mollymeek ([info]mollymeek) wrote,
@ 2007-12-19 15:02:00
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Why we should pay more for top talent
If every Singaporean has as much stupidity as certain ST forum writers, perhaps we deserve to be inflicted with the world's most expensive and oppressive government.


Pay rise for top civil servants timely


I READ with great relief the article about ministers and top civil servants getting a 4-21 per cent pay rise next month (ST, Dec 14). (I suppose you must have been very worried all this while that our ministers might not get a pay rise?) 

We can now be assured that only the most competent people will serve the country. (Oh, I see. High pay automatically translates to competence. If you want more competent blogging from Molly, you had better start paying.) With the rise in their remuneration, we have secured their steadfast service (if any, I suppose), as well as their continued fervour (for fixing all opposition?) and dedication to fight for our cause (which is? to retain Section 377A?). It could not be more timely. When inflation is soaring and some Singaporeans 'can barely stay afloat' (The Sunday Times, Dec 2), we need, more than ever, the best possible team of civil servants to lead us through the difficulties. (And they have been leading by . . . raising the GST to help the poor?) 

We cannot afford to lose them to the private sector, and have to retain them at all costs. (Even at the cost of $1 billion per person?) This is especially so as these senior civil servants have been in the public sector for so long that they are likely to seek fresh experience in the private sector. (But . . . the longer they stay in the public sector, perhaps the less relevant their experience becomes?)

With the festive season coming, I hope that they will not forget to share the joy of receiving with the less fortunate. Therefore, I appeal to them to follow Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's lead in giving to the poor and spreading the blessings.

Agung Santoso Ongko

IN EVERY society, there will always be a group of 'sufferers'. The question is, 'How do you help them?' This question is always in the minds of our MPs and ministers. (You can read their minds??!!)

Let us not begrudge the MPs and ministers their wages. Look around the region, where politicians squabble and the wealth of the nation is squandered while the people live in slums and squalor. (And in Singapore? Wealth is shared used to buy votes instead?) Be thankful that you are a Singaporean, and ask yourself how you can help the 'sufferers'. (I know! Make them pay more!)

Low Lee Siang



 

(Post a new comment)


[info]smoochesncream
2007-12-19 07:51 am UTC (link)
yeah the top civil servants get an increase, but what about the 'little' people who are the ones going to the private sector?

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[info]mollymeek
2007-12-19 08:10 am UTC (link)
In our big world, little people are not talented and do not have to be retained. And some sectors are almost entirely public, so some people have no choice - don't even need to "attract" them.

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(Anonymous)
2007-12-19 08:38 am UTC (link)
i'm quite concerned. if you google "Low Lee Siang", you find that she's actually a chemistry teacher in some secondary school. i'm really worried for her students, and also i'm worried for her - wait till her students read this crap and realise what a sham she is. unless she's also been brainwashing them too.

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(Anonymous)
2007-12-19 08:41 am UTC (link)
to add: a teacher from MGS, no less. !!!

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[info]hirondelle
2007-12-19 12:56 pm UTC (link)
She'd be exactly the sort of teacher MOE would want in the schools then.

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[info]mollymeek
2007-12-19 07:26 pm UTC (link)
Let's give her an award and a pay rise to retain her services in the teaching industry.

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[info]leejean
2007-12-19 03:02 pm UTC (link)
Are you sure it's not a satire?

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Please let me explain.
(Anonymous)
2007-12-19 03:23 pm UTC (link)
I'm so glad somebody finally smelt a hint of my original intention for this Forum entry. Honestly, I read with GREAT HORROR the published version of my own e-mail on ST Forum 18/12/2007.

Whatever was published on the Forum page on 18/12/2007 may be similar to what I had originally written, but the omissions made by the editors have actually changed its intended meaning altogether. I have reproduced below my original article as I had sent it to the ST editors:

"I read with great relief the ST article “Ministers, top civil servants to get 4% to 21% pay rise in Jan” published on 13 December 2007. We can now rest doubly assured that only the most competent people will serve the country. With the rise in their remuneration, we have successfully secured their most steadfast service, as well as their continued fervour and dedication in fighting for our cause. Certainly, it cannot be timelier. At this point, when inflation is soaring and some Singaporeans “can barely stay afloat” (The Sunday Times 02 December 2007), we are in dire need, more than ever, for the best possible team of civil servants to lead us through all these difficulties. We cannot afford to lose them to the private sector, and have to fight to retain them at all costs. This is especially so, as these senior civil servants have been dwelling in the public sector for such a long time that they are more likely indeed to seek a fresh experience in the private sector.

