The Acts and Art of Manipulation

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all.” Keats

As a minister given almost a month to anticipate and prepare for a certain scenario, how would you go about it?

That is the pertinent question Singapore citizens need ask in order to uncover, as it were, the aim behind Minister Khaw’s beautiful performance on 29 Jan in Parliament. It was a successful performance – judging by the million or more written and discussed words in the days since. And, even more successful to his and Party’s intent, if one notices the turn in focus of what’s written/printed.

Essentially, the focus of ‘Fernvalegate’ has now become only a matter of a failure in the tender process and execution.

Here is my 2cents’ worth to try to ‘rescue truth from beauty’.

To see through the true intent of Khaw’s parliamentary reply, we must first know 2 fundamentals underpinning his action and the reply.
One, the substance of the reply must be informed by the need of situation. How ‘Fernvalegate’ has played out thus far against the current imperatives of his Party working under the pressure of time to the next GE and in a climate unfavourable to PAP. Forget not that Khaw is first and foremost Comrade Chairman, PAP.

Two, it is a well-known fact that seasoned politicians practise the act of manipulation to a fine art – to secure and stay in power. They do whatever it takes to increase their chances at the ballot box….Never mind what the people think.

Therefore, we cannot be too far wrong to sieve Khaw’s performance through the 2 aforesaid filters. Firstly, there’s little doubt that the Fernvalers’ unexpected rage, PAP MP Lam’s vote-endangering performance and the accompanying flare-up in cyberspace dictated PAP’s need to minimize political damage. Secondly, containing that fallout can only be achieved through reclaiming the narrative.

Singaporeans are damnably daft if they suppose that PAP’s governance extends to honesty in playing the political game.

We examine Khaw’s reply.

Here we first need to go back to how Fernvalegate took off. The key complaint of the buyers is ‘the non-disclosure of material information in the promotion and sale of Fernvale apartments”. With regard to the commercial columbarium, “the reason why so many of us were caught off guard is because we have placed so much trust in a government statutory board. We have expected HDB to be transparent, open and more forthcoming with important information. We didn’t expect a reputable and biggest developer of properties like HDB would hide critical material information under ultra fine prints and vague uncertain phrases (eg. “may include”) coupled with disclaimers.

We believe that if there were information which could help HDB to fetch a better price for the BTOs (eg. Mall, LRT stations, amenities etc), HDB would surely have put them up prominently and affirmatively. We expect HDB to do likewise for information (eg. Columbarium) that may make the flats less attractive to most buye­­rs and thus, fetch lower prices for HDB.”

But Khaw disregarded that critical objection (omission of material fact). In short, Khaw evaded it.

Next, to MP’s queries, Khaw appeared to admit neglect by his managers in the tender evaluation. His HDB subordinates have ‘assumed’ (wrongly) that tenderers will abide by the rules…Really? Are angels running businesses in a growing industry (increasingly elderly population with money to burn upon death) whose first concerns are sticking to rules not profit maximization? As much as rent-seeking by SG’s housing entity operating under PAP’s mantra, ‘What’s wrong with collecting more money’ concerned to serve citizens primarily? Any savvy company would see thro’ HDB’s habit of awarding to the highest bids (Khaw admitted as much), and obliged accordingly. If rent-seeking is not habitual, LifeCorp might have risked a lower bid with a superior USP (unique selling proposition) to ace the tender.

Sounding almost contrite with sincerity or sincere with contrition, Khaw appeared to excuse his ministry since “for 20-odd years, we would never have thought that a for-profit company would participate in a non-profit making venture”  (echoes of a ‘50-year flood event’?). So, will any head(s) roll? That decision hinges on the threat of vote loss from fence-siters vs loss of compliant civil servants’ votes (for severing the unwritten rule that no minister’s/civil servant’s ever need to roll for mistakes of any kind).