continuation
You saw the presidency as a way to do that?
Yes, the unionists egged me on. They came to see me a couple of
times and they suggested that I take it on. I discussed it with the
prime minister, being old friends, and he gave me his
support.
The well-known oppositionist J.B. Jeyaretnam wanted to run
against you?
Yes, but he was not allowed to because he did not qualify under the
stringent criteria. Maybe
too stringent.
You were glad Jeyaretnam could not run?
No, it's okay. I think it would have been more fun.
Some of your colleagues did not think it was much fun when
your only opponent, a former accountant-general, Chua Kim Yeoh, got
so much support?
Yes, all of them were quite worried. Some ministers even called me
to say: Oh, we are worried about the outcome. At first, we were
quite confident about getting over 70% of the vote. But there was a
swing of support over to my opponent's side, especially in the
educated class -- civil servants and the Shenton Way group. The
issue was whether they wanted a PAP man as president to check on a
PAP government, or whether it would be better to have a neutral
independent like Chua. That's why they voted against me because I
had the PAP government support. I would have been happier without
the PAP's open support. I think I would have been better off with
just the unionists' support and the Chinese-educated heartlanders.
Without them I would not have been elected.
But you did win and you had to figure out how to do this
new job as Singapore's first elected president.
Yes. At the first opening of parliament after I was elected, I was
given a speech prepared by the government. I read the speech
carefully. Besides ceremonial functions, it said that I'm supposed
to safeguard the reserves and to help society become more
compassionate and gracious. So I decided that, well, if that is
what is said in the speech, then that's going to be my job. And I
am going to do it. That's what I tried to do. In fact, during the
six years I was president, I was very busy.
Doing what?
Well, I got involved in a lot of things. The Istana presidential
palace and other places had to be renovated. All this had to be
planned and these places got ready one by one, so that ceremonial
functions and other business could go on as usual.
I had to press
the government to finalize the procedures for the protection of the
reserves. A lot of the teething problems and
misunderstandings were because there was a lack of clearcut
procedures of what to do. Towards the end of my term, I pressed the prime minister for a
White Paper to be tabled in parliament that would set out all the
principles and procedures for the elected president. Then I
will announce my decision to step down. I want to get the job
done.
Initially, he did not want to do that?
It's not that he did not want to do that, but it had been dragging
for a long time. They produced a White Paper eventually, tabled it
in parliament last July, and that made the future president's job
easier. We have already tested out many of the procedures during my
term, except for asking the president to approve a draw on the past
reserves during a deep economic crisis. That was never done. It's
that part of procedure that was not tested. How to do it?
It was this issue that caused the dispute between you and
the government?
Yes. But I don't want to go into details and upset everybody. The
thing is that the elected
president is supposed to protect the reserves, but
he was not told what these are until five years
later. From the
day the Constitution was amended in 1991 to provide for an elected
president, he was supposed to fulfil that role. My
predecessor, Wee Kim Wee, although he was not elected, was supposed
to play that role during the last two years of his term.
But he did not actively
check. So, when I came in in 1993, I asked for all this
information about the reserves. It took them three years to
give it to me.
The holdup was for administrative reasons?
Either that or they did not think there was any urgency.
You see, if you ask me to protect the reserves, then you've
got to tell me what I'm supposed to protect. So I had to ask.
Why did they not want to tell you?
I do not know. Don't ask me, because I don't have the answer. I've
been asking them. In fact, in 1996, exactly halfway through my
term, I wrote prime minister Goh a letter. At that time, everybody
was expecting a general election in December or January.
After the election, a new government would be sworn in.
When that happens, all
the reserves, whether past or current, become past reserves and are
locked up on the changeover date. As
president, I have to safeguard them and they can only be drawn upon
with my permission. So I said to Mr Goh: It's already halfway
through my term, but until today I still don't know all these
figures about the reserves.
So the government had been stonewalling you, the president,
for three years?
Yes. What happened actually was, as you know, in accounting, when you talk about
reserves, it's either cash reserves or assets reserves. The
cash side is straightforward: investment, how many million dollars
here and there, how much comes from the investment boards and so
on. That was straightforward -- but still we had to ask for it. For
the assets, like properties and so on, normally you say it's worth
$30 million or $100 million or whatever. But they said it would take 56-man years to produce
a dollar-and-cents value of the immovable assets. So I
discussed this with the accountant-general and the auditor-general
and we came to a compromise. The government would not need to give
me the dollar-and-cents value, just give me a listing of all the
properties that the government owns.
They agreed?
Well, yes, they agreed, but they said there's not the time for it.
It took them a few months to produce the list. But even when they gave me the list, it
was not complete.
It seems the Singapore government does not know its own
assets?
Yes. It's complicated. It's never been done before. And for the
assets of land, I can understand why. Every piece of land, even a
stretch of road, is probably subdivided into many lots. There are
50,000 to 60,000 lots and every one has a number. If you want to
value them all, it would take a long time. In the past, they have
just locked everything up and assumed it is all there. But if I am
to protect it, at least I want to know the list.
When they eventually gave you the list -- the incomplete
list, did you have enough staff to do the checking and other
work?
No, I did not. I only had one administrative staffer and two
part-timers from the auditor-general's office. For things like
approving the budget of statutory boards, the auditor-general's
office would normally go through that for me. They are very good.
They check on everything. And they query and ask for
information.
continue below
