S'pore 'bigger than
PAP'. By Susan Long.
Time to get off the autopilot, says a former civil servant
SINCE Mr Ngiam Tong Dow retired from the civil service in 1999,
affairs of state have weighed heavily on his mind. The highly
respected former Permanent Secretary worries about Singapore's
long-term survival and the kind of society the next generation will
inherit. At 66, the HDB Corp chairman insists he is 'no radical',
just a concerned Singaporean with three grandchildren, who wonders
'whether there will be a Singapore for them in 50 years' time'. In
Tea with Think, a weekly interview series, he gives a candid
appraisal of the civil service, and his prognosis of what the lack
of an alternative political leadership means for Singapore. The
interview will be continued next week.
Q. With all this pessimism surrounding Singapore's prospects today,
what's your personal prognosis? Will Singapore survive Senior
Minister Lee Kuan Yew?
A. Unequivocally yes, Singapore will survive SM Lee but provided he
leaves the right legacy. What sort of legacy he wants to leave is
for him to say, but I, a blooming upstart, dare to suggest to him
that we should open up politically and allow talent to be spread
throughout our society so that an alternative leadership can
emerge. So far, the People's Action Party's tactic is to put all
the scholars into the civil service because it believes the way to
retain political power forever is to have a monopoly on talent. But
in my view, that's a very short term view. It is the law of nature
that all things must atrophy. Unless SM allows serious political
challenges to emerge from the alternative elite out there, the
incumbent elite will just coast along. At the first sign of a
grassroots revolt, they will probably collapse just like the
incumbent Progressive Party to the left-wing PAP onslaught in the
late 1950s. I think our leaders have to accept that Singapore is
larger than the PAP.
Q. What would be a useful first step in opening up?
A. For Singapore to survive, we should release half our talent -
our President and Overseas Merit scholars - to the private sector.
When ten scholars come home, five should turn to the right and join
the public sector or the civil service; the other five should turn
to the left and join the private sector. These scholars should
serve their bond to Singapore - not to the Government - by working
in or for Singapore overseas. As matters stand, those who wish to
strike out have to break their bonds, pay a financial penalty and
worse, be condemned as quitters. But it takes a certain temperament
and mindset to be a civil servant. The former head of the civil
service, Sim Kee Boon, once said that joining the administrative
service is like entering a royal priesthood. Not all of us have the
temperament to be priests. However upright a person is, the
mandarin will in time begin to live a gilded life in a gilded cage.
As a Permanent Secretary, I never had to worry whether I could pay
my staff their wages. It was all provided for in the Budget. As
chairman of DBS Bank, I worried about wages only 20 per cent of the
time. I now face my greatest business challenge as chairman of HDB
Corp, a new start-up spun off from HDB. I spend 90 per cent of my
time worrying whether I have enough to pay my staff at the end of
the month. It's a mental switch.
Q. What is your biggest worry about the civil service?
A. The greatest danger is we are flying on auto-pilot. What was
once a great policy, we just carry on with more of the same, until
reality intervenes. Take our industrial policy. At the beginning,
it was the right thing for us to attract multinationals to
Singapore. For some years now, I've been trying to tell everybody:
'Look, for God's sake, grow our own timber.' If we really want
knowledge to be rooted in Singaporeans and based in Singapore, we
have to support our SMEs. I'm not a supporter of SMEs just for the
sake of more SMEs but we must grow our own roots. Creative
Technology's Sim Wong Hoo is one and Hyflux's Olivia Lum is another
but that's too few. We have been flying on auto-pilot for too long.
The MNCs have contributed a lot to Singapore but they are totally
unsentimental people. The moment you're uncompetitive, they just
relocate.
Q. Why has this come about?
A. I suspect we have started to believe our own propaganda.
There is also a particular brand of Singapore elite arrogance
creeping in. Some civil servants behave like they have a mandate
from the emperor. We think we are little Lee Kuan Yews. SM Lee has
earned his spurs, with his fine intellect and international
standing. But even Lee Kuan Yew sometimes doesn't behave like Lee
Kuan Yew. There is also a trend of intellectualisation for its own
sake, which loses a sense of the pragmatic concerns of the larger
world. The Chinese, for example, keep good archives of the Imperial
examinations which used to be held at the Temple of Heaven. At the
beginning, the scholars were tested on very practical subjects,
such as how to control floods in their province. But over time,
they were examined on the Confucian Analects and Chinese poetry
composition. Hence, they became emasculated by the system, a
worrying fate which could befall Singapore.
Q. But aren't you an exception to the norm of the gilded mandarin
with zero bottomline consciousness?
A. That's because I started out with Economic Development Board in
the 1959. Investment promotion then was all about hard foot
slogging and personal persuasion, which teaches you to be very
humble and patient. I learnt to be a supplicant and a professional
beggar, instead of a dispenser of favours. These days, most civil
servants start out administering the law. If I had my way,
every administrative officer would start his or her career in the
EDB. Hard foot slogging.
http://www.edbsociety.org.sg/content_list.asp?contentid=35&contenttypeid=2
...it's not of being ungratefulness, but for those who have eyes,
let them see... from an 'in the know'.