With the festive season coming, though, I sincerely hope that they will not forget to share the joy of receiving with the less fortunate in our midst, for the total annual increment that every senior civil servant is set to receive can actually support approximately 1,000 other Singaporeans. Therefore, I appeal to our senior civil servants to follow PM Lee's lead in giving back to the poor and spreading the blessings. What that increase means to you means infinitely more to them."

If it has not become apparent to you by now, I had meant this piece to be satirical. And I admit that I may have failed miserably. I admit that it may be my own incompetent, ambiguous writing that has resulted in the gross misunderstanding. It is indeed possible that my vagueness has led to the editors misreading my intentions and viewing all the hyperboles and superlatives as redundant emphasis on my support for the pay rise. I shall, however, leave it to you readers to decide for yourself.

I hope I have made my position clear, though: that I am strongly opposed to the unwise timing of the ministerial pay rise, and that if it happens anyway, I call for those benefiting from it to share with those among us who live on $290 a month, and are saving every single cent just to continue surviving.

- Agung Santoso Ongko

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Re: Please let me explain.
(Anonymous)
2007-12-19 05:54 pm UTC (link)

Molly Molly Molly,
you're such a bimbo. This is why you're still an underpaid secretary working for an unappreciative boss who only hired you to look down your blouse.
Mr Indonesian foreign trash is just trying to suck up to our gahment, so that when he lands his cushy GLC job after graduating from whatever scholarship your tax dollars are paying for, he will get promoted quickly and then one day, even get invited for tea, so that he can earn millions too. There is no other reason for him to write such a letter.
What nonsense that he's being sarcastic? You think the wonderful Straits Times Editors are idiots? They work for ISD one ok. They can smell sarcasm like sharks can smell a drop of blood in the water. If Mr Indonesian foreign trash was trying to be sarcastic, he would have been locked up and disappeared off the radar.

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Re: Please let me explain.
[info]mollymeek
2007-12-19 07:37 pm UTC (link)
It doesn't matter whether he's sarcastic. Molly herself can write a sarcastic letter. But the editor can "edit" things. In the end, it would be a new letter with my name. To clarify, then, the stupidity may not be in the name of the person who sent the letter to the ST. The stupidity could be enforced by some lap dog of the state.

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Re: Please let me explain.
(Anonymous)
2007-12-21 02:56 am UTC (link)
Well,

here is my experience of being blue-pencilled out of the original thrust of the letter to the forum. Instead of a call for bureaucratic self-searching (if it is possible), it just became an empty on the state of the situation, and the title suggested that I was calling on society to blindly trust its appointed functionaries without any watchdogs on them.

"C'est la vie"; be wary of the blue-pencil wielded by political apparatchiks. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik)

Here's wot I wrote, and the strikeout in red is what was lost.

Trust administrators to
do the right thing


April 10, 2004</p>
Bureaucracies are designed to fit people and issues within pre-determined criteria and rules.WHEN administrators are called upon to apply bureaucratic criteria, they frequently find that there are exceptional factors, or issues, that make a mess of the predetermined rules. And they find it difficult to resolve the conflict.

Unfortunately, the average administrator wants to get his job done within the rules. He is punished if he makes exceptions. Is it any wonder that we face bureaucracies that defend themselves rather than serve their constituents?

We cannot tell administrators to allow for a little 'messiness' without giving them the authority, and confidence, that their best judgment will decide the outcome of an issue. More importantly, that the system will trust and support administrators in their decisions.

These mindset changes are needed before we can reach bureaucratic nirvana. We have to learn to trust; bureaucracies, by nature, are not created with trusting their functionaries in mind. Yet, if we desire a knowledge economy and an engaged society, we cannot continue to restrict application of regulations to the straight and narrow.

All of us have in one time or another, faced situations where the rules were ridiculous, and there was no recourse. As a minor student functionary within my university, I make my best attempts to serve the students first, and not the system.

As a species, we have lost sight of what bureaucracies are intended for. Where their original creators desired efficiency in serving its constituents, today's modern bureaucracies find efficiency in serving the system.

