I REFER to Tuesday's article, 'Perm sec's article showed lack of sensitivity, says Teo', on Minister Teo Chee Hean's rebuke of Permanent Secretary Tan Yong Soon over his article, 'Cooking up the holiday spirit' (Jan 6).

Full Story

Its an "honest mistake" let move on.....again.

I feel this has nothing to do with Tan Yong Soon personally. I actually agree that we shouldn’t comment on what he does with his own money and his private time. However, the issue is more than just ‘his’ money and ‘his’ time.

The public has a stake. He is a state employee and the public rightly wants to know if the expenditure (public servants pay) is justified.

The criticisms, I believe, were more sentiments of resentment rather than envy. Since he was the one who provoked it, he took the brunt of it and was made the scapegoat.

We have seen public figures dipping their hands into the public kitty and saying that this is their (succulent) share, oblivious to the majority of our citizens who do not have a share of it. (By dipping their hands into the kitty, I don’t mean stealing, but rather, paying themselves).

That these public servants believe they deserve that share? Well, that’s the million-dollar question. Have they been able to convince us?

Have the policies they formulated lifted the lives of the rest of us in tandem with their own standard of living?

There has never been more disparity of incomes between the ruling class and the masses.

While the remuneration of the ruling elites has risen into the stratosphere and they have created the only millionaire club (out of the public coffers) of public servants in the world, the majority of its citizens have not seen significant real improvements in their lives (other than the ability to trade-off owning a HDB flat to having a decent disposable nest-egg). I don’t have the statistics (could somebody provide some figures?) although we could tell there are many, many families who are struggling to make ends meet in Singapore.

Neither have our welfare (we still see much widespread human suffering amongst the under-privileged and the unfortunate) nor many aspects of our quality of life improved in tandem.

On top of that, a good many of us are now priced out of the trappings of a middle-class lifestyle, and may even have to say good-bye to it for good.

So what are these exuberantly paid public figures there for? Was it a calling or was it to enrich themselves (which they have been able to wonderfully)? Like Obama? Or (New York’s) Bloomberg?

Only a year ago, they were even asking us poor folks to understand the justification of their pay increases. They were prudent enough not to ask us to understand their expensive cooking-lesson trips though.

The crux of the matter is, if you are rich or worst still, filthy rich, just don't flout or boast about your wealth.
He should learn a lesson from Mr Teo and other MPs or top civil servants ( given the fat pay package, I'm not too sure if the word "servants" is still applicable. More appropriately should be changed to "masters" while tax payers should actually be refered as "servants").

I believe that the number of singaporeans who comdemn the perm sec is as much as (if not greater than) the number of singaporeans who condone him.

yet ST decides to publish 7 letters (including 5 online ones) defending Mr Tan, and choosing to publish none that criticises him.

oh i see, so this is one classic case whereby we fully understand why many people choose to label the ST as State's Times.

Lighten up, people.
What Mr Tan does with his hard-earned money is his business.

sharlynrj
where does the "hardearned" money comes from? Most do not care how he spends his money, the gripe is that CS is overpaid.

Obama is paid S$500k/yr

and our govt's announcement of paycut recently, I believe it is only cut in bonus (0-14months), not basic pay.

I am not a civil servant but have seen my fair share of inefficient and corrupt civil service. Civil service is not a charitable organization and to a common folk, civil service is a place they work in and get paid.

Depending on your hardwork you should be rewarded accordingly. And with the fruits of your hard work, you should be able to spend it as you wish.

If someone else have written the article, I think there will not be such response. Why ?

Insensitive aside, there is nothing to fault him on.

Dear all netizens,

Permanent Secretary is the most senior government post in a Ministry. He is appointed by the Prime Minister and approved by the President of Singapore . As such they are representatives of the ruling government of the day in serving its people by formulating policies that affect the likelihood of every citizen. What they do in private and public life have a bearing on the values of civil service and the good name of the government.

Personally, I believe that Mr Tan Yong Soon, permanent secretary for the Environment and Water Resources Ministry in writing to The Straits Times saying that he and his family had attend a basic cuisine and baking course at the Le Cordon Bleu cookery school costing about $47,000 is uncalled for irrespective of the economic condition of Singapore or his private decision.


First, is there a need for him to tell the whole world on how he is spending his money and time during a holiday? He further claimed that if one is a good leader who has built up a good team, it is possible to go away for five weeks or even longer. Is that so? Have our cleanliness of our iconic hawker cetres and their attending public toilets been improved? Are our public places have lesser littering ? Have lesser corrective work orders been enforced? Have smoking in public places been reduced? and so on..

We may not know the exact story of his writing . But the very fact that the civil service head Mr Peter Ho had spoken to and found out the details from Mr Tan and yet deems that the latter's action was unacceptable and decided to "put the matter on record" speaks for itself.

WARMEST REGARDS & A HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR.

Raymond Lo

C'mon, what's the point of earning so much money when you can't spend it as you wish? You can't bring it to your grave, can you?