Faisal Wali
Thank you, Mr Goh Chok Tong, for portraying me as a fellow human.
I refer to the Straits Times article titled “Loss of Aljunied team will dent quality of Goverment” written by Cassandra Chew dated 30 April 2011.
Loss of Aljunied team will dent quality of Goverment
THE quality of Singapore’s government will take a hit if Aljunied GRC residents vote out the People’s Action Party (PAP) team, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong warned on Saturday night.
The five-member PAP team groups Foreign Minister George Yeo, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Finance and Transport Lim Hwee Hwa, Senior Minister of State (Foreign Affairs) Zainul Abidin Rasheed, Madam Cynthia Phua and new face Ong Ye Kung, who is widely tipped as a potential office holder.
Noting the difficulties that many governments abroad face in recruiting good quality people to become Cabinet Ministers and office holders, Mr Goh warned Singaporeans that they would lose not only a foreign minister who has been able to foster good relations with neighbouring countries, but also Singapore’s first woman minister, Mrs Lim, and a potential Speaker of Parliament, Mr Zainul.
Speaking at the PAP Marine Parade GRC rally at Paya Lebar, he also dismissed the Workers’ Party’s (WP) call for a First World Parliament, describing the opposition party as a ‘koyok man’ selling pills that do not work.
He urged voters not to be seduced or swindled by them. ‘They want quantity but if they can’t sing, it’s not a good choir,’ he said.
In his 35-minute speech, Mr Goh also disclosed that his former principal private secretary Tan Jee Say, who is contesting in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC as a Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, left the civil service to join the private sector as Mr Goh did not think he could make it as a permanent secretary.
Source: The Straits Times
Towards the end of the article, Mr Goh Chok Tong gave an assessment of his former subordinate, Mr Tan Jee Say. Mr Goh felt that Tan who left the civil service to join the private sector does not have what it takes to be a permanent secretary.
My fellow colleagues and friends viewed Mr Goh’s remarks as a stinging attack on Tan’s credibility. Some even say it is a beneath the belt attack on Tan. I beg to differ and I see things differently.
I am an ordinary Singaporean, with ordinary achievements in school. I am also an ordinary salaried man. I do not have much achievements to speak about other than my ordinariness.
Honestly, before the General Elections, my colleague mentioned to me the line-up of electoral candidates such as Mr Chen Show Mao from Harvard, Oxford and Stanford, Mr Tan Jee Say a former administrative scholar who went to Oxford and others.
My first thought is whether they were from the PAP’s line-up. To my surprise, they were contesting under the opposition banner.
Back to Mr Goh’s remarks, I personally feel that as a former boss, he is well within rights to give his frank assessment of Tan’s ability. No grudges held.
Speaking for myself, I am not too sure if I even have the qualifications to enter the civil service. This means I am not too sure if I will make it to the interview stage, and if I make it, to pass that hoop in order to become an officer within the civil service. So, I can say for an ordinary Singaporean like me that I definitely do not possess the talents to be a Permanent Secretary.
Mr Tan, on the other hand, went quite far, rising within the administrative service to the level of Principal Private secretary to Mr Goh. Now, Mr Goh revealed that Tan does not have what it takes to be Permanent Secretary. I feel that Mr Goh has made Tan look more human.
We have to ask ourselves, how many of us really have the capability to be a Permanent Secretary, a lofty position within the civil service? Only a minority right? Therefore, I am glad that Mr Goh’s revelations meant that Tan belongs to the vast majority of us who make up the “I do not have the ability to be a Permanent Secretary’ club.
Does such a remark affect Tan’s chances? I do not know for sure. But what I do know is that I will take to anyone who can communicate on the same frequency or tune his frequency of connection to mine. I have plenty of intelligent friends with vast knowledge. Within their own clique, they make intelligent conversations.
I admit as an ordinary Singaporean, my intelligence is probably average. That is why most of the time, I couldn’t grasp the gist of what my intelligent friends are saying, and I seem so distant from them.
Intelligence is important, but what I feel is that the more a person has in common with you, the more he can connect. I take public transport, eat at hawker centres or “da bao” from there when I am not free, hang out at void decks, all those things. Most of my good friends do all of the above. Will I mind having a representative as ordinary as me who do the above? Definitely not.
I shared wheal and woe with my former commanders in my national service. They are not the kind of lofty personalities destined for high leadership in SAF. They are ordinary people like me, doing their national service. We eat the same combat rations during exercise. Miss the same meals when called to action. Received the same “tekan” (punishment) when we screw up. And we also shared the same joys when we do well and get “Off” days for reward.
