The curse of public housing hurt many Sinkies real bad for at least a decade with the Minister of Housing claiming housing was affordable and drastically cutting down the building programme. A decade of denial finally succumbed to public pressure and anger that resulted in his departure from the cabinet. Many home buyers suffered for having to buy public flats at highly inflated prices. The damage caused by this foolishness will take its toll when the next major economic crisis hits.
Now where would the white knight be from to solve the housing crisis? No prize for guessing, the Minister of Health was the right man to solve a housing problem. Who says you need relevant experience in the right field to do a good job? What relevant experience was needed for someone from the Health Ministry to solve housing problems? Or shall I say the important factors are: right attitude, a little intelligence, a little common sense, and a will to do the right thing. A major part of the housing shortfall has been taken care of. The second problem is the high housing prices that were bloated during the decade of not building. How to solve this and who to solve this? Or it has become the new normal to be accepted by the young home buyers?
While Boon Wan is still working on the housing problem, a new problem surfaces, the shortfall of hospital beds. Of course, don’t expect the Minister of Health to solve this problem. Housing problem has to be solved by a Health Minister. So Health Ministry problem in the form of shortages of beds must be solved by someone from another ministry. Or should it be from the Housing Ministry, the Minister of Housing? Two Health Ministers have been on the seat and not knowing that there is a huge shortage of beds. They know or dunno? Maybe they know and waiting for it to go away with time or for a miracle to happen.
Now that the problem has exploded and cannot be hidden anymore, do they have other capable ministers to solve hospital beds problem? The Health Ministers are of no use as it has proven that under their watch the problem was not nipped in the bud.
There are also other big problems of immigration and employment waiting to be solved by the Minister of Manpower. Or should the white knight to solve this problem come from another ministry?
The public transportation problem is still not fully solved yet. How about getting the Transport Minister to solve Manpower and Immigration problems, and the Health Minister to solve transport problem, then the Manpower Minister can go and solve hospital bed shortfall problems?
Some of you may find this confusing but actually there is a simple logic to it. Those of you who have watch people playing chess will understand what I am going to say. Often the chess players are not as clear as the bystanders. People watching from outside often have a clearer picture of the mess and could see the problems clearer better than the incumbents. It is also called the fishbowl effect. The fish inside the bowl is part of the problem or are trapped in the problem. People looking at the fishbowl will have an overall view of what is happening. See, logical?
So this game of musical chair is good, really good. And no need whatever relevant experience or the usual craps. Just get someone with a little intelligence from the outside to deal with the problem. In a way it is like the foreign talent thing. The people inside cannot see or solve the problem, only foreigner talents can, even if they are faking the whole damn shit. Sorry I was exaggerating and being naughty on the shit part. And you can also see that Boon Wan now out of the Health Ministry could see the bed shortfall problems better than when he was there.
Get the picture?
Chua Chin Leng aka redbean
* The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenews.blogspot.com