How can we achieve greatness if we're hampered by the very systems we create? I call on all bureaucracies to review themselves regularly to remind themselves that they seve their constituents, and not the system.
-------------------------------------

So, if anyone wants to have a letter pass through with minimal edits (or re-meanings), do remember to edit your own letter so that the sentences are so tight that they cannot be removed without making the paragraph incoherent (doesn't prevent wholesale paragraph loss, but hey, at least if they slice within a paragraph, it feels that something is missing from it).

Good luck to future writers.


KianWee
reposted on aserialnumberonmyvote.blogspot.com (http://aserialnumberonmyvote.blogspot.com) if anyone wants to discuss this beyond the thematic constraints of this molly article.

E.o.M.



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Downblouse?.
(Anonymous)
2007-12-22 02:05 am UTC (link)
Dear Molly,

Can I look down YOUR blouse heehee :P

signed off,
useless s'porean man

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Re: Downblouse?.
[info]mollymeek
2007-12-22 04:02 am UTC (link)
Can. But since Molly is Singapore's top bimbotic beauty extraordinaire, you would have to pay her millions of dollars (pegged to the other MM's salary) to take a peek down her blouse. This is so that you won't lose her to some ang moh making her very good offers.

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Re: Please let me explain.
[info]mollymeek
2007-12-19 07:32 pm UTC (link)
I don't know if you are really the person who wrote the letter. But it doesn't matter to me. I was looking more at the letter as it was manifested in the forum. "Agung Santoso Ongko" is just a name. If his letter wasn't published in its original form, he's no longer the writer of the letter. It's some ST editor writing the letter while stealing the name.

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[info]mollymeek
2007-12-19 07:28 pm UTC (link)
It did come across my mind that it could have been satirical. But I couldn't find many indicators of satire. It's not, then, the intention of the writer that counts but the letter as the ST has presented it that counts.

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[info]leejean
2007-12-20 01:23 am UTC (link)
It would be interesting to know the mindset of the editor

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[info]mollymeek
2007-12-21 08:40 am UTC (link)
It would be interesting if the editor even has a mind of his own to begin with.

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Can the ministers and top civil servants, please stand in front
(Anonymous)
2007-12-20 10:15 am UTC (link)
It does not matter who write letters or articles in our "nation building" newsletter. Whatever written in the papers has one result - spit propaganda for the party.

Why use newspaper editors and ghost writers to justify the pay rise? Can't the ministers and top civil servants come out and speak for themselves? Oh, maybe they cannot stand the bombardments they will receive, is it? It really reminds you what Mr "MGY" Goh said about ministers getting into politics via GRCs (back doors in plain English).

If it is true, maybe Agung Santoso Ongko should write to the editors and ask why the letter in its original form was not published? When you get an answer (if ever), then you come back here with the original message and the editor's reply. Do not have to show the original message only here.

Next time, have a blog, publish your piece on your blog first before sending it to ST. Of course, the chance of ST publishing it is almost nil because they cannot fine-tune it to their "nation building" tone.

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Re: Can the ministers and top civil servants, please stand in front
[info]mollymeek
2007-12-21 08:41 am UTC (link)
Agung can always contribute a post on the "discussion" board for the article in the ST before the article is archived. (Of course, that is subject to censorship as well.)

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I see ghosssssssst
(Anonymous)
2007-12-21 02:06 am UTC (link)
Ahhh.....the trade mark of phantom writers to be the infantry unit for the pay rise.

"Now you see? The people actually support us in the cause!"

My take is: Don't let Singaporeans be the blocking stone to anyone who want to find greener pasture else where. We should just let SM Goh go for the job that can pay him twice the amount.

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Re: I see ghosssssssst
(Anonymous)
2007-12-21 06:10 am UTC (link)
We should all just stop our subcriptions to such thrash.

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Re: I see ghosssssssst
[info]mollymeek
2007-12-21 08:43 am UTC (link)
Hehe, luckily I don't subscribe. Sometimes it's worth subscribing because the letters (original or "edited") are so damned funny. But sometimes they are plain irritating.

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Re: I see ghosssssssst
[info]mollymeek
2007-12-21 08:42 am UTC (link)
SM Go.

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ST
(Anonymous)
2007-12-21 12:56 pm UTC (link)
Eh, don like dat leh, I like to read ST you know, if not how I know where got discount and sale!

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Re: ST
[info]mollymeek
2007-12-22 03:59 am UTC (link)
Then just censor out the articles and browse through the ads.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

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