I will unequivocally say that I will be very happy for my former commanders to lead me. And in a similar vein, I will be happy to have the same ordinary representative from the ordinary calibre group with ordinary achievements which I belong to.
Going back to what Mr Goh said about Tan’s inability to rise to the Permanent Secretary position, he could be right that Tan probably does have the ability to lead a ministry.
Will Tan if elected ever get to lead an entire ministry? No. His party, Singapore Democratic Party only has 11 candidates contesting, unlike the Worker’s Party and National Solidarity Party with more than 20 candidates. He is not going to be a minister given the current situation.
Thus, whether Tan can lead a ministry or not is moot to me because we know the answer to that question. What matters is whether Tan is able to connect to voters and articulate their interests, and suggest solutions to their problems. This will be his purpose if elected.
Mr Goh has every right to highlight Tan’s shortcomings as a former boss. Now, we know that Tan belongs to the club made up by majority of us who don’t have the ability to take on the lofty position of a Permanent Secretary. So, thank you, Mr Goh, indeed, for making your former secretary look more human!
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Photo courtesy of the Singapore Democratic Party.
Please revise your article and make your argument from this point of view:
Please revise your article and make your argument from this point of view:
Wow mr tan worked for 5 for mr goh before he realised that he couldn’t cut it ???? What does that say about his ability to judge new candidates?????
The writer has truly, unequivocally and blatantly proofed that she is not an intelligent person. The writer, i think, was in delusion when she wrote the article or was on drugs or pissed drunk.
I have heard… The manager of a small power plant was electrocuted while on the fob. The assistant manager informed the police chief, the coroner and the workmen in the plant. They gathered, horror-stricken, about the body of the dead manager stretched out on the floor, and began to speculate how an experienced man could commit so fatal an error.
“The only thing i can think of,” said the assistant manager, “is that poor Joe must have picked up this terminal in one hand…”
The assistant manager picked up the terminal and then without thinking reached out with his other hand and came into contact with… BANG!
The assistant manager was stretched out next to the manager, but the mystery was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
Man is unconscious. You go on doing things not knowing why. You go on doing things, you could not do if you were even a little conscious.
Time has come for both these men to be unconscious and they are going to start saying things that they never expected to be saying. There is always another side to every story and tends to be the extremity of the first view.
If you understand, what i am saying, you are unintelligent but You are conscious. Intelligent people are too intellectual that the intellectual knowledge (which comes from borrowed knowledge from books, media, experiences and etc) blocks their higher intelligence, that is knowing the unknown.
Goh CT is a poor judge or abilities or capabilities. Like Zzz said, it takes 5 years for Woody to find out that Tan cannot cut it to be a Parmanent Sec. Anyway, Tan has come out to rebut that this is not true, and the real reason he left.
Woody should look into his own backyard before making pot shots. He has such an immature Kate Spate candidate which he thinks make the cut to be an MP? This either tells you how much abilitiy Woody has in selecting quality candidtate be itfor perm Sec or as an MP, or he is absolutely powerless and have to suck up whatever Ah Loong shoves to him to sit on his coat tails.
Beneficial insights! I have been previously seeking something like this for a long time now. Thanks for your insight!
1st we heard that GCT defended Tin PL despite her glaring shortcomings both in character and performance. Now, he go from being defensive to offensive and start some incoherent remarks about his past colleague. To GCT, this is uncalled for and unethical. You are old enough to retire to spend the rest of your livese with your wife eating peanuts. We have enough of you. Please go
my late grandfather always said ” if you look at the wife of a man, you should know what
kind of man he is ”
How true!!
It’s not that I don’t see your point about leaders being more human and being “one of us”. If I had a choice I would like our leaders to be human when dealing with us and super-human when dealing with affairs of state. Unfortunately, people who are blessed with both qualities seem to be in short supply. Either they got a lot of popular appeal but very little evidence to show that they can govern well or they have a lot of experience/talent but damn arrogant.
Frankly, if I had to choose, I would choose the fellow who has better chance of governing well. In the end, I don’t need a leader I can drink beer and talk cock sing song with (for that I got my own kaki), I need a leader who is more intelligent than me and can make tough, unpopular decisions even when I protest like hell.
Replying a little later, you are wrong to say that Goh Chok Tong was Tan Jee Say’s boss. Yes, the role of the civil service is to support the government (and its ministers) – but politicians have no say over civil service appointments. It is totally out of order for Goh Chok Tong to make it seem as though he refused to promote Tan Jee Say, since Goh had no such authority.