Secret blog of a P65 MP: Part 5

Dear Blog,

Lam Pin Min beat me to it again. I was just about to post this up, and I log on and find that he’s beaten all of us to the blog again. Well done, colleague.

Speak­ing of col­leagues, we are all col­leagues in this team, whether or not we are in Cab­i­net. And a lot of talk these past two days has been about account­abil­ity.

I agree with the Mem­ber from the Worker’s Party, say­ing that with pri­vate sec­tor salaries comes pri­vate sec­tor account­abil­ity. We are all account­able for what­ever hap­pens under our watch. And if we were in the pri­vate sec­tor, we would have been asked to resign with a big dis­missal pay­out, or at least, in the case of Société Générale, asked to take on a non-executive role in the same organisation.

But the ques­tion is, does sack­ing or ask­ing the Min­is­ter for Home Affairs to resign do any­thing use­ful? The answer is a resound­ing no.

Mas Sela­mat won’t turn him­self in when he hears that Kan Seng has resigned. I will run around Orchard Road with­out pants if that were to hap­pen. I agree with PM that we have to keep things in perspective.

Take the recent out­break of Hand Foot Dis­ease in the schools. Will ask­ing the Min­is­ter for Health resign cure the chil­dren or pre­vent an out­break? Again, a resound­ing no.

My nephew, who is young and forth­right, said with the Hand Foot Dis­ease issue, it is the Min­is­ter for Edu­ca­tion who should get the sack because the out­break occurred in the schools.

As you can see, if we have this kind of incident-leading-to-resignation sce­nario, then we might as well dis­solve par­lia­ment and call for elec­tions every time there is a problem.

Per­son­ally, I am very sat­is­fied with the report on the escape, and I think MHA has done all they can to rem­edy the prob­lem, short of re-capturing Mas Sela­mat Kastari.

It is also heart­en­ing to see all MPs get­ting into the debate. Inder­jeet “Inter­ject” Singh espe­cially, show­ing that just because we are on the same team, it doesn’t mean we say agree­able things all the time.

Non-Constituency MPs (I apol­o­gize for the Nin­Com­Poop joke) have also been con­struc­tively crit­i­cis­ing. It is a pity Siew Kum Hong was not in town. He would have given Gov­ern­ment a mouth­ful, with respect, I am certain.

Of the younger NMPs, it was very good to see Eunice Olsen pose and pose a few ques­tions too. She is a really excel­lent role model for younger Sin­ga­pore­ans. Don’t worry, my wife thinks she is “hot” too.

–P65 Roxx!