Review of AIM - and a conflict of interests
Questions have also been raised about other PAP-owned companies which the party “decline[d] to comment on.”
It is unclear if the MND review will look into questions and matters such as this.
It is thus perhaps necessary that the PAP subject itself to public inquiry or be more forthcoming about the number of companies – for-profit or otherwise – it owns, the nature of their businesses, and who helm them.
In the same spirit as the prime minister’s hope of “ensuring high overall standards of corporate governance in TCs”, the same high standards of professionalism and independence should be expected of the MND review team, and indeed of the PAP itself, as far as being open and transparent about its business dealings are concerned.
One feels that the PAP must not hide behind this review by the MND and instead take its own initiative to answer the many questions which the public has about its business dealings.
Read the full article on Yahoo Singapore here.
What do we base our laws on?
By Tang Li
In December the Today newspaper published a letter from AWARE titled, “The right to protection from marital rape,” (December 10, 2012). The letter argued that it was time to change the law which protects husbands from prosecution if they are accused of raping their wives.
Thiswas the first time I had seen the issue of marital rape discussed in the mainstream media and the second time I had seen the issue discussed in any media. For some reason, this is an issue that nobody seems to want to discuss. This is unfortunate, especially when you compare this law with some of the other laws governing sex. We need to ask ourselves, “What exactly are we basing our laws on?”
Taking offence again
By Chan Chi Ling
Taking offence, again: what it means for PAP’s political legitimacy.
Continuing the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) practice of suing anyone who questions its incorruptibility, PM Lee recently took legal action against blogger Alex Au for his allegations of corruption among PAP town councils. This follows recent threats of defamation lawsuits: one directed at Vincent Wijeysingha for an article titled “You can resign and go to SBS”, and yet another at Alex Au for his allegations of court biases towards the well connected.
What such intolerance has come to prove is merely that pervasive skepticism and cynicism towards the ongoing “national conversation” is well-founded afterall. All that buzz over co-creating the future and hopes of the establishment “loosening its grip” – as an NYT article sanguinely calls it - have come to naught.
By Tan Wah Piow (London)
The dealings of the PAP-owned company, Action Information Management (AIM), are simply indefensible and unacceptable.
This issue puts the PAP in a corner because:
(a) It makes no commercial sense to grant a contract of this nature where public interests are at stake to a $2 company regardless of whether AIM is owned by the PAP.
(b) The inadvertent admission that AIM is a ruling party vehicle only makes the issue a hundred times worst.
(c) Such revelations open up a big barrel of worms, and the public is justified in demanding a full list of PAP commercial vehicles.
(d) Given the public outcry, any remedy which can't assuage the public anger will undoubtedly cause a degree of damage to the public image of the PAP.
(e) The defamation threat against Alex Au can hardly help the PAP to extract itself from the political conundrum brought about by the AIM saga.
(f) As long as cyberspace continues to pressurise the government, ignoring the crux of the issue is not going to be a solution for the ruling party and its elites.
The PAP is now on the defensive, and coupled with the indefensible delay in calling a by-election in Punggol East, its best hope is for some other issues to distract public attention.
Stop asking the PAP to change
By Elaine Ee
You know a bad relationship when you see one. The parties involved bring out the worst in each other; they blame each other; they can’t see eye to eye; pull each other in different directions; bicker, squabble, fight—and yet they cannot let go. They keep returning to each other like an addiction that can’t be shaken off; and hobble along, caught in an unhealthy knot of co-dependency.
Given some of the things that have been happening in Singapore recently between the People’s Action Party (PAP) and the public, I’m beginning to feel that this is the case here. In the 2011 General Election and Presidential Election, now somewhat behind us, there were massive cries for PAP reform, for a fairer, more inclusive, more open society.
AIM saga: Clarity & transparency needed, says Tan Cheng Bock
Former People's Action Party (PAP) Member of Parliament, and presidential candidate Tan Cheng Bock has called for "clarity and transparency" in the dealings of the PAP-owned company, Action Information Management (AIM) and the town councils. In a Facebook post, Mr Tan said, "As TCs [town councils] are public institutions, citizens are certainly uncomfortable with political party owned companies transacting with the TCs."
Here is Mr Tan's Facebook post in full:
Fu shoots blanks, ignores main issues completely
By Andrew Loh
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Ms Grace Fu, posted a Facebook note expressing her views on the AIM/PAP-WP controversy over the computer system used by town councils. Unfortunately, her note misses completely the issues of contention in this whole sorry saga.
Ms Fu seems to want to focus on whose responsibility it is to run the town council in Aljunied GRC. It is a strange matter for her to focus on as this issue has never been in doubt. Of course the responsibility of running a town council is that of the elected Members of Parliament who, in this case, are the MPs of the Workers’ Party (WP).
Is anyone disputing or has anyone disputed this?
Why Ms Fu is even raising this issue is puzzling. Perhaps she has not been following the many questions and issues which have been raised by members of the public. Perhaps this is because the mainstream media have shied away from asking these questions or highlighting these questions and issues so far. In the same way, her PAP colleague, Mr Janil Puthucheary, also seems to be rather ill-informed about the issue and the bases of the controversy. He posted on his Facebook page: “Lots of people trying to distract from the main issue, here is an attempt to get back to it,” referring to Ms Fu’s note.
As with Ms Fu’s note, Mr Puthucheary’s too has attracted mostly negative comments from the public, a fact which the mainstream media – again – has chosen not to report.
But all this finger-pointing about who is trying to distract whom is just empty, ignorant talk, unworthy really of ministers and MPs who should know better, and who should be aware or cognisant of the issues being raised in this matter.
And this is the more serious thing here – the many questions about the PAP-owned company, Action Information Management (AIM), and how it came to be awarded the contract of maintaining the computer system. The questions raised have not been answered at all or to any satisfaction by either the PAP, AIM, Dr Teo Ho Pin (coordinating chairman of the 14 PAP town councils), or even Ms Fu or Mr Puthucheary (both of whom, by the way, have chosen so far not to reply to queries on their Facebook pages).
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