Ex Brigadier General Now CEO of GLC Engineering Subsidiary

Keppel Integrated Engineering Ltd (KIE), the wholly-owned environmental engineering arm of Keppel Corporation Limited, has appointed BG (NS) Tay Lim Heng (郑林兴) as its Chief Executive Officer with effect from 1 January 2011.

Prior to joining KIE in June this year (barely 6 months ago), Tay had absolutely zero experience in the field of environmental engineering, which includes Waste-to-Energy (Incineration) engineering and Water/Wastewater engineering. Instead, BG (NS) Tay was the Deputy Secretary (Development) of the Ministry of National Development (MND). Prior to that he was the Chief Executive of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore and had held various key appointments in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF).

The construction of Waste-to-Energy plants involves intricate knowledge of civil, mechanical and electrical engineering. Meanwhile, the field of water & wastewater engineering requires intricate knowledge of chemical & water engineering. It is challenging enough for engineers to master ONE of those two businesses, let alone both. Witness, for example, Hyflux's single-minded focus on membrane-based water purification technologies.

Yet, amazingly, according to outgoing CEO Michael Chia, Tay Lim Heng has managed to "[adapt] very quickly to the environmental engineering business" and master both fields within a short span of 6 months, something that would normally take others a life time to do.

KIE is indeed privileged to have an esteemed member of Lee Kuan Yew's "intellectual class" as its captain going forward. I personally look forward to seeing what Scholar-General Tay has up his sleeve as he brings KIE into the 21st century.

Time for Lee Kuan Yew to learn from Deng Xiaoping's Legacy

Singapore has been touted around the world as an economic miracle. Lee Kuan Yew, the CEO and Chief Marketing Officer of the country, has been held up high as a model statesman of the island state and Asian Economic Tiger. The PAP government likes to boast about how Chinese officials come to Singapore to learn from the ruling party about how to run a nation. Lee Kuan Yew was not afraid to boast about Chinese officials wanting to run their country the way Singapore does [link].

Yet, Lee knew that China would soon rise to the world stage and surpass what little Singapore could ever accomplish. Instead of China learning from Singapore, Singapore would be learning from China. The elder Lee once said to Deng Xiaoping [link],

‘Whatever we can do, you will do better. We are the descendants of the landless peasants of South China, you have the literati, you have the top brains, you have the poets, the artists.’

Indeed, the time has come for Singapore's political elite to take a page out of China's economic leadership.

Behavioural Psychology Proves that Greed-Driven PAP Ministers' Compensation System is Fundamentally Flawed!!!

The following short video is an animation of Dan Pink's talk on motivation and what drives people. It is based on the discoveries of Behavioural Economists and is key to this post so please take a moment to watch it. It is fantastic to say the least.



The key discovery by the Behavioural Economists is that:

1. As long as a task involves only mechanical skill, monetary incentives correlate with performance i.e. higher the pay the better the performance.
2. Once a task involves even rudimentary cognitive skill, a larger reward leads to poorer performance !!!

Measures that PM Lee SHOULD Have Announced, But Didn't

There's a huge hulabaloo on the internet about PM Lee's national day rally speech and the measures he has announced and why they are crappy and inadequate. I agree generally that it was quite a crappy speech and some of the measures announced were silly and reveal that even right now with all the clanging on the internet and the growing resentment on the ground, the PAP still has no clue.

But instead of criticising PM Lee and joining in the chorus of why the PAP is fucked up, I shall instead propose SOLUTIONS to the problems facing our society today.

$387m Budget Understates Cost of YOG to Singapore Society

It has been widely reported that the original $104m budget for the YOG ballooned to a massive $387m. These are the direct financial costs of the YOG. However, the following are a few hidden costs of the YOG that, if we were to estimate and put a monetary value on them, could significantly blow up the total cost of the YOG to Singapore Society as a whole.

Firstly, if we were to calculate and add the monetary value of the thousands of man-hours of unpaid forced labour that Secondary, JC and Polytechnic students, as well as their teachers, have to contribute to the YOG, that would add a significant sum to the YOG black hole.

Secondly, consider the opportunity cost of the time spent by these students in the YOG, which they could have spent studying or other productive activity. Some students' grades will definitely suffer because of the time they have to spend on this event. This cost of the YOG has obviously not been factored in.

SMRT Cares About the YOG, But Not About You

I could barely believe my eyes when I saw this news report on Channelnewsasia:

SMRT to add over 300 more train trips for YOG opening, closing ceremonies
Posted: 12 August 2010 1315 hrs

SINGAPORE: SMRT says it will add over 300 more train trips on August 14 and 26 - the opening and closing ceremonies of the Youth Olympic Games - to bring spectators and participants home after the events.

For the Opening Ceremony on Saturday, close to 200 train trips will be added along the North-South, East-West and Circle Lines after 10pm to shorten waiting time.

Train services will also be extended that day, with the last northbound, eastbound and westbound trains leaving City Hall MRT Station at 1.30am.

The last trains towards Dhoby Ghaut and Marymount on the Circle Line will be adjusted accordingly, to allow commuters to make their transfers at Bishan interchange station.

Likewise, the last Bukit Panjang LRT trains will be adjusted to allow commuters to make their transfers from Choa Chu Kang MRT Station.

For the Closing Ceremony on August 26, more than 100 train trips will be added on the North-South, East-West and Circle Lines after 9.30pm.

- CNA/jm

Why is it that SMRT can bend over backwards to add 300 additional train trips during the Youth Olympic Games, and yet during normal off-peak periods the train stations are over crowded and over packed? (see for example this report on Jurong East, where the trains were coming about every 5-7 minutes - or 12 trains per hour)

Does Singapore YOG Violate ILO Forced Labour Convention?

The following news story was in the Straits Times earlier this year:

Jun 15, 2010
S'pore to ratify ILO Convention
By Lee Jia Xin

SINGAPORE will ratify the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention on Tripartite Consultation.

This announcement was made by Minister for Manpower Gan Kim Yong at the ILO in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday.

Convention 144 aims to establish national tripartite consultations in ILO member states to promote the implementation of international labour standards. It requires ratifying ILO members to undertake effective consultations on matters pertaining to ILO activities between representatives of the government, employers and workers.

With the ratification of Convention 144, Singapore has ratified seven ILO Core and Priority Conventions. One of the core conventions is the Forced Labour Convention (No. 29).

The International Labor Organisation, in C29 Forced Labour Convention, 1930, defines forced labour as follows:

Article 2

1. For the purposes of this Convention the term forced or compulsory labour shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.

Let's break down this definition and apply it to what is happening to secondary, JC and polytechnic students during this Youth Olympic Games