ACS-SMRT saga reminds me of LKY using the entire SIA plane to fly his late wife back from London

Dear The Real Singapore,

The recent ACS-SMRT train incident reminds me of an earlier infamous act by our former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew where he used an entire SIA plane to fly back his late wife when she became ill in London.

ACS Incident On Chartered SMRT Train

• The much commented episode of ACS being allowed to charter public SMRT Trains at discounted rates to charter 3000 or 5000 of it’s students to the Sports Hub for a school ruby event happened yesterday.
• The outcry was for an elite school to be allowed such a privilege when SMRT trains are for public transport  and not special chartered carriage service for selected few as no other public, organization ever requested for such a use or allowed to to date.
• Red Flags have been publically raised as the current CEO is an old ACS boy and questions if he misused his position and power as CEO to offer special discount and privilege for his former school.
• LTA is right to investigate especially public monies from taxpayers have been used to ‘bailout’ or support public transport companies with a recent injection of Billions of dollars by the government.
• And here SMRT misusing it’s fleet of train carriages without proper permissions and guidelines to accommodate a privileged group of Elite School students and heads.
• Important point if not checked and censured this will set an unprecedented legacy and example for other wealthier or elite groups to special charter public trains for their own parties and events soon forgetting the original function and use of such public transport crriages and who it should serve first.  
   

LKY Misusing SIA SQ Plane For His Own Personal Use

Years back former PM Lee Kuan Yew used  an entire SQ Plane from a listed public company SIA  to Fly Back his suddenly ill wife (Late Mrs Lee Kuna Yew) from London , UK in Nov 5 2003 which led to a huge public outcry who his audacity and belief he was entitled to such privilege.

After the public outcry , LKY relented and publically stated he would pay for the entire costs and expenses of using an entire SQ plane and converting it into a makeshift hospital for his wife which he went to do until the public criticism of it.

Worst at that episode he further damaged UK public and government relations with a misguided public media claim the UK PM Tony Blair had assisted him to cut queue in UK’s public hospital to get his wife special treatment.

After a public outcry, he retracted that statement as it shone badly on his claim of special privilege and treatment and stating UK govt/PM actually doing it against their own rules and regulations for a fair queuing system at their public hospitals.

Link: http://www.singapore-window.org/sw03/031106af.htm

Imagine if no public had detected this incident , it would have been swept hush hush by the PAP government and LKY would have gone about without actually being made accountable to pay for the use for the plane as he did. Note: In year 2003 social media was at it’s infant stage and most public criticisms and chatter over this episode were on old blogs and chat rooms unlike today.

The mainstream media with ST leading quickly came to the propaganda front to down play the public fallout on LKY and PAP government over this balant personal misuse of a SIA plane without proper permission or approval process by LKY by diverting the incident to the poor state of public health and queue system in UK.

Imagine if facebook and twitter existed then, It would be picture exposed by SIA’s own staff in real time like what happened with ACS incident here with SMRT.

Different Transport Incidents But Same Concerns

SMRT maybe another listed GLC public listed company like SIA. Both have deep shares controlled and owned by PAP Government via Temasek arm and treated like sovereign companies with state shares under Singapore.

Both are transport providers while SMRT stands out as a public transport company  and worst even funded numerous times by public taxpayers monies to keep it afloat and their financial returns in the black like recent injection of Billions of dollars into the company by PAP government.

But they should never divert from the public transport goals nor have special apporvals given by their respective management like CEOs for specific individual uses by elite organizations or person/persons.

Unless they have a separate chartering business arm and due process was followed in the charter of these transport carriers. SMRT in ACS case did not as their main function is for public transport service.

ACS special chartering of it’s trains in this episode is not one off and opens the door to elitisim and further divides the public schools and even public into special classes of people: those with privilege and those without against the principles of public service and fair guidelines without favouring anyone or group.