people decide).
LTK was a joke when he was trying to play around with words like spring cleaning and annual cleaning. Does he not yet know there can only be 1 spring in a year and not 4?
I am sure politicians proclaiming from the First world parliament should do and must do alot better. Let's stop playing with words and get back to do some real work.
NEA (read VB) started it all by an unnecessary reminder (maybe to preempt and start the shit rolling) to hawkers when annual cleaning is due, they have to erect high scaffolding to clean the high ceiling areas. WP's man Tai said - but without being too clear - that TCs will pay only if its quarterly spring cleaning sessions coincide with an annual one, otherwise the hawkers will have to pay. WP's TC went on to do their spring cleaning so did not clean high areas and scaffolding was not needed.
hahaha...it is precisely scums like you that I looked down.....
after people decide and if it goes against You (opps parties), u start to pin labels on these people...stupid, ball-less, fucktards; etc..etc...
be gentleman lah...accept what the people decides and work harder lah....
There are missing links in all the comms. PAP seized on that to stir up shit. WP itself was ambiguous. The two camps are like two steamers in the dark, passing each other; or like two boxers fighting in different boxing rings. Both sides were right, but on different subjects. Both sides insisted they had done the proper thing, but it was not the same proper thing.
NEA (read VB) started it all by an unnecessary reminder (maybe to preempt and start the shit rolling) to hawkers when annual cleaning is due, they have to erect high scaffolding to clean the high ceiling areas. WP's man Tai said - but without being too clear - that TCs will pay only if its quarterly spring cleaning sessions coincide with an annual one, otherwise the hawkers will have to pay. WP's TC went on to do their spring cleaning so did not clean high areas and scaffolding was not needed. Hawkers expected high areas to be cleaned probably becos NEA initiated the idea and reminder, and that's where the source of confusion.
Big guns from both sides came out to defend their own ambiguities and played football with the payment issue and non-performance of tasks. VB tried to be too clever by half in trying to nail LTK instead of taking responsibility for NEA's mischievous reminder, and Pinky made it worse for defending PAP at all costs. LTK was truthful when he said that everything that is there to be read is out there and refused to be drawn into a trap on integrity.
Actually, at the end of the day, who lacks integrity? The Minister in charge of NEA who started shit rolling or the victim who fell into the trap? You judge.
Good job, kingrant. A succinct summary of the issues. Anyone who does not know what the fuss is all about need to read only kingrant wonderful post here.
Good job, kingrant. A succinct summary of the issues. Anyone who does not know what the fuss is all about need to read only kingrant wonderful post here.
...
My take on this issue is this. The whole thing is started by the Old Fart. He had warned Aljunied residents that they will live to repent but they ignored him, in fact rebuffed him. Never forget that the Old Fart is an extremely vindictive person with a track record of making people bankrupt or something untoward of those who dare step even on his most little toe. So when this misunderstanding arose, he pounced on the chance and told all his Ministers (who to him was a bunch of wimps especially when u have one with a girl's name) to turn it into a full assault on WP and take no prisoners. This is the reason why Ms Vivian was so garang in Parliament that day, knowing full well that the Old Fart himself is fully behind it. The next day, the Old Fart told his son "who sat conspicuously throughout" to come out and give full artillery support so as to finish the WP off. The Old Fart must have smiled as he had his revenge.
The sad thing for the Old Fart is that people are all tired of his political antics that belong to the 20th century. And this will yet be another episode that will further erode the PAP's majority in 2016. So for those who still wants to give PAP a chance to change, it's plain to see that the leopard will never change its spot. The PAP will never change.