Here is an extract of Susan Long's Straits Times' report on what
Ngiam Tong Dow (taken from Atobe's post):-
S'pore 'bigger than PAP'
Time to get off the autopilot, says a former civil servant
By Susan Long
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
1959: First class honours in economics from University of
Malaya.
1959: Joined Administrative Service. Postings to the former
Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Finance Ministry, and the
Economic Development Board.
1964: Topped his Master's in Public Administration programme at
Harvard University.
1970: Became the youngest-ever Permanent Secretary at age 33 at the
Ministry of Communications. Subsequent postings as Perm Sec in the
Ministries of Finance, Trade & Industry, National Development,
and the Prime Minister's Office.
1990: Appointed chairman of Development Bank Of Singapore. Later
also of the Central Provident Fund Board and HDB.
1999: Retired from the civil service as Permanent Secretary
(Finance), a post he held for 13 years.
2003: Named chairman of HDB Corp. Currently also a director of Yeo
Hiap Seng Limited, United Overseas Bank and Singapore Press
Holding
..........SUGGESTION TO PM LEE HSIEN LOONG.........
So with the above-stated report on Ngiam Tong Dow's inner thoughts
on PAP's shortcomings e.g.
(1) Auto-piloting of policies e.g. education streaming system (into
EM1/EM2, scolars and non-scholars), high-cost tax-and-recover
corporatization and privatisation aimed at building surpluses which
have caused our losses of social and economic vibrancy.
(2) Over-promoting the elites based on academic assumptions,
neglecting practical talents and broad-based education at the
expense of nurturing growths of entrepreneurship and
creativity.
If indeed, PM Lee Hsien Loong has analysed and understood what
caused Singapore economy to be checkmated from the 1970s, he should
have attended to fundamental changes on above-stated
problems.
I would suggest that in this election, he and his ministers and MPs
seriously address such form of autocratic auto-piloting and ponder
long and hard on NKF and Susan Long's report on Ngiam Tong Dow's
comments on what went wrong and introduce big changes to past
policies which cause problems and the economy to go down.
...............................................................................
