The Price of Competence

I know it's totally jingoistic of me to say this but Singapore is probably as close to a perfect society as you will get. I may bitch about the cost of living but on the whole, I, like many other Singaporeans have a pretty good life. Even in my most broke state, I make a better living than many people in other parts of the world. This is a place where you can eat a cooked meal for less than a sandwhich in other parts. I don't have to resort to digging when I need to use the toilet.

A good part of this is thanks to the Singapore government. The people who have run Singapore for the last 43-years have been honest, somewhat caring and most importantly competent. If Singapore's government officials have been accused on being smug and overpaid, they've often had the right to be. PUB has become a world role model for making water abundent in a water scarce island, the SPF has ensured we have one of the lowest crime rates in the world and the URA has made it such we've managed to fit four million people into an tiny island with plenty of space to spare. As one US navy boy said, "If Geylang is your worst neighbourhood, you got to see some American suburbs to know bad."

Unfortunately, I've been having my doubts about this in the last few days, thanks to the handling of the Mas Selamat incident. Somehow, this 47-year old midget with enough high school education to be a mechanic has been outfoxing a government department staffed to the brim with people educated from the best universities that the world has to offer.

At every step of the way, Mas Selamat has been making a monkey out of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the government department responsible for Singapore's internal security. Instead of oozing competence, the Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Wong Kang Seng has moved from blunder to blunder, demonstrating an incomptence that Singaporeans have come to associate with everywhere else except Singapore.

The party faithful have been quick to point out that this is not the Minister's fault per se. One young man asked me, "The Minister has appolagised, what more do you want?" And it's true, the Minister did not personally leave Mas Selamat alone. It's true that he did give the orders to mobilise 1000 policemen to hunt for him. And as the same young aspiring politicians reminded me, "This is only one incident in a series of glories contributions from the Minister."

While all that may be true, the party faithful have missed a vital point. Singapore is an island state that prides itself in its security. For a small nation, we have an exceedingly high expenditure on defense and security. Out of an estimated S$35 billion in tax revenue for financial year 2008, the Ministry of Defense was alloted S$10.8 billion, while the Ministry of Home Affairs was alloted some S$2.9 billion (For reading Brits, this is about a billion quid). This is from a nation with a total population of 4 million residents. Of that budget, the Ministry of Home Affairs has allocated some 3.5 percent or S$ 102 million towards counter terrorism measures. By comparison S$93 million was allocated towards health promotion. Whatever way you look at it, defense and security is the major national priority.

Technology gets a good percentage of that budget. Singapore is a nation obsessed with aquiring and developing technology. Singapore is also a nation obsessed with developing people and both the Ministry of Home Affairs and Defense have devoted vast ammounts of money towards developing their people and technology.

And yet, in spite of all of this, a man with no technology and supposedly no education and training to speak of has walked out of a secure facility and managed to stay at large for 20-days. It doesn't take a genious to realise that the ground staff of the detention centre made mistakes. But it also does not take a genious to realise that the prison guards are not the only ones at fault. Why was it so easy for him to walk out? If it was because the guards were incompetent, one has to ask how incompetent guards got into their position in the first place. If the detention centre's management was at fault, one has to ask how they got into a position of management in the first place. Sooner or later, the buck must stop at the Minister's desk. Only an offer of his resignation can satisfy the high standards that Singaporeans have come to expect of government officials.

Of course, the party faithful have ensured that his half-hearted appology has been praised in the pages of editorial. But it seems ironic that a government that argued so strongly for the need to high public sector wages to compete with the private sector for talent is falling so short of the standards demanded by private sector employees when mistakes are made. Incompetent bank CEOs resign when they announce financial loses, so why can't we expect the same of Ministers when they make mistakes?

The biggest failing of the Ministry has been in its handling of information. If anything, the methods of handling information have been more unforgivable than the actual incident itself. Information, which anyone with common sense would realise was vital has only been given in fits and starts. It took a few days after his escape to get posters and an sms sent round the island. Suddenly we realised what he looked like and that he had a limp. THen we learnt that his limp was only noticeable when he walked briskly. It took a week for the government to admit that they believed he was working on his own and unarmed and more damagingly still in Singapore.

A week later, we were shown pictures what his prison uniform looked like and were told that he may be wearing a blue sarong. With such useful information, it's no wonder why stories about Mas Selmat having black magic powers have been circulating round the rumour mill and Singapore's underground comic industry are having a field day.

The Minister did his part, as expected. He called for a comittee of inquiry and 19-days after the man's escape rebuffed calls for a more public commision of inquirey. His reason - the public (which he has activated to help search for Mas Selamat) being privy to the work of the comittee or comission would hamper the work of the Internal Security Department (ISD). Whitley Detention Centre, as the Minister rightly pointed out, is more than just an ordinary prison, it is a place for "Preventive Detention" (in this case it clearly wasn't preventive). And in case we were not aware, the Ministry has now deemed it fit, 19-days after the fact, to reveal that Mas Selamat has a mole.

The Minister's cabinate colleagues have unsurprisingly been quick to defend his blunders. Singapore's Founding Father and Minister Mentor, calls this whole affair "A lesson in complacency." As expected this set the theme for the government's defense - "We're human too, we make mistakes....things happen." Humm, imagine if all the bank CEOs in America could look at their shareholders and say, "We're human too, we make mistakes....ooopppps, we've just blown your lifesavings.." Our variation is "We're human, we make mistakes, what did you expect......it's your problem that we allowed a terrorist to walk around town for 19-days inspite of spending all your money on anti-terrorism facilities."

The slightly more rational finance minister has taken a slightly different approach and drawn our attention to how the community is bonding together to catch the criminal. The Prime Minister, a former General (and not mention Commanding Officer of my National Service Unit) has shown his decisive leaderhip skills by calling for the nation to get together (let's get together for a big hug, while we try to find the mean terrorist) - in the mean time we'll leave the comittee of inquirey to take a month to figure what happened and then let the Attorney General decide if heads need to role.

Incidentally, we the public have no evidence what so ever of the Mas Selamat's criminal activities, other than the government's word for it. Apparently, we, the public who have been ropped into a hunt for this man are not worthy of having the evidence of his crimes.

There is a price for competence. That is, people should rightfuly become more intollerent of moments of incompetence. So far the public has been treated with contempt and somehow we've tollerated it. We're enjoying the fact that this midget is making a monkey out of the government - the latest being - he's been trained to hide by Al-Qaeda in the barren mountains Afgahnistan so that's why we can't find him in Singapore's jungle.

But I wonder how tollerant the public would be of the "we're not infalliable, things happen, we're human too" defense if a bomb were to strike? If this was the case, I'd seriously worry.